You'll get additional suggestions over the next few days but I'd suggest you start with a wider search of the web for how DCFC systems operate for more of the technical background. There are several factors that affect output power and none of them are predictable or controllable by the user. Using crowd sourced apps like ABRP can offer clues about the operation of any statiom that 's in the database but, still, when you arrive, the situation might be copletely different from what the previous users experienced. For instance, many stations use power sharing that reduces available energy as each additional car hooks up.

 

After a quick google search, the quick answer is that the limitation is with the charger not your vehicle.

The longer answer is that the Freewire DCFC's are A) made for locations where grid power is limited and B) labeled incorrectly (in my opinion).

From the Freewire website, here is their highest powered DCFC: Boost Charger 200
The Boost 200. It says it can provide 200kW, or 100kW split between 2 cars.

But the reality is that is just a number on the spec sheet.
Because if you download the technical specifications sheet and look at the electrical specifications section, you'll see that it can only output 125 amps continuous.

Compare this to a 150kW Electrify America station which outputs 350A continuously. Or an EA 300kW station which can output 500A continuously.

The nominal voltage of our XC40's is a little over 400V. So when you plug into an EA 150kW station, that's how your seeing those 150kW charging speeds:
150,000W/350A = 428V.

The Freewire Boost Charger 200 would only ever output 200kW to a car with a battery pack who's voltage is 1000V!

The highest voltage car on the market today is the Lucid Air which has a nominal voltage of 920V.
Even according to their data sheet their chargers can only output up to 950V DC.

So by my math the highest sustained charging speeds you could theoretically see on this charger would be ~118kW, far from their claimed 200kW.
950Vx125A

So my guess is that they have a boost function, where you get higher speeds for a set amount of time before the equipment starts to heat up and derate.
Or maybe they boost the grid power using the internal 160kW of batteries to get to the higher speeds.

It says it has 160kW worth of batteries, but this is mainly to reduce demand charges typical of other high powered EV chargers.

Could you provide the exact station you used on Plugshare?

A quick search shows only one Shell DCFC Recharge location in SoCal, and that one seems to be only 50kW. Maybe you were using a new one that hasn't made the map yet?

 

After a quick google search, the quick answer is that the limitation is with the charger not your vehicle.

The longer answer is that the Freewire DCFC's are A) made for locations where grid power is limited and B) labeled incorrectly (in my opinion).

From the Freewire website, here is their highest powered DCFC: Boost Charger 200
The Boost 200. It says it can provide 200kW, or 100kW split between 2 cars.

But the reality is that is just a number on the spec sheet.
Because if you download the technical specifications sheet and look at the electrical specifications section, you'll see that it can only output 125 amps continuous.

Compare this to a 150kW Electrify America station which outputs 350A continuously. Or an EA 300kW station which can output 500A continuously.

The nominal voltage of our XC40's is a little over 400V. So when you plug into an EA 150kW station, that's how your seeing those 150kW charging speeds:
150,000W/350A = 428V.

The Freewire Boost Charger 200 would only ever output 200kW to a car with a battery pack who's voltage is 1000V!

The highest voltage car on the market today is the Lucid Air which has a nominal voltage of 920V.
Even according to their data sheet their chargers can only output up to 950V DC.

So by my math the highest sustained charging speeds you could theoretically see on this charger would be ~118kW, far from their claimed 200kW.
950Vx125A

So my guess is that they have a boost function, where you get higher speeds for a set amount of time before the equipment starts to heat up and derate.
Or maybe they boost the grid power using the internal 160kW of batteries to get to the higher speeds.

It says it has 160kW worth of batteries, but this is mainly to reduce demand charges typical of other high powered EV chargers.

Could you provide the exact station you used on Plugshare?

A quick search shows only one Shell DCFC Recharge location in SoCal, and that one seems to be only 50kW. Maybe you were using a new one that hasn't made the map yet?

View attachment 7615

It wasn’t in Southern California by that point - should’ve been more clear in the initial post; it was in Santa Nella. I added the station to Plugshare myself as it wasn’t in the system!

 

Sorry to hear. “Shell Recharge” makes me shiver - I do not trust an oil giant to provide a good DCFC experience. Shell has enough money and resources to install a bank of 350 kW stations with a gigantic backup battery instead of a somewhat crippled Freewire station (by design) that relies on a relatively small battery and very low power supply that made your experience, while ok, much less than good.

I have found EA stations in CA have gotten noticeably more reliable in the past several months - I think the new CEO is putting more effort into repair and maintenance of the network, at least in CA.

 

Sorry to hear. “Shell Recharge” makes me shiver - I do not trust an oil giant to provide a good DCFC experience. Shell has enough money and resources to install a bank of 350 kW stations with a gigantic backup battery instead of a somewhat crippled Freewire station (by design) that relies on a relatively small battery and very low power supply that made your experience, while ok, much less than good.

I have found EA stations in CA have gotten noticeably more reliable in the past several months - I think the new CEO is putting more effort into repair and maintenance of the network, at least in CA.

Yeah, EA seems the most reliable and decently powerful of the chargers in California. Not perfect but much more likely to work. Probably need to change ABRP to focus on those …

 

OK, so I’ll offer a contrarian opinion. I was travelling around before Christmas and charged my car in Fairhaven, south Bellingham, WA at a 100kw peak shared EVGo charger. I had about 40% state of charge and the car started at about 50KW, dropping for a bit and then going up briefly to 60KW before us leaving with 80%. Ambient temperature was about 40F. Certainly, lots of chargers split maximum available power on a shared unit, but the car’s Battery Management System ultimately decides how quickly it will allow the car to charge. Too cold and it will slow down until the pack warms up. Too hot and it will do the same, using the HVAC system and power modulation to prevent damage to the cells. Volvo is quite conservative in their charging algorithm, which is good in my book, since the end result is a healthier battery pack. Lots of people unhappily still compare filling a gas tank to charging their car, getting impatient as the minutes tick by. Go find a bathroom, get a coffee and catch up on the news, work or what have you - if necessary, drop your partner and kids at a mall. Above all, enjoy the down time and quit fussing about the lost minutes charging. 99% of the time most of us are plugging in at home overnight anyway, a convenience no ICE driver can share, or the lack of maintenance, or… we’ll, you get the picture. It’s different. Enjoy the difference and don’t worry about losing minutes - your battery thanks you.

 

I respectfully disagree. Companies need to continue to drive those charging times lower and lower.

Fast charging is important for road trips. Road trips are where you can take a 3-4 hour journey that is barely inconvenienced in an ICE vehicle. One 15 minutes gas stop. To adding 25%+ to your total travel time.

Take a typical trip in that 3-4 hour range, where your final destination doesn't have charging, whether its because your visiting a hotel or your visiting family that has only ICE vehicles it doesn't matter. You're going to have 1 stop and charge from 10-80. In a Hyundai Ioniq 5 or a Kia EV6 that stop is 18 minutes. Or barely a difference vs an ICE stop.
In your scenario using a 50kW charger, that would take our vehicles over an hour to replenish adding ~25% total travel time to the trip.

Personally, I don't consider that a minor inconvenience.

 

I can only suggest that if you prefer a Hyundai or Kia and believe their architectures are superior, you should go for it. As to why Volvo continues to use 400 volt systems, dunno but it works for them. Maybe the EX60 will move to 800 volt.
As to the whys and wherefores, the primary argument is the ability to deliver more power over a thinner cable, so for Tesla, they are thinking about big batteries in the pickup and their heavy duty tractor unit. As to why the Koreans do it who knows, but for me I don’t see a big advantage going from 30 minutes to 14 minutes. We don’t have the HP chargers here in any case. Maybe Nio is onto something with their battery swapping, which evidently takes as long as a gas fill-up. Geely seems to think so, and the big advantage is that they don’t need big power to recharge the batteries they reuse. The other side of the coin is the amount of power needed to charge quickly at a level 3 site. A single 50KW charge station draws about the same amount of power as a residential home, so compare that to a 16 station Tesla 350kw Supercharger site and you’re looking at an entire housing development - 112 homes. That sort of power is a big infrastructure pressure.
For myself, I don’t see the point in worrying about losing time when I’m charging, but I’m just one person. If I’m in a rush to travel big distances, I would prefer to fly. It’s less stressful. I actually enjoy the downtime of charging on the road. As long as I can find a bathroom, have something to drink, a snack and a book, I’m happy and well rested. The destination will wait as we’re not on a timeline any more, and my wife is content too if I drop her off to poke about the shops first.

 

As to why Volvo continues to use 400 volt systems, dunno but it works for them. Maybe the EX60 will move to 800 volt.

Because all common components used in the high voltage system ie. contactors, motor control units, pumps, heaters, distribution units, compressors, motors, etc. need to be designed to work with that 800V architecture.
And items like those, that are readily available from suppliers, are currently designed to work in a 480v system, as this is the common "high voltage" system found in commercial and industrial applications in the US. It's very common in the electrical industry to have 600V ratings on most components for this reason. And they won't work in 800V systems.

When Porsche developed the 800V system for the Taycan they had to design everything themselves, for the first time in an automotive use.
They were probably only able to do it because they had the entire engineering and financial power of VAG behind them.

TLDR it's much cheaper to produce a 400V EV given the current environment of off the shelf components.

 

I wonder if the long term need for high speed charging performance is such a big deal. You drive for three of four hours, take a bio break, eat and drink, and your car is charged in a half hour vs 14 minutes, if a 250+ kWh charger is handy.

In this scenario you're letting the car dictate your trip. Sometimes you don't have that flexibility. Last summer we took a vacation to the Outer Banks in NC. We wanted to be on the island before traffic started to build up for the day. That meant leaving our house at 4:30-5am. If we had taken our XC40 that would mean getting up at 3am or earlier!

Cross country dashes of 1000 miles a day as roads get busier? People do it, but it’s quicker and easier to fly.

I somewhat disagree with you here. You are correct in that it's quicker and easier to fly... once it gets to a certain distance away. No one is going to argue that it's easier to fly from NY/LA to CO. But here on the east coast, trips between cities can be faster, and certainly cheaper, than flying.

Flytime between Philadelphia (my closest airport) and Boston is only 1.5 hrs. Drivetime is 5.5 hours (I've actually done this drive in 5.5 hrs).
Except the drive to the airport is 1hr, getting through security and leaving enough time before departure is 2 hours (if you follow the TSA's advice), plus deplaning, time at the bag carousel, and the travel time between the airport and your final destination starts to add up to pretty close to that drivetime of 5.5 hrs.

Taking an slow charging EV adds 40-60 minutes to this trip. Taking a fast charging EV (Porsche Taycan/Lucid Air/EV6/Ioniq5) can be almost comparable to the ICE trip.

And by driving I've saved $250 (2 tickets @$150 each vs <$50 in gas), taken as much luggage as I want and was able to drive exactly to my destination.
Now I have my vehicle for getting around during my stay (saving more money on Ubers/taxis, and I can leave when I want to when the trip is over vs having to arrive to the airport on the plane's schedule.

I know all of this makes it look like I'm trying to convince you your argument is wrong. I'm not. I'm trying to convince you that despite how you, or I, take road trips, enough people have voted with their wallets (slow EV adoption rates) and their thoughts (repeated surveys show that Americans say they won't adopt EV's until their range is 300+ miles and charging times are sub 10 minutes) that charging times/speeds are important.

 

In this scenario you're letting the car dictate your trip. Sometimes you don't have that flexibility. Last summer we took a vacation to the Outer Banks in NC. We wanted to be on the island before traffic started to build up for the day. That meant leaving our house at 4:30-5am. If we had taken our XC40 that would mean getting up at 3am or earlier!


I somewhat disagree with you here. You are correct in that it's quicker and easier to fly... once it gets to a certain distance away. No one is going to argue that it's easier to fly from NY/LA to CO. But here on the east coast, trips between cities can be faster, and certainly cheaper, than flying.

Flytime between Philadelphia (my closest airport) and Boston is only 1.5 hrs. Drivetime is 5.5 hours (I've actually done this drive in 5.5 hrs).
Except the drive to the airport is 1hr, getting through security and leaving enough time before departure is 2 hours (if you follow the TSA's advice), plus deplaning, time at the bag carousel, and the travel time between the airport and your final destination starts to add up to pretty close to that drivetime of 5.5 hrs.

Taking an slow charging EV adds 40-60 minutes to this trip. Taking a fast charging EV (Porsche Taycan/Lucid Air/EV6/Ioniq5) can be almost comparable to the ICE trip.

And by driving I've saved $250 (2 tickets @$150 each vs <$50 in gas), taken as much luggage as I want and was able to drive exactly to my destination.
Now I have my vehicle for getting around during my stay (saving more money on Ubers/taxis, and I can leave when I want to when the trip is over vs having to arrive to the airport on the plane's schedule.

I know all of this makes it look like I'm trying to convince you your argument is wrong. I'm not. I'm trying to convince you that despite how you, or I, take road trips, enough people have voted with their wallets (slow EV adoption rates) and their thoughts (repeated surveys show that Americans say they won't adopt EV's until their range is 300+ miles and charging times are sub 10 minutes) that charging times/speeds are important.

If you lived in 1907 before the model T was released, you would be stopping to feed and water the horse every 20 miles or so. Then when motor cars became widely available, people started to build service and gas stations - before then drug stores carried the stuff. I learned to drive a mark 1 Mini with 37hp which would stall if it hit a puddle of water. We didn’t travel as much then as it was expensive and each trip was an adventure! Today we complain about our EVs not being in the same league as gas cars for long trips, or not having the newest breakthrough. Fair enough, but we live in the microcosm that is North America where we tend to supersize things, including problems. I look at Norway through their EV vloggers, and see how different opinions can be. They already have a built-out charging infrastructure, they deal with extreme cold and at 2500km north to south, some serious distances without even travelling across Europe. But the one thing they don’t bother about is whether charging is a big deal (except on a long weekend), although Bjørn Nyland complained the Ioniq 5 didn’t give him time to use the bathroom and eat his lunch. They have plenty of 300kw chargers as well as the Tesla network, but when he started he would complain about 50KW chargers and cars cold gating in the north. In fact he said the Hyundai had a problem with losing power after charging so quickly, a problem they’ve doubtless fixed by now. Having an EV has given us software updates and a lot of new technology as they’ve evolved, but the important things to me are a quiet and affordable means of personal travel (try gas at almost $10Cdn a gallon here last summer), once the sticker shock of a new luxury car is dealt with; and the fact my EV isn’t going to contribute to the pollution the kids and grandkids will inherit. We have a VW camper van, and take trips in it too. Our last round trip to Oregon cost the far side of $500 in gas. When we had to take the old dear in for yet another service ($30K in 8 years and counting), we looked at taking the Volvo. It would take a bit of planning but the main issue was space for our camping gear vs the convenience of popping the top, or hunkering down if the weather turned bad. But then, our only timeline was where we had reserved a campsite or a ferry. Did my time as a worker so I appreciate everyone isn’t as lucky!

 

I totally let my car dictate how I take my trips. And the dog and my partner loves it more stops. Time to stretch legs and less pushing through the pain

EV driving has taught us (me) to chill. To not care if the charging takes 3 minutes longer than it could have … etc

That said commercial level 2s and lower should only exist in places where there is something to do… sleep for the night. Have a meal. Shop etc. was forced to use a level 2 on a hot day in the middle of now where. In the end gave up and made it to a further away level 3 as 2 was barely keeping up with the ac it was a bad 2.

Co incidentally I was looking up horses the other day due to my irritation due to how they are always galloping in films.

How Long Can a Horse Sustain a Gallop

I continue to be pleased at how the charging networks are expanding. In the last 2.5 years I have had this EV there are already more choices. Far from perfect but movement in the right direction.

Cheers

 

800v cars don't charge good at 400v charger and don't charge on Tesla charger correctly ( Porsche and Audi yes Not Kia, Hyndai and Genesis... ) so...

 

800v cars don't charge good at 400v charger and don't charge on Tesla charger correctly ( Porsche and Audi yes Not Kia, Hyundai and Genesis... ) so...

True. But...

The Porsche and Audi EV's only charge well on 400V chargers if they were optioned with the 150kW/400V booster.

Kia, Hyundai, and Genesis cars actually use the rear inverter to step down the voltage and are able to charge reasonable well on 400v stations.

V4 Superchargers (at least with V4 power cabinets, not the V4 dispensers w/ 500V V3 cabinets that are currently being installed) should be 1000V capable. The Cybertruck nominal voltage is above 500V and would charge quickest on a 1000V charger. Right now it splits its pack to lower the voltage in order to charge better on existing infrastructure. The Hummer as well as the Silverado do this as well. The upcoming Porsche Macan also dos this.

Eventually all chargers will be 1000V and all cars will utilize ~800V architectures. But until then you're going to see a mishmash of architectures in both cars and charging infrastructure. With varying degrees of success.