Speak EV - Electric Car Forums banner

ID3 - charge rate in the cold (advice please!)

2K views 18 replies 8 participants last post by  Harry_Zoe  
#1 ·
Sleepily checked the ID3 this morning only to find it had started charging at 2kW at 23:30 last night and stayed there all night, only reaching 50% by 05:30 which is not enough for the commute. Luckily the Soul is charged up and is now taking wifey to work.

I pre-conned the ID3 before moving it off the drive (needed space to put some charge in the other car) and I've now put it back on the drive to charge it up a bit, 45 mins or so after I moved it off the drive.

Interestingly it is now charging at the full 7.5kW despite the air temperature still being below freezing.

Does that mean that pre-conning the car also preheats the battery? If so, does anyone know if scheduling a precon for 23:30 will "encourage" the car to take the rate above 2kW?
 
#4 ·
Hmm. I was going off the logical line of thought that follows from the earlier thread I did where the car slowed its charging once it was above 80% and it was cold outside. The "most forgiving" explanation regarding the car is the one I gave in the OP.

If the car is just going to randomly decide to only charge at 2kW that's a different kettle of fish.
 
#5 ·
It's not the cold, that has no effect on AC rate unless the battery is all below zero, in which case it will use some of the power to run the battery heater. You then draw the normal power from the plug but a small proportion isn't used for charging. For the battery to get that cold requires several days of sub zero temperatures in my experience - it's a big mass to cool down that much, especially if you are using the car.

Most commonly, if it's charging at 1-2kw it is because it wasn't quite fully plugged in or there was some grit in the socket/plug. It does this as a safety measure if the shortest pin hasn't made a full connection.
Another possibility is that you have turned on the "reduced AC charging current " option in the app or infotainment. This limits it to 8A, or just under 2kw. However if it's now charging at 7.5kw, you can rule that out.
The final possibility is that it's caused by an error in the interface between car and charger when the charger is doing the scheduling. However in this circumstance it's usually 4kw rather 2kw and that problem seems a lot less common than it used to be.
Most likely you just hadn't quite seated the plug fully.
 
#6 ·
It's not the cold, that has no effect on AC rate unless the battery is all below zero, in which case it will use some of the power to run the battery heater. You then draw the normal power from the plug but a small proportion isn't used for charging.

Most commonly, if it's charging at 1-2kw it is because it wasn't quite fully plugged in or there was some grit in the socket/plug. It does this as a safety measure if the shortest pin hasn't made a full connection.
Another possibility is that you have turned on the "reduced AC charging current " option in the app or infotainment. This limits it to 8A, or just under 2kw. However if it's now charging at 7.5kw, you can rule that out.
The final possibility is that it's caused by an error in the interface between car and charger when the charger is doing the scheduling. However in this circumstance it's usually 4kw rather 2kw and that problem seems a lot less common than it used to be.
Most likely you just hadn't quite seated the plug fully.
Hmm. Wifey is always knackered when she gets home after her 13 hour day, so that's actually quite plausible. I will make a point of re-plugging firmly the next time we charge and not bother with the precon to try and keep the fault-finding to one change at a time.

Thanks!
 
#7 ·
This feels very weird. It just charged all the way from 50% to 90% at 7kW on the second time of asking. But every time it's gone above 80% previously for us, it has cut the rate back to 2kW (per my earlier thread). This should exclude temperature as a variable, as it's still below freezing here, same as it was when I made my earlier post. So what's causing the variability? (The plug is clean - I checked it, it's tethered as well and always plugged into the Zappi when not in use, so no reason to expect it to be dirty anyway).

The inconsistency in charging that I'm finding here is fairly disconcerting to be honest.
 
#8 ·
Is it a brand new one? See what happens if you turn off battery care mode. On older cars like mine all this does is revert the charge limit to 80% after completing a charge to a higher %. However VW did say a while back this would be made more intelligent in future. It's possible software 5 is more advanced and reduces charge rate above 80% in the cold or something, I'm not sure.
I'm assuming that if you are on IOG then you are sure it isn't just the Octopus schedule. I get Octopus/Ohme scheduling plenty of periods at 2kw or 4kw as well as 7.5kw.
 
#11 ·
Nah, the Zappi is fine, worked all last week for the Soul, for example. Worked fine this morning when I plugged it in.

Sidehaas idea of a slightly-not-tightly-enough plugged in ID3 last night is still the most plausible option for the cause of the 2kW charge, which is my main concern.

Because I've got the ID3 up to 90%, wifey can drive it to work tomorrow then we can have a play with charging it again tomorrow night. We can fill the Soul tonight and not deplete it much tomorrow, meaning we're safe for Friday's commute even if the ID3 has a repeat problem tomorrow night.

Oh, the fun!