253 - The Ultra Rapid Charger Episode

Gary:

Hi, I'm Gary and this is episode 253 of EV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles, and things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners. On the show today, we'll be looking at why faster rapid chargers don't necessarily mean faster charging. Your car can charge at this speed, so therefore your connector, your standard connector to your vehicle, is this shape.

And then if you want to go access the faster chargers that will completely max out, you can, but you need to put an adapter on. And that might just try and encourage people to think a little bit more and go, oh, actually, yeah, do you know what? That's not really designed for my vehicle and maybe I need to think a little bit more.

Our main topic of discussion today is rapid chargers. This is the third in a back-to-back-to-back trilogy of episodes focused specifically on charging. We've just done a double episode on living without a home charger, and now we're looking specifically at an issue that can arise with public charging.

So if you've listened to the roundtable episode that closed last season, you'll know the answer to the following question. What's the difference in average charge speed between a 150kW charger and a 350kW charger? If you didn't listen, I bet you're going to say it's something like 100kW, right?

Well, it's actually closer to half a kilowatt. That's right. While the highest charge speed some cars can get on a 350kW charger is much higher than those same cars on a 150kW charger, the overall average charge speed difference across all cars and all charging sessions is about half a kilowatt.

But why is that? The units are plainly capable of much, much faster charge speeds than each other. So the averages should be quite different, you'd think.

But the short answer is that people are using the wrong chargers for their cars. So picture the scene. You arrive at a charging hub.

It's billed as having 350kW chargers. There are about a dozen chargers, but they're all being used. And when you look at the cars that are on the units, you see the following.

A Jaguar I-PACE with a charging capacity of 104kW. Two Kia EV6s boasting a whopping 266kW charge speed. A Skoda Enyaq at 134kW.

An MG ZS equipped for 94kW. Two Mercedes EQCs at 110kW. Two premium Porsches, each able to draw 268kW.

And a couple of other various vehicles of different charge speeds on there. Now they're all charging merrily away and a couple of 50kW chargers nearby sit idle. But here's the thing.

Several of those vehicles are fooling themselves about the charging speed. Well, how do I know? Well, let me get Russ Boulton on to explain.

Russ:

Sure, I'm Russ Boulton and I'm a fleet consultant within the leasing industry.

Gary:

Russ encountered this situation last year and he wrote a LinkedIn post about it. The reason you and I talk is because back in the fairly recent mists of time, you wrote a LinkedIn post or a comment on a post talking about your experience at a rapid charger where the quote unquote wrong cars were using the wrong chargers.

And it's all to do with the mismatch between what the charger was putting out and what the cars themselves can actually accept. Just talk me briefly through what happened there as far as you can remember, please.

Russ:

Yeah, it's an interesting one.

Obviously, being a bit of a fleet nerd and a bit of a car geek, I'm aware of what the charging speeds are and I've built a number of tools that kind of look at the actual specifics of different vehicles. And specifically, it was an Ionity charger, which was nearest to my home. It's recently been set up by a local Starbucks and I was actually at the Starbucks, I have to confess, and not actually charging.

But as I drove past, it just stood out just how many people were queuing. I knew the local network quite well because obviously, I'm from that area and I knew how many chargers were actually nearby and how many... Well, basically, I drove past them and they were completely empty.

And you've just got loads of people that are coming off the motorway network, it's Junction 14 on the M6 and effectively just going straight to the fastest charging and probably looking at their app and thinking that's putting the filter in and saying, only show me the fastest chargers around. But actually, the amount of vehicles that were charging on those chargers were actually never going to be able to even potentially go above 100 kilowatts in a number of instances. So it was quite a...

I thought it was a bit of an interesting one because as we're looking and the network is developing and growing, we do have this slight challenge that we got to make the most of everything that is actually being installed. And I think there is this obsession with speed that we've got to make sure that it's the fastest charger. And as soon as the older chargers were 50 kilowatt, we'll never visit those anymore because we can go to this 150 kilowatt or this 350 kilowatt.

And fundamentally, a lot of the vehicles aren't actually able to fully utilize those chargers. And I think it was a bit of a frustration because you could see that there were maybe a few Taycans or some of the Hyundai product that was actually sitting there. And I felt for them because I was like, you could really be on your way quite quickly if you just had access to these chargers.

And the people that couldn't necessarily utilize those chargers could go to the 150, the 50 kilowatts that were literally just around the corner from these current chargers.

Gary:

What's interesting about that is if, as you know, I spoke to Andreas Atkins from Ionity recently. And one of the things that he says or he said in that discussion was that when they have a site that has a high utilization rate or a high occupancy rate, they will expand it wherever necessary. And of course, you'll then get the irony of that site which may have had, I don't know, six chargers. They'll look at that and go, all right, we've now got people queuing for those chargers. Therefore, we need to put more chargers in.

And at a surface level, you would think, well, yeah, that's going to solve the problem because now instead of having six chargers, you've got eight chargers or 10 or 12. But in reality, it means that instead of having six chargers with the quote unquote wrong cars on it, you're now going to end up with 12 chargers with the wrong cars on it.

Russ:

Without a doubt, and I feel for the... You know, it's difficult because the CPOs, they've got to... They want to get the utilization, but they also want to surely match up a fast charger if there is... If they have high speed chargers to vehicles that are also able to take that because it's like a petrol fork or that you would want to see that churn.

They turn up, they take their energy, take loads of energy. Theoretically, they make loads of margin and then the next driver comes on. What the CPOs don't really want is to have a vehicle that blocks theoretically a charger in comparison and takes a lot less energy or takes the same amount of energy over a longer period of time.

So there is this weird kind of dynamic that we have. And it's interesting with Ionity is... And I love that episode that you did, but it was for me very interesting that you've got the manufacturers setting up the tariffs on their own contracts with directly through an OEM.

And as a result, they're then actually... I had it with Mercedes. I could get an Ionity contract, but my Mercedes at the time, I think it was capped at 110 kilowatts.

But I would be able to access and the cheapest energy would come from someone like Ionity, but I would effectively be blocking it. So it's a strange dynamic at the moment.

Gary:

So let's talk a little bit about how this came around because you've mentioned one aspect there, which is there's an incentive from some of the charge point operators to use their charges through the use of EMSPs, which is what you were talking about there with the OEMs.

And of course, you've got the mismatch in charger speeds there, but that was a specific Ionity issue. But this isn't an Ionity issue alone. This is happening on pretty much all of the networks that we go across.

So what are the other factors that are paying into the fact that somebody is going to come up with their whatever their EV-Corsa that's going to do 70 kilowatt charging and they're going to try and hook onto a 350 kilowatt charger.

Russ:

Yeah.

I think it's education, isn't it? I think a lot of the time, I mean, I'm fortunate, I say fortunate. Some people maybe not say this, but I do a lot of miles, so I'm on the motorway network a lot.

I understand how the network works and maybe come up with a few little tactics to be able to make the most of that, I believe. And I think, and I've heard you talking before, you know, you're definitely in the same, you've got a lot of experience to be able to make sure it works for you. I think what we have a bit of a challenge with is those that maybe can charge at home and they've got that e-courser and that vehicle that's very much a town vehicle, and then they have that one-off long journey.

And there's maybe not that experience there to be able to say, actually, tactically, if I do this, this, and this, that's going to be more effective or whatever it might be. As an example, I remember coming back from London, it was around New Year, and it was everyone, I thought, I'll check Rugby because there are some really fast chargers at the services. And I just drove on and just carried on driving because it was chaos.

But I go to the next service, one junction further north, and there's, in fact, there was two 50 kilowatt chargers, and then I think about five 125 kilowatt chargers, all completely empty, which were completely fine for the vehicle that I had at the time, which wasn't, you know, it would have still maxed out my charging speed. So I do think it's a lot of education. And also maybe it's a little bit about when the dealership is potentially explaining how to match up your vehicle to the right charging network, and rather than it just being potentially all about, oh, well, this contract is great and it's cheap, it's almost maybe saying, actually, even if we said red, amber, green, your vehicle connects really well to all of these green chargers, that's your perfect kind of sweet spot. The ambers are maybe they're a bit overpowered for you, but you can still connect to it. And then you've got the reds, which are, you can go to it, you can, if you've got a contract with it, you might pay a decent rate, but effectively, you're not making the most of those chargers. And I just feel like there needs to be something a bit more in the industry as a whole.

And it's obviously many different people having an impact on this. So from dealerships, from CPOs, from manufacturers as well, just to, and even, you know, people like Zapmap to try and educate a little bit so that we can start matching up and making the most of the network and not having some, and I feel for the CPOs, you know, having some chargers that have been installed, which are perfectly adequate, but because they're 50 kilowatt, they're just not getting any luck in at all.

Gary:

The whole app environment around this is an interesting one because of course you mentioned Zapmap and they do have a charge speed filter.

So you can say, I want to go between these two charges and that's something that the user can set manually, but there also is within Zapmap the ability to say, well, this is the vehicle that I'm driving. So surely it's not beyond the wit of man to say, well, if you're charging this vehicle, we will automatically set the speed, the maximum speed to that because anything above that and you're basically wasting everybody's time.

Russ:

It's such a good point. The data's there. It should be able to be populated behind it. Yeah.

Gary:

But you've then also got, because I don't want to sort of put this all on Zapmap. I mean, they're the sponsors and, you know, they produce an excellent product. But the other aspect to this is there are a large number of people who are new to electric vehicles who will use the in-car guidance to find their charges.

And my question then would be, and I'll throw this back to you because you talked about the Mercedes. If you use the sat-nav on the Mercedes, would that take you to any charger or would it take you to a charger which was matched to the charge speed of the vehicle you were in?

Russ:

It was very biased, I think. I'm in a different vehicle now, which is even more biased towards a particular network, which is Tesla. So, you know, that will always route you in a particular route. But that kind of makes sense because again, it's matching you up with the network and it's not always like ultra and it can take the, theoretically take the charge at max speed.

But yeah, I think on the Mercedes product, what I saw a lot is it would automatically or have a bias towards the potential contracts that Mercedes had with the different CPOs. And the data levels as well on some of the other CPOs was limited. And naturally as a driver, you'd go, I don't have much information on that.

I can't see whether it's available. Am I going to go slightly out of my way just to go to that charger when I don't even know if there's any availability on it? But conveniently for the people that Mercedes had contracts with, they would get all the live data.

So that would give you as a driver far better comfort to be able to say, I'll go to that charger because I know that I can currently see what the availability is at that point. So naturally you've got that bias because you've got information, you've got to be able to make the right choice that you're not going to be potentially inconvenienced when you get there. So I think you're right.

The sat nav is a massive, massive factor.

Gary:

Well, what you've actually got there is a situation which benefits the individual driver because they're then going to end up with quote unquote, the cheapest charge because it's related to the EMSPs that they've got. You've also got the best situation or probably the best situation for the charge point operators because they're going to get more customers going there.

The only person it actually disadvantages is the person who's next in the queue because they've been navigated there by their vehicle. They're waiting to charge because they've got the RFID card that gives them the cheap charging. But there's somebody there in their Corsa on a 350 kilowatt charger who's using a maximum of a third of the available power.

Whereas they're sat there with a Porsche Taycan going, why are they using this? Why do they not go, as you say, even across the other side of the car park or wherever it is and use the 50 kilowatt charger that's there? It's an interesting dilemma, isn't it?

Russ:

Oh, without doubt. And yeah, even now I pull up to some chargers and I'm like, this just builds this frustration. And because there is that little bit of added wait, it just feels like there's so much longer that you're actually waiting than you potentially are, which then is all the stuff that gets potentially out into the media or on LinkedIn.

So I had this horrendous situation that I was actually waiting for five minutes longer than I should have been. It's not really that bad, is it? But it's a factor.

And it's definitely when you're aware that what that vehicle's capability is and there are other chargers. And I think it's mainly the motorway network that I've tended to experience it. And there is another caveat, I suppose, is that some people will get to a point and they've maybe struggled or maybe missed a turning or maybe not stopped the last charge or they're newer to it.

But yeah, it is something that hopefully will start to disappear as people get more switched on to electric and a little bit more savvy.

Gary:

As a general rule, I tend not to charge at the motorway service areas for any number of reasons. But one of them is exactly what you're saying there. And especially when it comes to some of the peak times, I was watching a webinar the other day that said that I think Christmas Eve or the 23rd was the busiest time on the whole network. Whereas if you went on Christmas Day, there was nobody there. But if you look at motorway service areas, because exactly as you said there, people are on their way from A to B, they're on the motorway, they need to charge. It makes sense to use the motorway service areas. So you tend to end up with more people at the chargers if they don't have the full charging speed. But if you look at the number of motorway service areas that the grid serve deal with, they don't have enough power to actually max out all the chargers that are there at the moment. They're waiting for power upgrades. So you could end up there with a Porsche Taycan on a maximum power grid serve unit and only be pulling 49 kilowatts tops. Whereas I'm more tempted to go two or three miles further down, get off at the next exit and oh look, there's an Osprey charger there, or there's a Fastned charger there, or there's an Instavolt charger there, or there's an EV on the move, or anything that will give me the charge that I need. It may not be 350 kilowatts, but it's available. I don't have to queue. And I think that's a mentality a lot of people should be looking at.

Russ:

Now, I agree. I think you're dead right. It is having that tactics and just going, they're chargers, they're there and they might be on the network and they might be convenient, but they also come with some genuine challenges at the moment. So I think you should just be a little bit smarter and think a bit differently and think But I think the challenge is as we go to mass adoption, there's less people that might want to think out of the box. They just want it to just go, right, it's there, there's a charger, I want to get my charge from it. And that's where you're going to get your queues. And potentially where you get some slightly negative press around it, because it's not the reality. I remember seeing this big one about T-bay, wasn't it? About how there was a huge queue, but then up north and south of those, there were other Tesla chargers, but that was also almost like a Tesla thing where everyone was going to a... For some reason, everything was being routed to that one location. But there were so many other options in the local area. So yeah, it's maybe not always that clear cut.

Gary:

megawatt charger for cars. So: 1000

Russ:

I think it potentially will, and it will gradually drop off as we start to... The more mass adoption there is of EV, I think we've also got some of the first gen... This will still be a problem with maybe the earlier adopters and those first generation of EVs as well, because they're still going to be in the secondhand market. And potentially they're going to be really suitable for city driving and those that maybe don't do that much longer journeys. So you're probably still going to get those drivers going, oh, I'm doing a long journey for the first time this year, and then maybe make those same mistakes because they're not used to it. But I do think it's going to be something that will gradually fade away over time. But I think there's definitely some things that we could do to help that and speed up that process as to how quickly that becomes less of an issue.

Gary:

And I think a lot of it is around data and connected vehicles. And we're seeing the evolution of that really coming through. And I think it's incumbent upon us to say that this isn't an electric vehicle issue. This is a, how do you fill your vehicle issue? Because you will still get queues at petrol stations at peak times. It's not just something that's linked to EVs. I mean, even my local thing here, which has got, it's literally one just like a lay-by on the side of a road. It's got three petrol stations, petrol pumps, and they will queue down the road to get there. So, you know, there's not a lot they can do about it. But if you then say to those same people, well, you know, the go to electric and it's a lot more, oh no, you've got charges at T-bay that you end up queuing for hours. It's kind of, no, it's not like that at all.

Russ:

Yeah. But I did see you at a queue.

Gary:

So do you want to have that conversation? But no, it's almost, I think for those that are potentially more reluctant to go EV, then it's an excuse, isn't it, at the moment.

Russ:

But I don't think it's, like you say, you just got to think a little bit wider than just going, there's a point, I must connect to that. It's having a backup plan. It's making sure that I've actually thought about it and I'm maybe planning my journey just a little bit more and just considering it. But I'll be honest, from when I first started EVs, I don't have to plan anywhere near than the way that I used to. I can literally, I mean, I was up in Scotland the other day and I was just like, I'll just drive. It's okay. I trust the vehicle. I'll just keep going. And I'll know I'll find charges. I'll get routed in the right direction, but I know there's backups because I'm comfortable with the network as well. So yeah, it's definitely not an EV thing and it is definitely improving. And I think the weird side is I think there's maybe a bit more confidence because there's a little bit more in combustion engine vehicles is that, oh, actually, if I see it goes down to, if the red light comes on, I know I've got X amount of miles and I could probably get to another petrol station. And maybe that's something that hasn't been there for the EV network. But I feel like that's really changing. I feel like we've really got a lot of opportunity to say, oh, I mean, even on my, just on the dual carriageway near my house, there's a Shell and then there's a Starbucks with, what is it? Instavolt. And then there's a new little service station. This is within a mile. So there's three opportunities for charging and that kind of like availability is next level. So yeah, you're really not going to have that charging thing in the, charging queuing in the future, especially with good tactics. But we do need something in the meantime, just to kind of go, guys, which hopefully people will be listening to this podcast and go, oh, actually, maybe I'm a bit of a think about it.

Gary:

Because I think it's one of those things that I equate it to, because I used to drive, as you will know, because you listen to the podcast, I used to have a Kia Soul, which had the Chademo connector. And there would be times when I would go to a charging hub and you'd have loads and loads of CCS and you'd have one unit that had the Chademo and the CCS. And there would be somebody on that using the CCS, despite the fact that all the other CCS units were clear. And I, you know, I'd say to someone, do you not think that maybe you should use the one that has just CCS? And then when somebody like me comes in and wants to use a Chademo, it's available. And they thought, oh, I never actually thought about it that way. I looked at it and said, it's CCS, my car's CCS. And I think this is the same sort of situation. People are going to look at and then they're going to go, all right, I'm just charging at whichever is the available charger at the moment, because that's the one that my app has sent me to, the sat-nav has sent me to, my RFID card works on it, without actually taking that step back and going, ah, if I just use a little bit of common sense, I should probably use this one because it's better suited to my vehicle. I can still get the same discount, et cetera. And I think, as you say, it's a mindset change.

Russ:

Yeah. I think you're dead right. I mean, it's weird. I mean, there's probably a conversation to be had and maybe not for now, but like almost how do we kind of create that mindset change is, you know, this sounds a bit dictatorial, so I hope this doesn't come across in the wrong way, but almost like saying, well, actually your car can charge at this speed. So therefore your connector, your standard connector to your vehicle is this shape. And then if you want to go and then go access the faster chargers that will completely max out, you can, but you need to put an adapter on. And that might just try and like encourage people to think a little bit more and go, oh, actually, yeah. Do you know what? That's not really designed for my vehicle. And maybe I need to think a little bit more and, or, you know, we build in something that's a bit more intuitive into the apps to say, you could go here, but you might be paying a premium and you maybe not, that premium is for the fast charging, which your vehicle is not able to fully utilize. And I think maybe that's the other side of it is if there was a real cost incentive or a cost benefit to think a bit differently, then I think more people would maybe make better decisions about their charging.

Gary:

Is there anything you want to say to, as we sort of bring this to a close?

Russ:

Now I think I would say, yeah, it's, don't, don't be, don't be negative. It's not, it's not a negative thing. Queues do happen, whatever fuel you're running, but it's, it is getting better. It's just interesting. And I think, you know, if anyone's listened to this kind of podcast, it's probably good to try and have those conversations with other people that are going, switching to EV and just giving them a little bit of a tip or giving them a bit of a heads up as to how to utilize the charging network and in the best way, because a lot of the time they won't necessarily need to use it, but when they do, then they'll, they'll be able to be really effective with it.

Gary:

So what we've got are vehicles that have a maximum charge speed below 150 kilowatts or even below a hundred kilowatts that are sitting on 350 kilowatt charges, effectively blocking the charges for other cars that could benefit from the higher charge speed. And what this means is that you won't really get much of a fast charge speed if you try and use a 350 kilowatt charger, unless your car is set up to do that.

And currently there are only a few cars that can actually achieve that speed. And these are cars with what's known as 800 volt architecture. And we'll come on to what that means in a short while. But suffice it to say that if you're not running around in an Ioniq Kia EV or a Porsche, you're probably not getting that fast charge speed. and even then you might not be depending which model of the Ioniq for example that you're driving. How fast your car charges is a delicate dance between any number of items, not all of which you can control. Now we'll look at them in a little while, but first let's talk practical experience. As I said when I chatted with Russ, between Christmas and New Year the good folks at Polestar gave me a Polestar 2 to run around in. I used the opportunity to go and visit a number of chargers in the local area where I was spending the festive period, which is the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, and see what was what.

So checking the EV database the following information is presented. On a 350 kilowatt charger the Polestar 2 I had can charge at a maximum rate of 205 kilowatts. The average rate is 125 kilowatts. On a 100 kilowatt charger it will max out at 100 kilowatts and average 85 kilowatts. On a 150 kilowatt charger it will max at 150 kilowatts and average 105 kilowatts. And on a 175 kilowatt charger it will max at 175 kilowatts and average 115 kilowatts. So what happened when I took it out and tried it under a variety of conditions under a variety of chargers? Well I tried it on a 75 kilowatt EV charger and it jumped to 75 kilowatts and stayed there. I tried it on a 150 kilowatt MFG charger and it went to 105 kilowatts maximum. I tried it on a 350 kilowatt Eon charger and it went to 120 kilowatts and stayed there for quite a while, then slowly dropped as the state of charge increased. I tried it on a Tesla V4 supercharger and it went straight to 205 kilowatts, dropped back to 196 kilowatts, then slowly declined to 125 kilowatts. Now looking at these figures you might think that they seem a little bit mixed.

The fact of the matter is that I'm not telling you the whole story. On the EVV charger I was the only one there, the temperature was mild, the state of charge was low and the battery was warm. So maximum charge speed was almost a given. On the MFG I was one of three vehicles, the battery was warm, the state of charge was lowish and the temperature was cool. Now the maximum speed should have been higher than what I was getting. On the Eon charger I was the only one there, the temperature was mild, the state of charge was low but the battery was cool. The charge speed should have been higher than I was getting. On the Tesla I was on a rank of 16 chargers, all charging simultaneously, the battery was hot, the state of charge was low and the temperature was cool. So all of these factors played into whether the charger would deliver the charge speed the vehicles requested.

So let's dig into that a little bit. What determines your charge speed is a combination essentially of a number of things. The power rating that the chargers can provide, the power rating of the cable connecting the charger to your vehicle and the power rating status of your vehicle. So in other words the cable has a specific rating, 200 amps for example, the charger has a specific rating, 350 kilowatts and the car has a specific rating, 400 volts or 800 volts. So the maximum speed your car will ever get is the value calculated by multiplying the lowest of these two values together. For example you're in a 400 volt car charging on a 350 kilowatt charger which has a 200 amp cable.

Power is volts times amps, the lowest amperage is 200 which is the cable, the car is 400 volts so you get 200 times 400 which is 80,000 watts or 80 kilowatts on that charger regardless of the fact that it's a 350 kilowatt unit. If the cable is rated to 350 amps you'll get 350 times 400 which is 140 kilowatts but if your car was a car equipped with 800 volt architecture such as the Kia EV6 these figures would look a little different. For the 200 amp connector it's 200 times 800 or 160 kilowatts and for the 350 amp cable it's 350 times 800 which is 280 kilowatts but if everything was the same on the car and the cable but the charger itself was limited to 150 kilowatts that's the maximum you will get regardless of the voltage of your car.

Or of course the other thing that plays into this is the internal charger in your car which will determine the maximum speed you can expect your car to take from a charger under ideal conditions. On the original Nissan Leaf it was 50 kilowatts, on the Kia e-Niro original version it's 80 kilowatts and on the latest Polestar 2 that I used over Christmas it's 205 kilowatts. Now yes all this can sound a little complicated and you don't really want to have to do sums in your head to work out what your maximum charge speed is do you? Well the good news is that you don't have to. The bad news is that even if you did it barely makes a difference. If the charger has been sitting in snow all night or your car has a cold battery or a hot battery or you're at a high state of charge or any number of different reasons your charge speed will be affected.

Now we've talked any number of times on the show about charge curves and this determines the maximum speed a given battery will charge under ideal circumstances which means that even if you've got a nice warm battery the charger is working at its optimum temperature the cable is rated as highly as it can and the charger is putting out full power you may still only get 50% of your maximum charge speed depending where you are on the vehicle's charge curve. If we go back to the example of the Polestar 2 I had over the festive period the charge curve, courtesy of Fastned, shows that it will peak at 205 kilowatts then drop gradually and steadily in a staircase fashion down to about 90 kilowatts when the state of charge hits about 72%. Then it starts to drop quite considerably after that as it preserves the battery health at higher states of charge.

Now have a quick look in the show notes I've got a link out to the charge curves there. By the way that site, the Fastned site, has charge curves for a huge number of popular EVs. It's often worth checking the charge curve out for your car to see what the maximum is going to be under ideal conditions. For example my ID3 has a maximum charge speed of 125 kilowatts but that only occurs under ideal temperatures. 30 degree centigrade battery temperature from about 19% state of charge. After that it drops linearly and by 50% state of charge it's only accepting 75 kilowatts.

So as Russ Boulton said there are a couple of reasons why those lower charge speed cars were sitting on a higher charge speed unit expecting to get faster charging. Firstly the lure of high kilowatts. Many weekend EV drivers seem to be under the impression that higher kilowatt charges equate to faster charging not realizing that a car's charging rate is as crucial as the charger's capacity. Simply opting for a charge with the highest kilowatt number may not always yield the highest charge or the quickest charge for your vehicle. Secondly we've got an app filter missteps so some drivers may not be using their charge apps efficiently. Incorrect filters or misunderstood icons might lead them to bypass available chargers assuming they're occupied.

So rather than going to the 125 kilowatt charger they'll skip that and go to the 350 kilowatt charger. Now the implications for this are twofold. First of all you've got lots of charger misutilization. Prime spots are taken up by those who might not immediately need them causing queues potentially for those who could take most advantage of the higher power charging. And secondly you've then got wasted time and resources. You've got inappropriate charger choices meaning that some drivers might be hanging around lingering at charging stations unnecessarily creating queues.

So what do we think is causing all this? Primarily and I've said it dozens of times on the podcast it's probably a lack of education or understanding and I think that's almost certainly the the issue. Secondly a poor use of apps that's possible. We did mention the Zapmap charge speed filter in the discussion with with Russ. You don't want anything below 50 kilowatts or above 100 kilowatts if you're looking for a rapid charger and you're driving a Vauxhall e-courser for example. It simply doesn't. But you've also got the issue of in-car navigation systems taking you to chargers that might be too powerful for your car because you've got an EMSP agreement with a specific charge point operator. Finally, you've got the lack of trust in fast charger outputs that force people to the fastest chargers in an attempt to get back on the road quickly. Now I suspect this is part of it.

People don't want to sit on a quote-unquote slow charger for a long time at say 80 kilowatts if they think they can sit on an ultra-rapid charger for a lot shorter time, even if they only get the same 80 kilowatts on the ultra-rapid. Now if you really want to know what the highest and average speed your car can charge at, check out the EV database on the internet. For every car on there it has a segment that gives you the charge speeds you can expect on each level of rapid or ultra-rapid chargers. Links in the show notes.

Now I also want to give a shout out to Dougie Blair who contacted me on LinkedIn talking about this. He's purchased an OBD dongle that he attaches to his vehicle and when it charges, he can look at the data in the car to determine what speed the car should be accepting and he can then track it to see why he's not getting that speed. And this is very useful for feeding back to charge point operators so that you can tell whether you're getting the speed you should be and now I'd recommend everyone download the charge curve for their specific EV and keep that on their phone so that when they get to a charge you can see whether you're getting what you would expect from the charge curve at the specific state of charge you're at and I'm very interested on getting opinions on this.

I'd also like to shout out Mark Stubbs who works for GridServe. He posted something recently concerning the charge speed on his Genesis GV60. He's previously been getting a maximum charge speed of 236kW when he first got it. But more and more he's seen maximum charge speeds closer to 128kW and he swears the charge is not to blame because it's a GridServe charger that's previously charged a Porsche Taycan at 320kW so why is he getting these slow charge speeds? Now his hypothesis is that a recent software update has added functionality that's slowing down the maximum charge speed for some reason.

Now that's not beyond the realm of possibility and a cursory examination of the internet didn't reveal any specific mention of this issue and a glance at the GV60 charge curve did indicate that at 42% state of charge, which is what he was at, his car should be well on its way to 236kW of charge speed. The curve did drop fairly quickly shortly after that, around 48% state of charge, to a less impressive but still quite respectable 185kW. In theory 128kW charge speed should only be reached under optimal conditions at around 85% state of charge. Now of course if GridServe had installed Kenpower units instead of the ABB units he would be able to see whether the limit was a charger limit or a car limit as Kenpower displays that on the screen and in the app. With the ABB units that's not available anywhere. A later comment on the thread that we were looking at was actually quite illuminating and it was specifically referencing the 800v vehicles in question. The charge curve of the vehicles changes depending on the temperature of the battery when the charge starts. If you can preheat your battery to an optimal 25C you'll get the charge curve detailed by Fastned. But depending on the battery temperature that exists when plugging in you'll get a lot slower charging speed.

Ironically Fastned have also created charge curves based on the different initial battery temperatures. The best way to find out whether this is the issue is to use the OBD connector that Dougie Blair mentioned earlier and I'll put a link in the show notes to one. Which just goes to prove that the intricacies of charge speeds have numerous different factors all of which play into the situation.

Now finally we do have the situation in at least one major motorway service station of which I'm aware that despite the fact that the hub at the MSA has a dozen high power chargers installed there, the power going into the site is not sufficient to allow them all to charge at the same time. If the units are all busy the maximum you'll get on the ultra-rapid charger is 49kW. Doesn't matter what car you have, how warm the battery is or anything like that, tThe software inside the chargers will limit the charge you receive as a result of the DNO, the company supplying the power, not putting enough power into the site at the moment. Now I reached out to the charge point operator in question to see if they'd considered adding signage to the site indicating that power is limited and they said they were happy that the general statement of up to 175kW on their charges is appropriate. Not sure I agree with that but that's a topic for another episode.

Now my aim isn't to criticise here but just to illuminate and educate. Now we bang on about the need for infrastructure to be developed but this picture serves as a glimpse into the opportunities we have to optimise our current EV infrastructure. Imagine what happens when we increase the amount of electric vans on the road and the impact that will have on the utilisation of the public charging network. As we pivot towards a greener future, such insights will be instrumentally making our transition smooth and efficient. Let me know what you think about this please. Info@evmusings.com

It's time for a cool EV or renewable thing to share with your listeners. Barcelona has launched the EcoCat 3S, a new all-electric ferry that operates for 21 hours on a single charge. This eco-friendly ferry can carry 84 passengers and has already completed over 125,000 trips reducing CO2 emissions by around 90 tonnes annually. The ferry runs every 15 to 30 minutes for at least 12 hours each day with the entire trip taking about 10 minutes. Azimut Marines supplied the full propulsion and energy system including two Ares 50kW drives, 36 batteries providing a total of 216kWh, fast chargers and integrated solar panels which cover up to 40% of the ferry's energy needs. Who says you can't electrify boats?

I hope you enjoyed listening to today's show put together this week with the help of Russ Boulton and Dougie Blair. Thanks to both of them for their input. Russ will be back a little later in the season to talk fleet so have a listen for that one. If you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms or other general messages to pass on to me I can be reached at info at evmusings. com. On the socials I'm on Bluesky at evmusings.bsky.social. i'm also on Instagram at evmusings where I post short videos and podcast extracts regularly. Why not follow me there? Thanks to everyone who supports me through Patreon on a monthly basis and through Ko-fi.com on an ad hoc one. If you enjoyed this episode, why not buy me a coffee? Go to ko-fi.com slash evmusings and you can do just that. ko-fi.com slash evmusings.

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Nothing else. Thanks as always to my co-founder Simon. You know, he told me about a meet he went to recently where a bunch of Tesla drivers ran into a bunch of evangelical Trump-supporting Christians.

I asked him if he stopped, you know, to help smooth over the arguments.

Russ:

And just drove on and just carried on driving because it was chaos.

Gary:

Thanks for listening. Bye.