[Malcolm Hedges]

Morning All

My local council have worked with Osprey and installed a charger in their staff car park, a very welcome start. Our local DHL driver has an MG and tipped me off that it was up and running, so off I toddle to check it out and do a little bit of testing in both cars.

Long story short, bumped into the Osprey CEO at the charger, local lad, on a second test in the ID.3 had a problem, reported it to the helpdesk. The CEO chappy gave me a call back yesterday, there's a nuance that's worth knowing.

On my second charging test I turned up with 87% SOC in the ID.3. Turns out the car and the charging unit don't talk to one another very nicely at that SOC and the car won't charge. Seems as if this can occur on other cars and is an issue when initiating a charge above 80% SOC.

Just thought I'd let people know just in case, unlikely that many people will attempt a charge at 80% or above, but if you do, it might not work. A never ending game of chase the firmware updates with the car and charger manufacturers apparently.

 

[EdH]

Helpful and thanks, but if what you say is a built in feature of the charger, it would be more helpful if Osprey put a message on their chargers to inform customers. Next time you bump into their CEO, maybe let him know 😉 .

 

[GTE Imp]

Morning All

My local council have worked with Osprey and installed a charger in their staff car park, a very welcome start. Our local DHL driver has an MG and tipped me off that it was up and running, so off I toddle to check it out and do a little bit of testing in both cars.

Long story short, bumped into the Osprey CEO at the charger, local lad, on a second test in the ID.3 had a problem, reported it to the helpdesk. The CEO chappy gave me a call back yesterday, there's a nuance that's worth knowing.

On my second charging test I turned up with 87% SOC in the ID.3. Turns out the car and the charging unit don't talk to one another very nicely at that SOC and the car won't charge. Seems as if this can occur on other cars and is an issue when initiating a charge above 80% SOC.

Just thought I'd let people know just in case, unlikely that many people will attempt a charge at 80% or above, but if you do, it might not work. A never ending game of chase the firmware updates with the car and charger manufacturers apparently.

That's strange - probably an issue with that particular charger. I charged to 100%, to level of my battery's cells, a couple of days ago on a Polar(BP Pulse) 50kWh charger. Apart from the charge rate slowing down significantly during the period from 80-100% SOC I didn't notice any issues.

 

[Alessandro Volta of Como]

That's strange - probably an issue with that particular charger. I charged to 100%, to level of my battery's cells, a couple of days ago on a Polar(BP Pulse) 50kWh charger. Apart from the charge rate slowing down significantly during the period from 80-100% SOC I didn't notice any issues.

But was it over 80% when you plugged in and started?

 

[Kiltox]

That's strange - probably an issue with that particular charger. I charged to 100%, to level of my battery's cells, a couple of days ago on a Polar(BP Pulse) 50kWh charger. Apart from the charge rate slowing down significantly during the period from 80-100% SOC I didn't notice any issues.

Are you sure your particular car will actually balance on a rapid charger? I know mine won’t (MG ZS) - needs to be an AC charge.

 

[HandyAndy]

Silly qn I expect - did you have the car set to charge all the way to 100%? I think you set this twice in the menus, separately for Rapids & Type-2/home.

 

[Malcolm Hedges]

Just tested it with the Tesla, fine but a weird thing happened at the end, off to bed, more detail tomorrow

 

[Neilew]

My tip is that on the ones I've used you have to really tug the plug out of the holster. It's like they're had in by a massively strong magnet. First one I tried I drove away from because I was frightened I was going to break it. I had to pull it that hard. Otherwise Osprey are my favourite as you can use what3words to find them.

 

[londonguy]

I find that there’s a slight lip on the holster but not much, you almost need to lift the plug 1cm up in the holster then pull it towards you.

 

[Malcolm Hedges]

So, arrived with very cold battery, 37% SOC. Toddled up to 80% "ramping" up from 35kw/h to 40 (as I say very cold battery the car has barely been driven for 3 or 4 months) and then at 80% the rate increase to 47 quite sharply. I disconnected shortly after, the CCS unit showed red and unavailable, I removed and reinserted the charger handle into the charger and all good, green again.

Checked our ID.3 last night, bit of faffing ensuring the plug connected and communicated properly with the car (the light on the car socket is quite small and goes out, why they didn't copy BMW's ring around the socket I don't know, they copied the dash/gearstick) but then all good, again battery was cold and VW insist on using MPH for charging speed (it got up to100 whatever that means).

So no big deal just something to be aware of and an interesting insight for me in the never ending cycle of car releases, firmware updates, different charging unit suppliers and firmware updates. It's not as easy as we think !

 

[Flying Dodo]

Seems a bit daft to design a system which doesn't consistently let you charge above 80%. As sometimes you need more, regardless of how slow the charging rate becomes.

 

[Malcolm Hedges]

It does let you charge above 80% if you start below 80%, sometimes there are issues if you start above 80% in certain cars. This isn't something that was designed in it's something that has occurred as a result of a firmware upgrade. As I mentioned earlier every time a manufacturer changes their software (and with Tesla that's monthly) the charging operators have to work with the charge manufacturers to test their hardware works with the new car software. If it doesn't they need to make a change and then check that change hasn't "broken" the charger for every other car that might want to charge. And then constantly repeat. Makes you appreciate the simplicity of Tesla's vertical integration model.

As I say, in reliaty how many people turn up at a fast charger with SOC greater than 80% ? Very few, and for those of you who do and experience a failure, now you know why

 

[Astolat]

Isn’t this more of a feature than a bug? Stops people hogging the charger when they don’t need it, particularly if the council is offering free parking when charging?

 

[Malcolm Hedges]

The CEO of Osprey told me it's a bug