Hi, I took my Niro EV to a nearby Electrify America 350kW charging station this morning. All four chargers were busy. The outside temperature was around 20°F. It took me 1 hour and 21 minutes to charge from 20% to 80%. I’ve attached a screenshot showing power delivery in the 40s.
If the charger can deliver 350kW and the car is supposed to handle 85kWh, why does it take so long to charge 43kWh?
This is my first EV, and I’ve only charged it twice so far. Last time, I used an EVGo 50kW station, and it delivered 37kWh in 50 minutes.
Is this normal? I don’t have a home charger, so I rely on public charging. I checked the car’s power delivery settings, and it’s set to max. Am I missing something, or is this just how it works for this car?
You should check the manual. Make sure you set your destination to a DC fast charger and enable battery preconditioning. With this, you’ll probably get between 60-80kW at most.
Remington said:
You should check the manual. Make sure you set your destination to a DC fast charger and enable battery preconditioning. With this, you’ll probably get between 60-80kW at most.
Edit 2: Nope, it was already on.
Edit: I might’ve forgotten to activate winter mode this time. I’ll double-check next time.
Yeah, mine doesn’t get those speeds in winter even if I precondition. I’m lucky if I hit 50kW when it’s below freezing. In summer, I’ve hit 80kW once, but it usually tops out around 65-70kW. That’s on chargers rated for over 200kW.
As others mentioned, if your battery isn’t preconditioned, this is about the max you’ll get in cold weather. I don’t use the built-in navigation to get to chargers, but if you go into the EV menu, there’s usually an option to precondition manually. Do it 20-30 minutes before you reach the charger, and you should max out at around 84kW.
They only had 350kW chargers at that station. I checked others, and even cars like the ID4 and Ioniq 5 were showing charging speeds in the 50s. EA offers free charging for Kia owners, so I wanted to use them instead of the local 50kW EVGo station.
If there’s anything below 350kW available, you shouldn’t use the faster ones unless you need to. It helps keep the faster chargers open for cars that can actually take advantage of them. I’ve never used anything over 150kW for my 2022, which maxes out at around 70kW.
@Stevie
Most EA chargers are 350kW now. People like you need to stop complaining. Charging infrastructure is advancing, and older cars don’t always keep up. Let people use whatever chargers they want without the judgment.
@Ari
This attitude is why I hate interacting with others at charging stations. Don’t blame drivers for using available chargers. Blame the system that doesn’t build more chargers. I’ve travelled all over with my EV, and I’ll use whatever charger I can find. That’s just how things are.
@Remington
Exactly. If there was a 100kW option, I would’ve used it. But the nearest stations are either this EA or an EVGo 5 miles away. I waited 20 minutes just to get a spot here.
