First EVGo quick charge experience (failure)

[DaveEV]

The battery temperature gauge in the car never budged from 6 bars. I though the battery was supposed to heat up and that is why the charging would slow down near the end. Hmm.

Battery temp bar 6 has a range of 74-98*F. It could have warmed up significantly without any indication from the battery gauge.

Looking at the overnight temps of your area, it appears likely that the battery started out very close to the bottom end of the temp range for bar 6.

 

[Cheezmo]

Did 5 minutes of quick charging later in the day to show my wife how it all worked and battery temp was at 7 bars as we left.

The charging speed changes dramatically the last 10-20% or so. From "wow, this is amazing how fast it is going up" to "why am I standing here waiting for these last few percent".

Over 30 minutes for 50% -> Full charge.
5 minutes for 50% -> 75%...

(approximately what I saw today).

 

[crawlspeed]

This hasn't been posted on in awhile, but I just got my Leaf and just used the QC for the first time last night. Like stated in the posts it starts out blazing fast, then slows a lot at the end.

I'm curious if anyone else had their charge stop at 90 percent? I wasn't watching the battery heat so not sure if it got hot enough the station just stopped, or if the station has a timer. It was charging along and I was wanting to wait till 100 percent since it was my first time using it, just to see how long it took and it stopped at 90 percent and said I could disconnect the charger. Any ideas?

 

[Cheezmo]

This hasn't been posted on in awhile, but I just got my Leaf and just used the QC for the first time last night. Like stated in the posts it starts out blazing fast, then slows a lot at the end.

I'm curious if anyone else had their charge stop at 90 percent? I wasn't watching the battery heat so not sure if it got hot enough the station just stopped, or if the station has a timer. It was charging along and I was wanting to wait till 100 percent since it was my first time using it, just to see how long it took and it stopped at 90 percent and said I could disconnect the charger. Any ideas?

I believe that if your charge level before you start is below 50%, it stops at 80-90%. If you start with your car already charged above 50%, it will go all the way. So, you can just start a second charge to top it off if you need to.

 

[crawlspeed]

Thanks for the info. I'll try that next time and see what happens.

 

[DaveEV]

I believe that if your charge level before you start is below 50%, it stops at 80-90%. If you start with your car already charged above 50%, it will go all the way. So, you can just start a second charge to top it off if you need to.

I don't think that is true with the 2013+ LEAF any longer. Perhaps some sort of time limit on the charger was hit, like 30 minutes?

I charged on an eVgo station last night and noticed it's count-down timer seemed to start at 30 minutes.

 

[Pipcecil]

It may be different in California (there is a different paystructure as well), but here in Texas it works as posted previously (I know because I QC a bunch and I did both types of charging last week):

If your car gets plugged in under 50% then the QC will charge to 80% (it reads 89-90% on the display, but it is really 80% true SOC if you use leaf spy). If you arrive at 50% or greater, the unit will attempt to charge you to full, it will stop sometime around 99-100% (and this is full, so ~95% true SOC if you use leaf spy).

I don't know what makes it stop at 89% sometimes or 99% sometimes (had it once stop at 98%). It didn't seem related to heat as my battery wasn't getting hot at all (it was moderate temperature days). Battery wouldn't even break 5 temp bars.

 

[JeremyW]

If your car gets plugged in under 50% then the QC will charge to 80% (it reads 89-90% on the display, but it is really 80% true SOC if you use leaf spy). If you arrive at 50% or greater, the unit will attempt to charge you to full, it will stop sometime around 99-100% (and this is full, so ~95% true SOC if you use leaf spy).

This is only true of '11-'12 model years not '13-'14.

 

[Wennfred]

If you come up to one with an error or bugged, press & hold the stop button for a while, it will reboot on its own.

 

[pchilds]

The Escondido EVGo quick charger has a flaky handle. It took me 10 minutes of fiddling with it, to get a charge. There are two new handles just down the street, that are not being used. How about a swap. :lol: