I have just purchased a 2nd hand 2021 Vauxhall Corsa E and am excited to have joined the electric car club!
I seem to have picked the worst moment to start driving with an EV as the temperatures have dropped this week in the UK and I’m not getting great range, so am going to need to charge a lot.
I am trying to adjust to my new routine of charging - unfortunately I can’t get a home charger for a few months so am making do with fast charging in the meantime.
I’ve had 2 visits to fast chargers so far and have achieved nowhere near the 100kW max rate. I went to a different site both times, with 3-4 charging stations, where I was the only car there and used chargers capable of 100 or 160kW, but only got a rate of between 35 and 40kW.
If this is as good as I will ever get, it will have a big impact on long journeys that I need to do a few times a year.
Could this be related to the cold? Both times I charged after a 20 minute commute, so the battery may not have warmed up that much.
I guess this is most likely a 400v vs 800v question, and the way the chargers are rated, but in that case, I would have expected a difference between the 100 and 160kW devices?
Or could there be something wrong with the battery here? Is there anything else I can try, or any diagnostics I can get? The car hasn’t done many miles so I really hope there’s not some damage already.
It’s a combination of temperature and state of charge.
You will only get your 100kW up to about 40% in good conditions, then it tapers off, though you should hit 80% before it drops below 40 in good conditions.
If you do a long trip where you charge multiple times, the first charge will be slow, but will warm up the battery, and your next charge will be better.
It’s also not recommended to DCFC without at least 20 minutes of highway driving first, especially in cold weather, because it really throttles the charge speed when the battery is cold.
@izael
Thank you. This intuitively makes sense, I just couldn’t find it explicitly stated anywhere in the car manuals or online - most seem to reference the battery limiting rate if it gets too hot, not too cold. It would also be nice if the vehicle gave some user feedback about its decisions.
But I accept that I’ve been using fast charging in a slightly non-representative case so far, so can’t expect it to be optimal. Both times I was charging from 20% though.
This makes me feel a lot better though! I was a bit stressed about maybe having landed a dud battery.
You would have to check to see what the car is rated for as far as charging speed. The charger’s rate is what it is capable of delivering, but the actual rate is controlled by the car.
Imani said:
You would have to check to see what the car is rated for as far as charging speed. The charger’s rate is what it is capable of delivering, but the actual rate is controlled by the car.
The car ad, online databases, and the manual all state 100kW, although I can’t find it explicitly stated on the actual vehicle anywhere. But I understand that the car is the one limiting for some reason - would just be nice if it gave more feedback!