jkjones1

Greetings everyone - I am a new Porsche owner with my recent purchase of a certified 2015 panamera e-hybrid. The universal charger didn't come with a manual and upon plugging it into a 240V outlet, it asked me to select the "current" at either 50 or 100%. I selected 100% and it seemed to charge just fine. However, I was wondering if anyone had any information on what would be the reasons/pros/cons for setting it at either setting.

Any thoughts you could provide would be greatly appreciated it.

Thanks and look forward to participating in the forums.

Josh

mdosu

Sorry, I don't have an answer for you. I'm a prospective PSEH buyer as well. I'm eyeing a 2014, so I'm curious as to what the answer is too. I notice this when I was playing around with the charger at the dealership.

Did you buy a car at a dealership or a independent dealership/private party?

jkjones1

Thanks. I bought it at a dealership who had used the car as a service loaner. It was clear they pieced together the charging unit from stuff they had on hand so of course the manual was missing. I found someone on 6speedonline who had the manual and it noted that for maximum charging performance to use 100%, but that the unit would automatically set to 50% if it was plugged into an "industrial charging outlet" - not sure what that means. I did try it at 100% and the car seemed to accept it just fine.

Good luck on your search!

sirish19

Congratulations on your purchase. I also have recently bought the Cayenne S e-hybrid and have the manual for the charging unit. As you have noted, there are two options of charging at 100% or 50%. When you plug into a normal household outlet (220v in EU, 110v in US or 100v in Japan) the unit will set the default to 100%. When you are plugged into an Industrial outlet (230v in EU, 240v in US, and 200v in Japan), it will set to default at 50%. The Industrial charging outlet is the higher voltage outlets that you may see with washing machines and dryers for example. This is a safety measure to prevent overheating. If you are going to be charging with this unit at home, I would recommend having an electrician install an Industrial outlet where you install the unit. The main impact is how much juice is getting to the battery and how long it takes to charge up.

According to the manual, the charging times may vary but would be approximately:

Household Electrical Outlet:
EU = 3.8 hours
US = 8.2 hours
Japan - 10 hours
China, Switzerland, Australia, Brazil = 5.2 hours

Industrial Electrical Outlet:
EU = 2.3 hours
US = 2.3 hours
Japan - 2.3 hours
China, Switzerland, Australia, Brazil = 2.3 hours

This is assuming your on-board charger is the standard 3.6 Kw. Times are faster if you have the 7.2 Kw on-board charger.

I am actually glad that I found this thread because I had been charging with an Industrial charger at a hotel near my office and was a little disappointed at how little charge I got in a couple of hours. Now that I have read the manual, I know that it has been setting at 50% so not getting the full charge. I am looking forward to trying it out again and setting to 100%.

Hope this helps.

txhokie4life

Just picked up a new to me 2015 S E-Hybrid -- how can I figure out if I have the 3.6 or 7.2Kw charger?

My build date was 10/14 according to the door marker.

Mike

rsyed

Nearly right :-)

Charging rate depends on your on-board charger and/or electricity supply (voltage, amp, # of phases) - whichever is lower is the bottleneck and defines the charging rate.

For example:
if you have a 7,2kW charger but you are hooked to a standard 220V/16amp power supply (typical for EU), you will be charging the car at 3,6kW --> so 14 kWh/3,6 = 3,88 hours. Add 20% overhead = 4,66 hours
if you have a 3,6kw charger and you are hooked to a standard 220V/16amp power supply (typical for EU), you will be charging the car at 3,6kW --> so 14 kWh/3,6 = 3,88 hours. Add 20% overhead = 4,66 hours
if you have a 3,6kw charger and you are hooked to a standard 400V/16amp power supply (typical for EU industry), your powersupply is capable of 11kW (400V x 16 amp x 3^0,5) --> so 14 kWh/3,6 = 3,88 hours. Add 20% overhead = 4,66 hours
if you have a 7,2kw charger and you are hooked to a standard 400V/16amp power supply (typical for EU industry), your powersupply is capable of 11kW (400V x 16 amp x 3^0,5) --> so 14 kWh/7,2 = 1,94 hours. Add 20% overhead = 2,33 hours

cometguy

I think the 7.2-kW charger would be listed as an add-on option; I assume that you have a list of the options added to your car above the standard model... If it's not listed with the options, you most likely have the 3.6-kW charger...

jnolan

rsyed

i have spent a lot of time researching this because my dealer was a joke and did not know his stuff.

To answer this question, ideally you need to answer the following questions: where will you be charging primarily? home or office? what power supply do you have there? how much time do you have to charge the car (for example you charge at teh office but your car rarely stays parked as you have lots of appointments outside your office and you end up driving around a lot)?

JCBH

Yes, this is important - dealers are not really set up to be of much help on this stuff it seems. My dealer was great, but the documentation was a bit sparse...
We set up our main charger (that came with the car) at the house and got a 240/50 amp feed setup, so it charges fully (from empty) in 2.4 hours....but we then added a charger at my office (originally had a normal 110 feed to it...) but quickly realized that I wanted a quick charge there, too, as I would stop in for a few hours, head out to appointments, and the result was that the car would not be charged very much in that time via the 110 feed. Therefore, we had it upgraded to the 240/50 setup, as well. Now it is much more useful. Also, we have the 7.2 onboard charger...definitely a must-have.
Lastly, we added a third charger for our car storage/hangar, and it is a bit of a pain to get 240/50 where the car is parked...and the car mostly just gets parked in this facility overnight when it is there, so the 110 is really fine...if possible, we will upgrade there, but for now it works.
Jeff

jnolan

thanks. The electrical specs for the charger are not an issue for me. 240 volt (not amp) power is just household current that uses a different receptacle, or in my case would be hardwired to the panel. 120 volt power is 3 legs, 1 hot, 1 neutral and 1 ground. To run 240 volts through it, swap the circuit breaker out and run the 1 neutral to hot resulting in 2 hot, 1 ground. It is really pretty simple, 2 x 120 volt = 240 volt, which also doubles the amount of amperage that is delivered. Volts equal force, amperage equals the volume of electrons being delivered. But in order for it to matter, the motor (in this case, the charger) needs to be matched to the voltage configuration. A 240 volt supply line won't do you much good if the charger isn't equipped to handle it.

It is this part that is a little confusing when reading through the Porsche material. The car doesn't come standard with the 7.2kw charger, which seems like a pretty big #fail in a $210k car. Therefore, even if I have the proper wiring for the fast charge, the car itself would not be capable of taking advantage of it without the 7.2kw charger. Right? The charger is integral to the car, the thing that plugs into the power source and delivers power to the car seems to be administrative (manage the flow of electricity, etc.). This is my first hybrid EV, so it's all fun and new learning for me.

Insofar as other details, we park our vehicles outside so I researched it and the huge enclosure that Porsche gives you to park the brick-sized "important bits thing" is rated for outdoor installations. We have a long driveway with a carriage house, which conveniently is where the electrical panels (3 of them) for the main house and other services are. Running the power to mount the charger outside will not be an issue.

Lastly, fast vs. slow... I always opt for fast, it's why I buy Porsche

rsyed

Yes that is unfortunately true. Even if you have the right power supply at home, if the car comes with the standard charger, you will be charging at a 1/2 the speed. So if you have the right power supply, then you should also have the 7,2kw charger to take advantage of the power suppy. On the other hand, if you have the 7,2 kw charger but don't have the right power supply, you will also be charging at 1/2 the speed. This charger is integrated in the car so it is nothing you can change once the car has been produced. And if you can, it would be more than the 800$ they are asking you when you spec it for your order.

If you charge only at home, and probably do that at night, the 7,2kw charger is not necessarily needed because whether it takes 2,x hours or 4,x hours to charge at night makes no difference. I primarily charge at home at night but still took the 7,2kw charger because I thought, in case I have the option to charge outside for free, I would to charge as much as possible in as little time as possible - totally stingy as hell

jnolan

Based on this thread, I added it to the build along with all the other options for charging. I do anticipate charging at home, this is my wife's car and she will be coming and going from home, primarily. Having a fast charge option will be useful during the daytime hours.

gssd124

can someone help me with hybrid charging. I’m shipping my 2016 hybrid US spec to Germany while I am there for work for 6 years. Will the plug in work there they are on 220v I believe. Also is the plug the same on US spec and EURO versions?