[Ryanteck]

I'm asking on here to try to be able to diagnose the common Battery Charging Impossible fault.

So far I've had it 2/3 times when trying to rapid charge. Never when using 7KW or 22KW Posts.

First time it happened was at an Ecotricity Unit back in November, I originally was going to take it back to the dealer to have a look at but was advised by RZOC members to try another rapid.

As I don't have any local I made the journey to the next closest one which is a Pod Point unit and it worked straight away so I cancelled the dealership appointment accepting that it was the Ecotricity Unit.

Then yesterday I made a longish trip, could have made it easily to and from the destination if I had charged beforehand but knowing that at the location there was a free Rapid (The exact same pod point I used to verify the car was fine before) I left it a bit emptier where I could easily get to the destination but would need to charge to get home.

Got to the destination with 33% and it went to charge but then stopped, it tried a couple more times then BCI.

The symptom does seem a little weird, As it doesn't just refuse to charge at all (what I'd expect if its an earthing issue) but it charges for about 5 seconds then stops and loops until the Zoe BCIs.

Luckily the location had a 7KW post which I used to top up to 50% battery. I then went to try the rapid again but as I plugged in another car (Tesla) plugged in to the DC connection. The charger then started fine for the other driver but then the Zoe started charging fine too with CanZE reporting a rate of 22-28KW.

The interesting thing is if it was the earth as I keep getting told, the charger would not have charged at all even when the Tesla plugged in? CanZE Reported 39 Ohms on the Rapid and 7KW Post.

The only thing is that was the charger failing to deliver 43KW AC or is it that my car can't handle 43KW AC. It charges on 22KW Posts fine but both times my car has gone to charge at the full 43KW it seems to fail.

How do I clearly know if it is the charger at fault or the car?

 

[Sandy]

If your car works on most chargers, but the same rapids give you issues then its the chargers. Simple.

I occasionally have to use a rapid near home (20miles) which always gives me a BCI but only when the car has pulled about 5kwh from the charger (fortunately enough to get home if I drive slow enough).

 

[Ryanteck]

It works on 7KW fine and a couple of 22KWs but doesn't on rapids. When it does on a 43KW rapid it usually is at a greatly reduced speed.

 

[Sandy]

It works on 7KW fine and a couple of 22KWs but doesn't on rapids. When it does on a 43KW rapid it usually is at a greatly reduced speed.

Make sure your checking a few different rapids (locations / brands). Worth checking with CANZE too, some rapids do charge at greatly reduced speeds on AC (particularly the older evolt rapids) which are reconfigured to 11+kw and not 43kw.

 

[yoh-there]

39 ohm is OK for the ZOE. Depending on the model the limit is 150 or 200. So it's not very likely that is the problem. And the earth test is done after the "CLOINK" of the chargepoint, but before the whine kicks in.

Of course the car can be at fault. Write down your odo when you have the problem, as data of the last 10 charge sessions is saved with the odo as key. That will help the dealer.

Absent a fault in the car, my guess is it's either:
- a case of serious phase unbalance;
- harmonics getting out of check (this can be checked with CanZE, hopefully it will report enough data before quitting).
Neither is something you can do something about.

Then there is an awfully benign issue that has bitten me, though not in the consistent way you describe: these 3x63 A cables are so damn heavy, and the plug often acts as such a long lever (stupid design) that the lock pin feedback switch is sometime pried open. Diagnostic is easy: just support the plug-cable. If it charges while you hold it and quits when you let go, there's your problem.

 

[Ryanteck]

Well I've been doing some more testing today. Luckily a brand new Geniepoint 43KW unit has opened down the road from where I live.

This morning it charged however at under 30KW, I then went to the dealer I brought it from and notified them that it is an intermittent fault and booked it in to have looked at in 2 weeks time. The 30KW limit could have been because it was cold.

However I then decided to try another 22KW post I've not tried before which is around a 30 mile round trip from where I live. I popped to it and it charged fine and I charged for 10 minutes before leaving. I then decided to re-attempt charging at the rapid around the corner from me on the way home now the batteries would have been warm and I got the BCI Again.

It seems to be when the car is requesting 43KW according to CanZE that it trips out. I know the chargepoint should be fine from where it charged at 30KW this morning. Took it to the dealer and they couldn't charge it either. Seems to be an intermittent fault when "hot" at 43KW

 

[yoh-there]

From the way you describe it they didn't immediately hook their CLIP tool to the car when this happened. Quite a foolish thing not to do with an intermittent fault if you ask me.

Allow me to post my prediction here, with the usual disclaimer: I am not a car mechanic, just a technically inclined person hoarding all technical information I can get my hands on about this car since I own it, and trying to make sense of it. Since it happens while charging / in the ramp up to full power (which starts around 3-4 seconds after the chargepoint contactor closes, and lasts just over a second from what we have seen reported), it could well be the HF leak current going over 300 mA. Incidentally a gentleman in Belgium posting in the Dutch forum is reporting the exact same issue, though at even much lower power levels.

Replacement of the filter module in the car was the solution in another case. The thing looks like this (2nd and 3rd picture), it's in the left part of that big metal box under the bonnet.

 

[Ryanteck]

To be honest this sounds best for the symptoms that its never felt like earth based on the fact it even tries to charge.

I got it used from a Renault Dealership, outside of the Zoe warranty but 1 year used warranty. They have two branches where I live, one which is a smaller salesroom and has a two bay servicing depot.

However shortly after I found that they can't do any ZE work and I have to take it to the other branch they own. But I was only able to get the car to the closer one which does servicing (Despite the fact they have a Renault Clip).

I'm gong to drive it minimal and only charge it up once at home until it can be seen by the branch which has the ZE Tech.

Its a little bit of a relief it might be the car as the most common response of asking in Zoe groups has been that its always the charger at fault which didn't feel right to me. (I'm not that into cars but very technically minded).

Edit: @yoh-there I think you could be right with the HF being high. I didn't remember to take a screenshot of that page when the 43KW failed for me the second time. But I did for some reason at the 22KW Charger. And got 183mA which is quite high thinking about it.

(I know it might not be proportional) but doing some simple maths, that adds up if I divide it by 22. If I times it by 30 which is what I was charging at this morning and by 28 which was yesterday after the rapid there started working (after half an hour of cooling down) then that is also under 300. Times it by 40 which is what it attempted when it failed again and its over 300.

 

[dparr59]

I found that My 2017 Q90 will fail on a few Chargers :
43kw Rapid McArthurGlen York ( Others have had the same problem )
22kw Travel Lodge York ( Others have had the same problem )
22kw Chamber Road Car Park , Doncaster
7kw Cross Lane Hospital, Scarborough

Might be worth telling us in which area you live and someone close might have had
the same problem , Or maybe willing to try the charger to see if the same thing happens.

 

[Ryanteck]

I found that My 2017 Q90 will fail on a few Chargers :
43kw Rapid McArthurGlen York ( Others have had the same problem )
22kw Travel Lodge York ( Others have had the same problem )
22kw Chamber Road Car Park , Doncaster
7kw Cross Lane Hospital, Scarborough

Might be worth telling us in which area you live and someone close might have had
the same problem , Or maybe willing to try the charger to see if the same thing happens.

Great Yarmouth

43KW Ecotricity - Newmarket Services
43KW Pod Point - Lidl Norwich
43KW Geniepoint - White Horse Great Yarmouth

Both the pod point and geniepoint have both charged and BCId on my car.
Pod Point Yesterday - Failed to charge when I got there, had to use a 7KW post to top up, then the rapid started working. Around half an hour cooldown and it pulled around 28KW.

Geniepoint today: Charged up fine this morning with CanZE Reading 5 degrees at around 30KW. Failed this afternoon reading batteries at 15 Degrees attempting to pull 43KW.

 

[dparr59]

Great Yarmouth

43KW Ecotricity - Newmarket Services
43KW Pod Point - Lidl Norwich
43KW Geniepoint - White Horse Great Yarmouth

Both the pod point and geniepoint have both charged and BCId on my car.

Used the 43KW Pod Point - Lidl Norwich in July last year ( 2018) no problems
charged up about 3 times
I wish the 43KW Geniepoint Great Yarmouth was there when i visited last year

Looking on plugshare no one else has mentioned or even used it other than you ?

 

[Ryanteck]

Used the 43KW Pod Point - Lidl Norwich in July last year ( 2018) no problems
charged up about 3 times
I wish the 43KW Geniepoint Great Yarmouth was there when i visited last year

Looking on plugshare no one else has mentioned or even used it other than you ?

The Lidl Norwich does seem to be fine with the Zoe hence my suspicions of the car. Two other owners confirmed they charged fine on Saturday and last week.

The genie point in GY is brand new, Literally only just got activated today as I went to test it yesterday and it was offline. It helps confirm it isn't a charger issue as I wouldn't expect a new one would fail already. As I said it charged fine this morning so it does seem to match once it requests 43KW that the car fails.

I'll likely be re-trying it again with this and taking some more diagnostics screenshots with CanZE. It does seem to correlate with only high charging.

The other thing has been not just 3 different operators but the fact they're 3 different makes of unit which also correlates this issue.

 

[dparr59]

Looks like a trip to the Renault Dealer for maybe a update or part fitted,
Only thing is with Renault they don't always do update's until they have seen the fault and then
intermittent faults are the ones that take a while to show up and then fix,
The fault will still be showing in the fault log so hopfully that will help and pinpoint
the problem.
Might be worth a call to Renault Customer services too and ask someone there maybe able to help in case the dealer is not * helpful.

*Quote from Renault Dealer South Yorkshire
( when can not do anything unless we can see the fault first )

 

[yoh-there]

It's sometimes the car, sometimes the grid and pretty seldomly the chargepoint *). So good luck with blaming anyone but the car OEM. The other day a Dutch forum member described the ZOE as "a mobile chargepoint tester", and that is not THAT for from the truth: if there is something at fault, she'll find it!!! She's rather picky, but IMHO for very good reasons.

*) for AC the logic is pretty straighforward and there is ZERO high power electronics in the chargepoint. So when things go wrong on the chargepoint side, it is the grid (earth) or wrong commisioning or more logical problems such as card readers, back ends failing etc. Seen them all!

 

[Ryanteck]

All the images to date so far of screenshots of mix of charging and BCI Failures. Earth hasn't been high any of the times.

I've read elsewhere the 12V Battery can be the cause but that's already been replaced.

 

[yoh-there]

Hmmm. Leak current high-ish, but not too crazy it seems. Power limited to 30 kW is set by the car because of the temperature. And I don't get the 16 kW available if it's a rapid, but that might have been after shut down. I am a bit lost tbh.

 

[Ryanteck]

Hmmm. Leak current high-ish, but not too crazy it seems. Power limited to 30 kW is set by the car because of the temperature. And I don't get the 16 kW available if it's a rapid, but that might have been after shut down. I am a bit lost tbh.

It was just a mix of screenshots. Now I know what to re-take when the BCI happens I'll try and take some better ones.

The leak current at 180mA was on a 22KW Fast charger and not a rapid. I haven't had an issue with them but only at 43KW Rapids.

I'm going to do a bit of driving today and then when the batteries are warm enough then re-try the local rapid.

 

[Cloud]

When mine was in (different issue, but had a chat with the ZE tech) there was mention of an update that greatly reduced the number of BCIs. Where the car would've found "some non-ideal situation" it'd choose to slow down the charge after the update rather than leave you stranded with a BCI.

I think this was to do with earthing so maybe it's not relevant if the figures look ok, but worth trying to see if all the updates are done maybe. There was a growing table of software versions on one of the French forums if I can find it.

 

[Cloud]

Versions des différents calculateurs par version de Zoé

Maybe it was part of LBC though i.e. BMS update

 

[yoh-there]

That is an interesting observation. In my recollection, that had been implemented as a result of excessive harmonics first experienced here at some FastNed chargers. I never had this problem myself, but it would stand to reason that a graph of the harmonics would peak (probably the LF to 300mA), after which the car would throttle back to see if it helped.

Stray capacitance leakage is not depending on power level, so maybe there is another process at work. Sorry for guinea-pigging you @Ryanteck but since you have a fairly consistent error pattern going on, that would be an interesting graph too watch.