[ghengeveld]

Last week I took my Ariya Evolve 87kWh on a skiing trip from The Netherlands to Austria. We mostly used Ionity since we could charge there cheaply. It was a ~2000km (1200mi) trip (there and back), mostly through Germany. Outside temperature was around freezing throughout the trip. All chargers we used were capable of at least 150kW charging speed.

On the way there we charged 5 times, all Ionity. On the way back we charged only 3 times, the 2nd of which was at TotalEnergies, the others at Ionity. We used the battery pre-heating. The first time I started it ~30 minutes before charging, and it didn't quite work (charging was slow at 40kW). I left it on for the remainder of the trip (and verified it was still on at several occasions).

Here's what we experienced:

• Charging at 40 kW, and staying there. I'm not happy with that so I stop charging, unplug and try again. Now it charges at 90 kW.
• Charging speed quickly ramping up all the way to 116 kW. Staying there for 30 seconds and then quickly dropping all the way back to 0 and getting an error. This happened at least 3 times, at various charging stations.
• Charging at 90 kW continuously. This was fine but I was hoping for more. This happened both at Ionity and TotalEnergies.
• Charging at 116kW at Ionity's most modern chargers but erroring out after a couple minutes. Luckily I noticed the push notification from the Nissan Connect app. So I kept an eye on the app during dinner. I moved it to another charger after the first error, but got the same behavior again. Restarted it once more and then it worked like a champ charging at 116kW for the longest time (I did not monitor the curve since the app doesn't display charging speed).

Overall I'm a bit disappointed about the whole experience. I'm really hoping Nissan will fix this flaky behavior through software updates and deliver on its charging speed promises.

We also had an issue with the matrix LED adaptive high beam on the highway. It was working at first but after a while it was simply all on all the time, blinding other drivers, so I disabled it. It may have been caused by the road conditions (wet road, splashing onto the windshield and freezing up there). I used a lot of washer fluid to no avail. I tried the adaptive high beam again on the return trip and it worked flawlessly.

On a final note, I had my steering wheel replaced several weeks ago because I occasionally got a lane assist system error. Apparently there's some defective steering wheels where they stitched through some sensors/wiring. Unfortunately the "hands on wheel" sensor is now much less sensitive so it's complaining about my hands not being on the wheel even though they are. I did not have that experience before they replaced the steering wheel.

 

[Gsword]

Thank you for posting your experience. With the introduction of a new model, especially one that has the advanced technology of the Ariya, there are likely to be bugs that arise. The challenge for Nissan is to respond quickly with software updates and other fixes necessary to make the Ariya perform as promised.

Long range trips under winter conditions are a challenge for EVs generally. The charging infrastructure in Europe is ahead of what is available here in the U.S., except for Tesla. It will take improvements in both battery technology and the available charging to remedy these issues.

As we are finding out, technology is great when it works, but really annoying and potentially dangerous when it fails. Keep us informed of your Ariya experiences going forward.

 

[ghengeveld]

Absolutely, this is why I posted this in the first place. I'm hoping Nissan engineers keep an eye on this forum and take steps to address these issues.

 

[atreis]

Interesting post. This weekend I tried a fast charge for the first time. I didn't really need it, but am leaving on a longer trip in a couple weeks and wanted to try out fast charging in a low stakes setting before leaving. There's no EVGo anywhere near me so I went to an EA station, plugged in, and started the charge. It started okay, but within a couple minutes it stopped. The EA screen looked to me like it thought the car was fully charged. I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and started the charge again. It ran fine for 20 minutes (at 70kW - I hadn't pre-heated), until it reached my target (80%) and I stopped it myself. I chalked it up to a flaky EA charger, but after reading your description I wonder if the car has an intermittent issue with throwing an error shortly after starting a fast charge session...

Anyone else with more experience fast charging seen something like this happening?

 

[cmbrayer]

Interesting post. This weekend I tried a fast charge for the first time. I didn't really need it, but am leaving on a longer trip in a couple weeks and wanted to try out fast charging in a low stakes setting before leaving. There's no EVGo anywhere near me so I went to an EA station, plugged in, and started the charge. It started okay, but within a couple minutes it stopped. The EA screen looked to me like it thought the car was fully charged. I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and started the charge again. It ran fine for 20 minutes (at 70kW - I hadn't pre-heated), until it reached my target (80%) and I stopped it myself. I chalked it up to a flaky EA charger, but after reading your description I wonder if the car has an intermittent issue with throwing an error shortly after starting a fast charge session...

Anyone else with more experience fast charging seen something like this happening?

I’m starting to like my reservation cancellation decision more and more every day.

 

[cmbrayer]

Hopefully things will get better.

 

[ghengeveld]

I’m starting to like my reservation cancellation decision more and more every day.

I don't know what this is supposed to add to the discussion except to be salty.

For what it's worth, I'm incredibly happy with my Ariya despite these hiccups. A lot of new cars have issues in their early series which take a while to sort out. Don't be an early adopter if you're not prepared to deal with such issues. My brother has a Polestar 2 and had similar issues at first, and is still dealing with defective adaptive high beams (that work when driving west, but not when driving east; go figure).

 

[atreis]

I don't know what this is supposed to add to the discussion except to be salty.

For what it's worth, I'm incredibly happy with my Ariya despite these hiccups. A lot of new cars have issues in their early series which take a while to sort out. Don't be an early adopter if you're not prepared to deal with such issues. My brother has a Polestar 2 and had similar issues at first, and is still dealing with defective adaptive high beams (that work when driving west, but not when driving east; go figure).

I totally agree. This was a very minor hiccup that took me 2 minutes to fix. One minute scratching my head and wondering what I'd done wrong (this being the first time trying DCFC), and another minute to actually fix it. Also, I still don't know that it wasn't the charger. I'll have more data on that in a couple weeks after my trip.