First Trip Out of Town - 450 miles

[SergeyIndy]

I enjoy driving my Taycan locally and have done so for 13k miles with charging at home or in the area full of EA stations is never an issue. However, taking it on the first out of town trip is a different story, and I have only made it one way today with a drive back tomorrow.

Temps: Started with 19F then ended 51F in the evening and down to 41F at the last night top up
Range: 200 miles best estimate at 100% but effectively usable about 170 miles as the charge rate drops to below 40kW after 85% on EA stations.
Battery SoH: I lost 12% after the first 12k miles drive of super gentle charging, so my usable battery capacity is 75kWh at 100%. I will check my SoH as I get back to see if DC charging during this trip killed any more health of the battery.
Charge Station Locations: EA stations were available about every 80 - 120 miles but skipping one would be beyond a usable 170 mile range
Typical Driving Time: I have driven this route a lot so typical gas car drive time is 6.5 hours with 15mph over speed limit at times and short stops but no fill ups.
Taycan Drive Time: I was going no more than 10 mph over speed limit and it took about 7 hours of drive time with short stops and 2 hours of charging stops

I had to make 4 charging stops to cover 450 miles and spend 9 hours doing so. Then I spent almost 2 hours on an 80-mile round trip to reach an EA station to top up, since local Ford Dealer charge had a Comm Error.

Chevy Dealer InCharge+ branded station took a credit card, connected, and it peaked at 149kW on a 180kW rated charger.
EA 1: Walmart parking lot with tight access to very narrow slots, short cables, was full, and in the middle of the high traffic lane, total nightmare
EA 2: Walmart parking lot with better access, larger parking slots, but short cables, and also in a very busy traffic area, had to park parallel to reach charging port
EA 3: Harley Davidson store with good access, narrow slots, had to back into one, was almost full, with clueless dealer movers charging at 350kW and getting 77kW
At Destination: No charging infrastructure, only A Ford Dealer has 4 chargers, I called ahead to confirm public use, so I was hoping to top up before calling it a day, accepts Ford Charge or Shell App payment, no way to tell which one is which one to initiate a charge from the App, tried one by one, the last one was the one, Communication Error. Now what? I had to make a top up trip, as I only have 80 miles of range, that is not enough for a few miles around town and then track back to EA 3 above.
EA 4: 40 miles away, so I go late at night, it is at a Sam's club, with huge and empty parking lot, with battery care turned off peaked at 295kW, but the battery temp went to 131F which is the highest I have ever seen it, with fans working hard, and at 80% the rate slows to a crawl at 35kW, so waited for 85%, before giving up.
Back At Destination: 72% and 147 miles enough for some miles around town and then 85 miles back to EA 3.

Summary: This is when you appreciate having better range like a 30% improvement for J1 II as this is no way to road trip. EA stations I visited only had 4 available plugs, with tight access, short cables, and while delivering mostly on the expected charge curve, but as soon it hits 80%, you are spending exponential amount of time to get any more that is not worth it, but 100% of charge is needed to at least being able to skip one stop in between, but risking going very low or totally out given not very accurate prediction of SoC at the next charging stop. For example, as temps were low on about half of the trip 19F to 32F the car was estimating arrival SoC incorrectly by as much as 15%, which is very scary if I would not have had enough buffer to compensate. Somehow, arrival with 37% SoC estimate turned into 22% as I drove closer to my first charging stop.

Charge Station Users: I spoke to as many as I could to learn how they like their cars.

One person was charging a Mach-E GT just moving it from dealer to dealer, hogging 350kW station and getting only 77kW, I asked him if he knows what's going on, he said no clue. He had no idea that you have to preheat the battery to get max charge and that his Mach-E would be fine at 150kW station.

Another person was charging a Mach-E and was doing it correctly, but it was a work car and he works for TVA (Tenn Valley Auth) that is the biggest energy company in the state, so they give them corp cars, and they just use public stations to charge. I thought that was not fair as if they cannot build their own.

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[Flying ace]

Sounds like the bigger issue is the charging situation at destination. Not surprised. I looked at the EA situation in my hometown of Columbus and there is a whooping total of 1 site in a midwest city of a million. If you were on the other side of town then it would be a 40 minute drive just to charge

 

[Gru]

Sounds like the bigger issue is the charging situation at destination.

and on the road. Fully agree.

Sure, a better range is always good, but it won't change much if the 20% (for example) more range does not give you the possibility to reach the next charging station.

i've done 900 mi (in one day) in less than 13 hrs, including charging stops. Good network and good charging speeds all the way are key

 

[whitex]

@SergeyIndy, is it time up upgrade to a Lucid Saphire? 1234hp, great handling, lots of room inside, this trip would have required one charging session for a few minutes (rated range only 23miles short of your round trip distance).

 

[Tooney]

@SergeyIndy Is EA #3 at Kodak, TN, east of Knoxville?

 

[Flying ace]

I subscribe to the concept that long range is important on the initial leg of a long distance trip. But if the purpose is to get to destination as soon as possible, charging speed is the most important.

Destination charging is critical for most situations and may dictate lodging options.

 

[SergeyIndy]

@SergeyIndy Is EA #3 at Kodak, TN, east of Knoxville?

Yes, it was. You can use a restroom at Harley Davidson, but other than that no place to get anything else, unless you go around to a gas station.

This is on the way back, it was not busy and people were coming up trying to figure out what it was, with one mechanic saying, I do not know how they put "turbos" in the electric cars, after he read the back.

sues

 

[SergeyIndy]

@SergeyIndy, is it time up upgrade to a Lucid Saphire? 1234hp, great handling, lots of room inside, this trip would have required one charging session for a few minutes (rated range only 23miles short of your round trip distance).

Not my cup of tea for looks, issues, and support network. My dealer is 15 min away with great experience all around every time, so will not be trying my luck with any other car brand.

I would be good with the J1 II range if in the winter I can comfortably get 25% more than what I was able to get on this trip.

 

[Tooney]

@SergeyIndy Re EA at Harley Davidson in Kodak, TN.
I was doing trip planning to eastern TN and western NC and saw that site. My destination was south of there and there were no good charging locations anywhere else. Not a lot of DC charging sites in national forests. I never made the trip. If you road tripped your Taycan into that area, hats off to you.

 

[SergeyIndy]

I subscribe to the concept that long range is important on the initial leg of a long distance trip. But if the purpose is to get to destination as soon as possible, charging speed is the most important.

Destination charging is critical for most situations and may dictate lodging options.

There were 2 charging experiences that I could not explain, so someone can chime in that would be great, that defied my knowledge of what should happen.

Stop A: 44F Temp outside, battery preheated to 105F, Friendly charging is OFF, arrived with 20% SoC, 350kW EA station, got a fast rate to start like 295kW, however, as it got to 80%-85%, the battery was showing 131F, fans going crazy removing hot air out, and charge rate slowed to below 40kW. Why would the car allow the battery to go that high and then throttle the rate to a trickle, completely negating fast speed up to 80% where I needed 95% at least, so I gave up at 85%.

Stop B: 51 F Temp outside, battery preaheated to 100F, Friendly charging is ON, arrived with 12% SoC, 150kW EA station, started with 140kW rate, and it pulled all the way to 95% without dropping below 100 kW, the battery temp went to 95F, and I could not believe how fast it was going at that high of the SoC. That allowed me to get 200 miles comfortably to skip another station and arrive home with 4 miles on the clock.

This showed me that i would rather have Friendly ON, steady but lower charge speed that has to be above 100kW, allowing the battery temp not to go overboard and getting to 95% much faster with less stress on the battery.

Now given, 8 DC intense charging events in 2 days to cover 1,000 miles, I am doing the rebalance procedure at the moment to see how much SoH changed from my previous reading of 88% at 13k miles.

 

[Murph7355]

Did you use the Porsche sat nav with its calculated stopovers?

In the UK it works quite well. But then it seems like our charging network is generally better than in the US too.

 

[SergeyIndy]

@SergeyIndy Re EA at Harley Davidson in Kodak, TN.
I was doing trip planning to eastern TN and western NC and saw that site. My destination was south of there and there were no good charging locations anywhere else. Not a lot of DC charging sites in national forests. I never made the trip. If you road tripped your Taycan into that area, hats off to you.

I went for my son's graduation from college to Johnson City, TN. A multi brand dealer that sells Porsche is in this area, they said their L2 charger has been broken for a year or otherwise I would have been fine. My dealer said, all dealers selling Porsche EVs, and they do, must have access for customers to charge, well they do not. Ford charge was not communicating with the car, and Chevy dealer said that chargers are for dealership only, so ZERO options.

Problem that Kodak is 85 miles from Johnson City, so that is too far to make it over and back. Therefore, I had to go to Bristol VA on the top right 80 miles round trip to top up, to have enough to make it back to Kodak.

 

[SergeyIndy]

Did you use the Porsche sat nav with its calculated stopovers?

In the UK it works quite well. But then it seems like our charging network is generally better than in the US too.

I have but you just do not know what you are going to get when you arrive at the charger (busy, broken, slow speed) so I always had some backups identified such as EVGo, MB network, Shell, etc. but did not have to use them. Also, what I found out that the planner SoC estimates at arrival are way off by as much as 15%-20% when temperatures are below 0C, so I had to stop every 100 miles or so to charge or I am not making it to another stop that is about 200 miles away. It was much more accurate within 5% on the way back when temps were in the 45F - 51F range.

 

[Murph7355]

There were 2 charging experiences that I could not explain, so someone can chime in that would be great, that defied my knowledge of what should happen.

Stop A: 44F Temp outside, battery preheated to 105F, Friendly charging is OFF, arrived with 20% SoC, 350kW EA station, got a fast rate to start like 295kW, however, as it got to 80%-85%, the battery was showing 131F, fans going crazy removing hot air out, and charge rate slowed to below 40kW. Why would the car allow the battery to go that high and then throttle the rate to a trickle, completely negating fast speed up to 80% where I needed 95% at least, so I gave up at 85%.

Stop B: 51 F Temp outside, battery preaheated to 100F, Friendly charging is ON, arrived with 12% SoC, 150kW EA station, started with 140kW rate, and it pulled all the way to 95% without dropping below 100 kW, the battery temp went to 95F, and I could not believe how fast it was going at that high of the SoC. That allowed me to get 200 miles comfortably to skip another station and arrive home with 4 miles on the clock.

This showed me that i would rather have Friendly ON, steady but lower charge speed that has to be above 100kW, allowing the battery temp not to go overboard and getting to 95% much faster with less stress on the battery.

Now given, 8 DC intense charging events in 2 days to cover 1,000 miles, I am doing the rebalance procedure at the moment to see how much SoH changed from my previous reading of 88% at 13k miles.

What is "Friendly ON"? I wasn't aware of a "friendly" setting?

Also, this is a J1.I? They can't charge at over 270kW, so where were you seeing 295kW?

IME the charge rate always slows after a while. Not sure of exact figures, but have had a max of 265kW and after a while it gradually tailed off. Don't think I've ever seen it less than 75kW at a public charger.

 

[Tooney]

Hey, if you roadtripped Taycan to and from mountains in western NC/eastern TN and got back, you da road trip man. It gets easier after that.
My assumption is that any dealer charging site is not available.
At one point my Porsche dealer said they were having trouble with their Porsche-supplied DC chargers and they had to wait for tech from Germany to fix them.

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