[ UPDATE 10/12/2022 16:00 ] Gentari’s 350kW DC fast chargers at X Park Sunway Serene can now charge at full speeds. Both #1 and #2 350kW chargers are fully operational.
[ UPDATE 7/12/2022 12:30 ] Gentari has confirmed that its 350kW chargers are currently limited to 175kW. It aims to remove the charging capacity cap after 15th December 2022.
===
Last week, Gentari launched Southeast Asia’s first public 350kW EV supercharger at X Park Sunway Serene and it is currently offered for free until 15th December 2022. However, it appears that the DC fast charger isn’t pushing its full potential as it could only deliver half of its maximum output.
While the charger is capable of 350kW, not all vehicles will be able to get the maximum rate as there are other factors to consider which include the state of charge, temperature, as well as the maximum input that the EV can accept. Obviously if an EV can only take up to 150kW of DC charging, it can’t go higher than 150kW.
During the launch, we managed to charged a Kia EV6 from 50-90% in 15 minutes. Initially, we got a maximum rate of 173kW before it starts to drop to 63kW when the charge level exceeds the 80% mark.
According to Hyundai Motor Group’s test demonstrating 10-80% charge in 18 minutes, the Ioniq 5 was able to hit a maximum rate of 225kW between 30-50%. To replicate this, we tried the 350kW DC charger at X Park Sunway Serene on the EV6 from a lower 20% state of charge. There are two 350kW nozzles at the charging hub but only one is operational at the moment.
After plugging the cable in and activating the 350kW charger using the Setel, the charging rate maxes out at around 173kW from 20%-70%. The Ioniq 5 and EV6 should be able to go as high as 225kW but we couldn’t get any higher than 175kW. From the looks of it, there’s a currently a hard cap on the charging output for the 350kW charger. Nevertheless, the charge is still pretty fast and we managed to get from 20-80% in just 17 minutes with a total 47.9kWh electricity used.
The lower output isn’t a big issue for now since the AC and DC stations are offered for free. After 15th December 2022, EV owners will be charged per kWh and the rates vary depending on the charging output. According to Gentari, the 350kW charger costs RM1.20 per kWh while the 180kW costs RM1.00 per kWh. For our charge from 20-80% (47.9kWh), it would have cost us RM57.48 for using the 350kW charger or RM47.90 for the 180kW charger. That’s a difference of almost RM10.
Since the new 350kW DC chargers are clearly marked as 350kW, Gentari should not impose any cap as paying customers are paying the extra premium to save time. At the very least, there should be clear labels of a maximum power output for each nozzle if there’s a hard limit. If customers are only getting a maximum of 175kW out of these superchargers, it would make more sense to pay according to the 180kW rate instead.
We’ve reached out to Gentari on the matter and we will update once we have an official response.
Related reading
- EV DC fast charging in Malaysia: kWh vs time-based charging, which is cheaper?
- Gentari offers free EV charging up to 350kW at X Park Sunway Serene for a limited time
- Gentari launches Southeast Asia’s first 350kW EV charger, pay by kWh instead of time
- Petronas launches Gentari green energy company, plans to install 25,000 EV chargers across Asia by 2030
