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Charging Anomaly

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mknox

Well-Known Member
Aug 7, 2012
10,104
1,901
Toronto, ON
This morning, when I logged on to the mobile app to pre-heat the car, I was shocked to find it was still charging and hadn't really gained any range since the day before. I had it scheduled to start charging at midnight which should have been plenty of time. It was about 20 F in my garage and I wondered if that had anything to do with it.

Then I checked my energy monitor log and saw this:

ScreenShot001.jpg


The light green line is the 20 amp, 240 volt EV circuit. (Dark green is my water heater and blue is the whole house). The car is programmed to charge at 16 amps.

You can see the car come on briefly at 1:54 AM, 4:36 AM then at 6:35 AM which is about when I checked on the car with the app. Each time, the car is charging at the full 16 amps I have it set to.

It is still very cold (maybe 25 F) and I sucked down a lot of range on my 45 mile trek to work this morning. I hope whatever this was doesn't repeat tonight. I'm already on my third UMC and second Charge Port.

Anyone else ever seen anything like this?
 
16 apps x volts= kw How much is your voltage? Assume you are getting 3 kW per hour. Assume you were down 22 kW. It might take 7 hours to finish charging. If you can, start charing earlier. and confirm the max charge setting you have.
 
Last Thursday mine didn't start charging at the scheduled time. Relays were clacking on and off and ran the 12V battery down to 11.3 V. But, as soon as I stepped on the brake pedal, it started charging. SC gave me a new UMC, but I remain skeptical.
 
16 apps x volts= kw How much is your voltage? Assume you are getting 3 kW per hour. Assume you were down 22 kW. It might take 7 hours to finish charging. If you can, start charing earlier. and confirm the max charge setting you have.

I typically get between 230 and 240 volts which yields 11 MPH of Rated range. I've been charging at 16 amps since March, although I do plan on installing a 50 amp outlet soon. That's not the issue. I have the timing down pat. The issue is that it didn't come on at all at midnight, then made a couple attempts for a couple of minute each through the night.

I charged for an hour at lunch at a ChargePoint station nearby and it seemed to work fine.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm. Two reports of odd behavior with timed charging. 5.8 strikes again?:eek:

I wonder... Maybe I'll try the "miracle cure" and re-boot.
 
There have been reports here in Norway of the car not being able to start charging when the battery is cold soaked. I read jkirkebo reported that when that happened to him he had to heat the car via the app for 10 minutes and then restart charging, which made it start fine. I'm thinking that if you park and let the car sit for a few hours in really low temps, maybe the battery cools to a temp where it is for some reason unable to start charging. This would be kind of a bug, since the should draw power from the wall and route this power to the battery heater first and then as the battery assumes the correct temp start charging.
 
There have been reports here in Norway of the car not being able to start charging when the battery is cold soaked. I read jkirkebo reported that when that happened to him he had to heat the car via the app for 10 minutes and then restart charging, which made it start fine. I'm thinking that if you park and let the car sit for a few hours in really low temps, maybe the battery cools to a temp where it is for some reason unable to start charging. This would be kind of a bug, since the should draw power from the wall and route this power to the battery heater first and then as the battery assumes the correct temp start charging.

That could be what's going on. It got quite cold last night, although it's only gonna get colder :crying:
 
The car will not start charging if the pack is cold enough, but it will turn on the pack heater and warm up the battery, and then start charging.

So something else was going on then. After earlier UMC and Charge Port troubles, I always pay close attention when plugging in. Last night, the charge port was Blue and the dash had the "Charge Scheduled for 12:00" message displayed. When I came out this morning, the charge port was flashing green, the UMC's LEDs were blinking in sequence so I know it was plugged in properly. I just don't know why it didn't come on when scheduled and why it made two abortive attempts during the night and finally kicked in when I launched the iPhone app to set the heat. It might be related to what Johan reports, or maybe something else. I've never yet had "range anxiety" but this car does give me "charge anxiety" from time to time!
 
This morning, when I logged on to the mobile app to pre-heat the car, I was shocked to find it was still charging and hadn't really gained any range since the day before. I had it scheduled to start charging at midnight which should have been plenty of time. It was about 20 F in my garage and I wondered if that had anything to do with it.

Then I checked my energy monitor log and saw this:

View attachment 36419

The light green line is the 20 amp, 240 volt EV circuit. (Dark green is my water heater and blue is the whole house). The car is programmed to charge at 16 amps.

You can see the car come on briefly at 1:54 AM, 4:36 AM then at 6:35 AM which is about when I checked on the car with the app. Each time, the car is charging at the full 16 amps I have it set to.

It is still very cold (maybe 25 F) and I sucked down a lot of range on my 45 mile trek to work this morning. I hope whatever this was doesn't repeat tonight. I'm already on my third UMC and second Charge Port.

Anyone else ever seen anything like this?

Same here. very cold here. scheduled charge did not start in 5.8.
 
+1 This night it was the first time with temperatures below zero celsius here in Switzerland and the car did not start charging with 5.8.

Interesting that others are seeing this too. It got a bit above 0 Celsius at my place last night, and I set it for an earlier time so I could watch it. Mine did come on and charge properly but a) the ambient temperature was higher and b) the battery would still have been warm because it started to charge less than an hour after I'd returned from a long drive.

Going to have to keep an eye on this...
 
Same thing happened in Toronto last night too. Scheduled charging at 3am, the car didn't charge. I think it started with 120km waiting for charge and ended up with 80km range in the morning not charged.Also, dashboard display was stuck at waiting for display message.... It seems like the car didn't wake up to charge.
 
My (lack of) charging issue

I had my car in last week and received a new charge cable and adapter. I also had 5.8 upgraded. The first time or two it charged successfully. Last night it did not. It's always fun to wake up and see you have 65 miles left and a full day of travels scheduled. I then saw the charging adapter was red, the plug on the S was red and a message about a charging error was on the screen. I had to pull the plug from the wall and insert again to make the red go away. It immediately started to charge and then clicked a couple times and then went to red again with the same error. I had to do this 3 times to get it to finally start charging.

Just wanted to post as this may be something different or similar. I am in southern CA and the temps may have dropped to the 50's. So I don't think this is a cold issue as I have had many other colder nights and not had a problem.
 
I had my car in last week and received a new charge cable and adapter.

I'm on my third. I had problems getting the cord to connect to the car. It would slide into the port, but nothing would happen. If I played around with it, pressed buttons on the screen and mobile app, I'd start to get clicks and bangs and eventually it would start to charge. Each time they replaced the UMC it would work perfectly for a while, then start acting up again. When I had the car in for service a month or so ago, they replaced the charge port and the UMC. With the exception of the scheduled charge not happening, the cable has been connecting to the car very reliably since this last repair.