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You don't need to Charge full always when DC Fast Charging.

2173 Views 10 Replies 7 Participants Last post by ChasingCoral, 5 mo ago

Jerm2006

Discussion Starter · 10 mo ago

This is more of a helpful tip that new EV drivers may not know, but I find it very helpful. The bulk majority of the time you will spend DC fast charging will be on long trips where the distance, either there or round trip is longer than your range you have in the battery.

When you stop at DC fast chargers either on trips or not, you typically only charge enough to get to the next charger, or destination. If you have means to charge at your destination for a time that will get you to the next location or city driving you can arrive with 10-20% which many times means only charging for 5-20 minutes.

These short times will also work for DC fast charging to get to the next charger. Those long wait times will not be as common as thought.

There are a few factors that affect this such has towing (low range), and the increase of DC fast charger, and how well they are maintained so you can get in and out.
So when thinking of fast charging on trips, remember it is a low percentage you will have to wait that entire charge time, and it will be more like a bathroom, grab a snack kind of stop.

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Jerm2006

Discussion Starter · #4 · 10 mo ago

GDN said:
Gas was always a loss leader for most convenience stores. 7-11 took years before they would add credit card readers to their gas pumps. Without them they sold much more by just getting you to enter the doors to pay for that gas.

I've heard good things about Wawa, we don't have them here, but truly it seems most convenience stores don't have a lot of extra room to add too many chargers. We do have Buc-cee's though. They've embraced Tesla installing between 12 and 24 stations at each store.

Truly I'm not sure why the bigger chains like Buc-cee's or Wawa hasn't just put their own name/brand on the chargers. Just take a normal payment at the "Pump".

This is a good point. Actually here in South Carolina, there is a new Buc-cee's that was built near Florence, and they have alot of Tesla super chargers in it from what I have heard.

Also we went to the grand opening of a Spinx in which they put Tesla supercharger at it. It is just a matter of time before they start getting CCS chargers also at gas stations. They said it was great for helping sell the stuff they actually make money on, which is the goodies inside.

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Jerm2006

Discussion Starter · #7 · 10 mo ago

Yes, Charging 90-100% I think you get somewhere close to 100V speeds, like 7kW/hr. Would not recommend it unless at home before a long trip. 10-80% would be my use case almost always. I saw a charge curve on I believe Out of Spec Motoring.

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Jerm2006

Discussion Starter · #9 · 5 mo ago

rdr854 said:
I recommend charging to 80 percent min. If on a trip. Last year, I went from DC to Roanoke, Virginia. I topped off in Manassas at a free charger and then proceeded to stop in Woodstock (which was listed as a charging stop before my top off in Manassas). While the trip planner wanted me to go to Staunton for my next charge, it was a good thing that I stopped in Woodstock because the EA chargers in Staunton had just been taken out of service a few hours prior to my arrival. Without the charge up to 80% in Woodstock, I would never have made it to Roanoke (where I arrived with a 30% state of charge.

The advice for 5 or 10 minute charges makes sense if you know that all of the chargers are working along your route. The problem is that there is no certainty and chargers for our vehicles are not yet ubiquitous.

This is unfortunate that the chargers are not reliable. have to agree with you some. The don't charge up past what you need may only work for when your next stop is at home...then you just need to get enough to get you there to plug in for that residential cost. Once reliability is better or similar to the tesla network, then you can do as I mentioned as I do it on all trip in the Tesla.

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