Anyone have this charging issue in cold weather?

[CardiacR1S]

Was at the RAN in Moosic, PA in 20 degree weather driving from Scranton area to Northern VA. Stopped to charge at the Moosic RAN and the RAN chargers were charging very slow. Unplugged and tried two different ones and multiple times. Eventually called Support who rebooted the ran chargers. Nobody else was charging there. Eventually after at least 20 minutes I was able to charge at high speed.

Not very impressive and a complete waste of time.

Anybody else experience this or know why it happened?

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[pickupman2022]

Do you know what your battery temp. was? Did you navigate to the charger? The only way (Currently) to pe-condiditon the battery is by navigating to the charger. If the battery was cold, what you experienced would be normal. That's why it pre conditions (Heats) the battery if you navigate to the charger.

 

[COdogman]

Yes, chargers can be slower in the cold. It is true of all outdoor chargers in areas that see winter weather.

Yes, your vehicle's battery also struggles to accept a charge in the cold. This is true of all EVs in areas that see winter weather. The best you can do is to ensure you precondition the battery before charging in the cold. It will still be slower than normal.

 

[Jonger1150]

Do you know what your battery temp. was? Did you navigate to the charger? The only way (Currently) to pe-condiditon the battery is by navigating to the charger. If the battery was cold, what you experienced would be normal. That's why it pre conditions (Heats) the battery if you navigate to the charger.

Thankfully a manual precondition feature is coming. It's desperately needed.

 

[jeeden]

Thankfully a manual precondition feature is coming. It's desperately needed.

It will be nice, but I think you will still have an issue with the learning curve on EVs. A lot of people don't put that much thought into refueling (ice) or charging (EV). They will still wind up at the charger with an unconditioned battery. Hopefully a majority of these cases are eliminated by people using the navigation to get to the charger, but for the odd person that goes to a charger without navigating there and doesn't think to/know to/care to tell their car to precondition a battery it will still a case where slow charging is experienced.

 

[Jonger1150]

It will be nice, but I think you will still have an issue with the learning curve on EVs. A lot of people don't put that much thought into refueling (ice) or charging (EV). They will still wind up at the charger with an unconditioned battery. Hopefully a majority of these cases are eliminated by people using the navigation to get to the charger, but for the odd person that goes to a charger without navigating there and doesn't think to/know to/care to tell their car to precondition a battery it will still a case where slow charging is experienced.

Solid state and 800V - 1000V is coming. That changes a charge session into a gas fillup basically.

15 minute 200 kWh half weight batteries. That's where we will be by 2030 or so.

It doesn't impact my ownership experience much, except my charging is slower at first during the winter due to lower temp. I start at 180kWh+ speed in the summer, where as I start at 100kWh speed in the winter. A precondition button would fix that.

 

[DeafPug]

Every time someone complains about charging speeds in the Winter, I think back to a video that Bjørn Nyland posted maybe 10 years ago. He might have been the first video blogger on EV road trips and drove his Model S all over Norway.

https://www.youtube.com/@bjornnyland/videos

He had a cold-soaked battery and was at a Supercharger not getting any power into the battery; just a few kW to power the battery heater. He didn’t venture far from the Supercharger, but alternated from full power acceleration to full power regen; traveling back and forth on an idle stretch of highway. At first, almost no regen power, but after 10 minutes of doing that, the battery warmed up and regen power was restored. Similarly, the vehicle was about to fast charge at the Supercharger as well.

This would have been back in about 2013, so the full Supercharger power was only 120 kW, but just pointing out that on a suitably empty road, we all have the ability to warm up a battery for fast charging.

 

[Joules Burn]

Was at the RAN in Moosic, PA in 20 degree weather driving from Scranton area to Northern VA. Stopped to charge at the Moosic RAN and the RAN chargers were charging very slow. Unplugged and tried two different ones and multiple times. Eventually called Support who rebooted the ran chargers. Nobody else was charging there. Eventually after at least 20 minutes I was able to charge at high speed.

Not very impressive and a complete waste of time.

Anybody else experience this or know why it happened?

I had a similar experience at a RAN charger at 33 degrees. I thought it was the RAN and went to an EA station. It also sat at 23kW for about ten minutes before it ramped up to 150kW. It's a "poor man's" pre-heat.

 

[CardiacR1S]

I had a similar experience at a RAN charger at 33 degrees. I thought it was the RAN and went to an EA station. It also sat at 23kW for about ten minutes before it ramped up to 150kW. It's a "poor man's" pre-heat.

Interesting. Will get my battery temp next time. Was cruising at 70+ for about an hour before I tried to charge. Tech mentioned nothing about pre-conditioning and I thought I was routed to the Moosic RAN because I knew filling there would get me home.

 

[CardiacR1S]

Do you know what your battery temp. was? Did you navigate to the charger? The only way (Currently) to pe-condiditon the battery is by navigating to the charger. If the battery was cold, what you experienced would be normal. That's why it pre conditions (Heats) the battery if you navigate to the charger.

Will check next time. Thought I told it to navigate to Moosic which is why I was surprised at the rate.

 

[R1TCntrlMaIzzy]

Even if you did use the navigation, which should trigger the preconditioning, you can confirm if it is working or not. The navigation screen should show preconditioning as active and also, check your battery temp. I believe if it is >50•, your charging results should be better.

 

[Joules Burn]

Interesting. Will get my battery temp next time. Was cruising at 70+ for about an hour before I tried to charge. Tech mentioned nothing about pre-conditioning and I thought I was routed to the Moosic RAN because I knew filling there would get me home.

Interesting status. But even when I have a "destination" charge in normal temps the screen mentions "pre-conditioning" of some sort. The battery wants to happy in a certain temp range.

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