Skoda Enyaq Forum

Hi. We’ve just signed up for the PowerPass Charge Faster (free for 12 months). At the end of the process it said something about not being able to use public chargers until the RFID card was paired? I’m assuming we can use the service straight away with the iOS app.. or do we really need to wait for the physical card? Picking our car up this weekend from Scotland and driving it to Berkshire/Surrey border via a family and friends visit in the North West.

Another question.. I was watching a YouTube video last week posted by an a Enyaq owner and I think it was implying that the faster charging stations (100Kwh++) would only work if the charge in the car was very low? I’m hoping I misunderstood! My assumption is that super faster charging will operate at 100Kwh irrespective of how much charge is in the car.. I.e. around 50% etc?

Thanks!

You need the card number which needs to be associated with your account (Paired).
The Enyaq will control the power it taken from Fast DC chargers and will reduce power as the charge increases to maximise battery life.

All lithium batteries accept charge more when they’re less full. Have a look at when you charge your phone, it’ll go from 20% to 50% in a few minutes, but to get from 70% to 90% will take way longer.

So there a charging curve that shows how much current (and hence power) a battery can accept without damage and the battery management system will limit it to this.

For most EVs, you’ll only get the maximum charge rate below 20%, then it’ll drop as you get towards 80% when it really drops off. Hence why you shouldn’t generally charge over 80% on public chargers because it’ll take a very long time to add not a lot of charge.

Have a watch of Bjørn Nyland’s 1000km YouTube videos. He attempts to drive 1000km in as little time as possible (at the speed limit). The trick is to reduce the time spent charging. And to do that he runs it down to 5% or lower, and only charges to about 40-50%. That means the car charges as fast as it can and puts in enough to get to another rapid charger. More stops maybe, but five short stops often means more time actually moving than one long stop charging to 100%.

It's a steep learning curve for those of coming from 10-year-old ICE cars, to brand new EVs. Charging curves, different RFID cards, etc. I've attached an example charging curve for the 80 (plagiarised from https://ev-database.uk/car/1280/Skoda-Enyaq-iV-80). I couldn't find one for the 60, but it will be similar: I found it quite easy to sign up for Powerpass - folks on this forum have posted all the things you need to know. Download the app, enter your vehicle details, if you've got the faster charging it will offer you the subscription for reduced costs for a year, then they send you a credit card-sized RFID card in the post a week or two later. You then tell the app the number on the card, and the app and card are paired.

Thanks guys.

@Rich..Bjorn’s experiment reminds me of a F1 race and which strategy is best!

I guess the issue with going below 10% battery on a motorway run is that if the charger is out of order (or a long queue)... you could have an issue. When I was looking at zap map for my route I was looking at charging points where there was another option not too far down the road! Now I need to factor in the battery level too.

Yes, he does have the advantage of being in Norway where there are way more charge locations than the UK. But we’re getting there.
Personally I think I’ll get a bit nervous below 20% and want to have at least three potential places nearby. I know we’ve all got 3 years breakdown cover which will transport to a working charger, but they could take hours to happen.