[Big277wave]

I only got 34kW out of one of the Cobham services chargers on Sunday. I'd driven over 90 miles at 70mph so my car's battery must have been toasty. I was expecting it to charge at 70kW+ as my ID.3 battery was at 50%. I was the only one charging at the time. Having looked at the comments on Zap map for the Ionity chargers in the UK, slow charging seems to be a regular occurance. What's going on? I'm sure some of the comments will be blaming the charger when it's a car with a cold battery, or throttling for some other reason, but most of the comments must be genuine.

 

[6652]

I’m never sure why people are so quick to blame the car for ‘slow’ charging when most of the time it’s the chargers.

There’s no rhyme or reason to it sometimes, I arrived at Leeds Skelton Lane once at 6% after 2 hours running, plugged in and got 37kW.

I moved chargers, plugged in again and got 103kW. 🤷

 

[80698]

Ionity chargers really aren't that reliable. There's regularly one unit out of service, and another one that's painfully slow. The only good thing is that they often install several so you can move around and likely find one that is both working and fast.

The comment above by @Tooks is very much the same as my experience. There seems to be something about 36-37kW. When I get a slow charge that is almost always the rate that I end up getting too. While Skelton Lake is definitely where I most commonly see this slow charge, it's not isolated to this location, or even this model of charger. I've occasionally seen the same up in Gretna too, for example.

 

[mad_rich]

I've only ever used them twice. MK was fine, but Leeds was an absolute nightmare. I think I ended up using all 6 berths eventually, and it was slow even in a Zoe.

Taking delivery of an e-208 today. With free charging from Onto, I was hoping that Leeds and the new location in Alnwick might become regular haunts. I hope the speed gets more reliable.

 

[80698]

I've only ever used them twice. MK was fine, but Leeds was an absolute nightmare. I think I ended up using all 6 berths eventually, and it was slow even in a Zoe.

Taking delivery of an e-208 today. With free charging from Onto, I was hoping that Leeds and the new location in Alnwick might become regular haunts. I hope the speed gets more reliable.

They don't seem to get along with the slower charging cars. I've noticed that you're more likely to get a slow charge with that 36-37kW cap if your car can't handle more than 50kW.

Let me know how you get on with the e-208 when it arrives, and how well it charges at the Fastned HPCs around here. While the range kinda sucks I am still somewhat tempted by the possibility of faster charging.

 

[mad_rich]

Let me know how you get on with the e-208 when it arrives, and how well it charges at the Fastned HPCs around here. While the range kinda sucks I am still somewhat tempted by the possibility of faster charging.

Will do. Will try to check them out after a long run.

I'll be interested to see what the realistic range is in summer. I'm hoping that the faster charging - even on 50kW - will make up for the loss of range vs Zoe.

On a trip down to London, ABRP shows the 208 as being a good 30 mins faster than the Zoe.

 

[Bill N]

I had this at Cambridge the other day. Was only getting 43kW and it wasn’t budging, so after a little while I moved and got the 70+ I’d expected.

I then checked the Ionity app and there was note against one of the markers saying this unit is free because of reduced power. All well and good, but I use RFID so don’t open the app, and I’m pretty sure there was no indication of the reduced power on the charger itself. I’m also yet to figure out what the halo lighting is supposed to indicate, sometimes they are lit before you plug in, sometimes they aren’t.

I think the main issue might be that they are ABB units and ABB apparently doesn’t have a well established presence in the UK, so when a fault arises or when the chargers send a signal requesting maintenance, perhaps there isn’t the support here to quickly address the issues.

Not a big fan of the modified ABB Terra units that Ionity frequently use. Just feel like very little thought went into their usability.

 

[80698]

I had this at Cambridge the other day. Was only getting 43kW and it wasn’t budging, so after a little while I moved and got the 70+ I’d expected.

I then checked the Ionity app and there was note against one of the markers saying this unit is free because of reduced power. All well and good, but I use RFID so don’t open the app, and I’m pretty sure there was no indication of the reduced power on the charger itself. I’m also yet to figure out what the halo lighting is supposed to indicate, sometimes they are lit before you plug in, sometimes they aren’t.

I think the main issue might be that they are ABB units and ABB apparently doesn’t have a well established presence in the UK, so when a fault arises or when the chargers send a signal requesting maintenance, perhaps there isn’t the support here to quickly address the issues.

Not a big fan of the modified ABB Terra units that Ionity frequently use. Just feel like very little thought went into their usability.

Skelton Lake which seems to be the Ionity location to get amongst the most complaints in the UK aren't ABB units. It's not an issue with one brand or model of charger, but rather seems to be something that Ionity have done to their chargers as a whole.

ABB Chargers are actually quite reliable (for DC connections at least, AC can be problematic) and also very popular especially in the north of the UK. The networks like Pod Point, Electric Blue, and Fastned use them and if something goes wrong they seem to be very quickly repaired.

 

[Bill N]

I’m pretty sure they are ABB. They certainly look to be the slimmer version which are the ABB manufactured Halo design, and not the Tritium ones which are wider. There are only 8 Tritum Ionity units in the UK. The rest are ABB.

This contrasts with Germany where reliability seems better, and they are almost all Tritium, with zero ABB units.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1341282548723445760

 

[Bill N]

Revolutionary IONITY Charger Unveiled | Tritium

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 11, 2019 – IONITY, a joint venture between Daimler, Ford, BMW Group and the Volkswagen Group with […]

tritiumcharging.com

 

[Bill N]

ABB selected by IONITY for second phase of European charging network expansion

new.abb.com

 

[80698]

Revolutionary IONITY Charger Unveiled | Tritium

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 11, 2019 – IONITY, a joint venture between Daimler, Ford, BMW Group and the Volkswagen Group with […]

tritiumcharging.com

Oh. I Stand corrected.
I Didn't realise ABB had started making chargers to a similar design. I thought all of the 'halo' ones were still Tritium and the ABB ones were only the ones we find at the likes of Gretna which are in the usual ABB housing and run the usual ABB software too.

 

[rompik]

That is true that several Ionity chargers may give reduced power. I experienced it myself. at Cobham.

However in my experience it it typically the car that causes slow charge and not the charger itself (yes, I know there are exceptions!).
I drive Kona and I know that driving @70mph does not heat up the battery significantly (I measured it with TorquePro at least 20-30 times on long trips). Often I drive 900m route and my first stop is after 172 miles (Ionity Dresden) - I usually arrive with 2% left (I know it is close ). Driving constantly @70-75mph for 170 miles raises the temp of battery by about 2C above ambient. As a result I only get about 56KW on first charge. Contrary to that, rapid charging raises temp to nice 25C! So all subsequent stops are much faster then! Always!

Also, if I arrive with not low SOC (eg. above 25%) then charging will hardly ever ramp up in winter. It very, very often takes the same amount of time to charge from 35%>80% as from 5%>80%.
When I use 50KW Instavolts in winter and SOC is around 35-40% I initially get 34KW which then drops to about 25KW. When I arrive with 5% I get between 30-40 KW initially which ramps up to about 45KW after 10 mins.

It is usually BMS that tells charger how much to deliver. I actually find Ionity way more reliable than anything else and also in good locations. Relying on others - Allego, Shell, etc is asking for trouble - especially because there is often just a single charger.

 

[Alexa]

In my experience with Ionity, it generally is the cars’s BMS that dictates the charging speed depending on many factors. However the ABB Ionity units are rather unreliable and often you’ll find one on reduced power, presumably as some power modules have failed, these are usually the ones on free vend because of this. If you’re the type of person that hunts out free vend Ionity chargers then chances are you’ll only get ‘low’ speeds of around 30-40kW.

 

[E7EV]

Will do. Will try to check them out after a long run.

I'll be interested to see what the realistic range is in summer. I'm hoping that the faster charging - even on 50kW - will make up for the loss of range vs Zoe.

On a trip down to London, ABRP shows the 208 as being a good 30 mins faster than the Zoe.

The best I’ve got so far is 67kW from a Shell Recharge 150kW rapid. I’d just done two 15 mile 50-70mph trips with a short break in between. Battery wouldn’t have been that warm, and I started at 13% SoC. Looking forward to trying out a few more ultra rapids including Ionity as the temperature improves.

To get the top speeds in an e-208, you have to arrive with low SoC. This isn’t always easy to judge as the display doesn’t show a digital readout of SoC, but just a fuel meter type display. So varying your speed so as to arrive at the Rapid low, but not too low, is not very easy. The GOM isn’t very linear like the Zoe’s. It can drop by 5 miles in one go! It drives lovely though, and looks great!

 

[HandyAndy]

So, the e-208, like ID.3, refuses to show you the true SOC (unless maybe you jump through hoops to get the Charging menu up on the console). Do others here find this a worrying trend? If I'm on a long trip & pushing the limits, I really need to know the true remaining kWh.

Petrol cars don't usually tell you only how much further you can expect to go, they at least have the decency to provide a fuel gauge. I think we should feed back to EV mfrs that we damn well want to know the remaining kWh, and preferably numerically as well as a bar-graph. Make it a user-selectable option maybe, if they don't want to frighten newbies, but at least make it available to those who need it.

 

[Bill N]

LOL

I did not know this about the e-208 and its siblings. That’d be a total deal breaker for me I think. I find it annoying enough that the Kona will only show the numeric SoC (when driving) in the central screen, and not in the driver’s display.

Feels like we often have to suffer stuff being dumbed down to accommodate the needs of the lowest common denominator in society... manufacturers probably think lots of people don’t understand percentages and won’t be able to fathom what a kWh is, and so they design these EVs with segmented fuel gauges, and no option to display detailed info, out of fear of confusing Joe Bloggs who’s used to that in his old 207.

 

[mad_rich]

Let me know how you get on with the e-208 when it arrives, and how well it charges at the Fastned HPCs around here.

Well, first visit wasn't very successful. One ultra in use, and the other was faulty, so I used the 50kW instead.

Mind you, at 50% SoC and with a cold battery, I don't think it would have gained anything by being on the ultra!

Surprisingly, the Fastned app didn't show charging speed (it used to on my Zoe). Also I had a bugger of a job getting the CCS cable to mate with the car. Only worked with the car locked, even though the Type 2 connector at home seems to work with car unlocked.

 

[mad_rich]

That’d be a total deal breaker for me I think. I find it annoying enough that the Kona will only show the numeric SoC (when driving) in the central screen, and not in the driver’s display.

I have to admit I was surprised there's no SoC. Though I don't know how accurate they are in general - or do they just give the illusion of being more accurate because they give a definite number? A bit like a set of digital scales.

 

[Bill N]

I have to admit I was surprised there's no SoC. Though I don't know how accurate they are in general - or do they just give the illusion of being more accurate because they give a definite number? A bit like a set of digital scales.

I don’t know, but I think from what I’ve seen that they are more accurate in so much as they tell you to a degree of (at least) 1/100 where the state lies within the bounds of any top and bottom buffer. Some (eg the i3) are, at least ostensibly, even more precise at doing that and show it in 0.5% increments. I’d say there’s always the potential for a mis-calibration or whatever though, which could cause the stated figure to be out by an amount.

I’m sure the underlying data used to draw a segmented (and non-numeric display) is just as accurate...the problem is it just can’t be read as accurately as a numeric display.

A segmented display without at least the option to show the % is just a stupid solution in my view...look how much space the driver’s display for the Kona battery level uses, and how useless it is compared to the i3’s, in tandem with % readout.