For additional context;

CCS works, thankfully. At least I can use the car whilst it's expensive though. AC didn't work at a public charger either. Battery tester said that the batter is fine. Disconnecting the negative for 20 minutes did nothing, so something (probably expensive) is broken... Ordered an ELM327 dongle and will wait for it to ship. I'll want to do some self-diagnosing, before taking it to a stealership for diagnosis..

If anyone has ANY idea, I'd be more than happy! Thanks!

 

Welcome,

The most common reason for this BCI message is a poor earth. The Zoe is VERY fussy and requires an earth loop impendance of less that 150 ohms in order to charge from AC. If your home has an earth electrode to provide the protective earth then first thing to try is pouring a couple of buckets of water around it, as this will often reduce the earth resistance, so if this is the cause of the problem it may (temporarily) fix it.

If your home has a PME/TN-C-S or a TN-S electrical supply, where the protective earth is provided by your electricity supplier, then this may indicate that there is a genuine earth fault. I'm not familiar with the electrical distribution systems in Finland, so if you can provide a bit more information (perhaps with photos of your incoming electricity supply and earthing) then I can have a go at trying to give a more focussed answer. It is possible that this could be a fault with the car, but as supply earthing is a common cause for the BCI message it makes sense to try and eliminate that as a first step.

 

Hi and thanks for your reply!

I live in a row house, and the grounding of the building in this area is handled through the housing company and the main electrical distribution board, so I can’t directly influence it myself. However, I also tried using a public charging station, and AC charging didn’t work there either. I’ll have to try another public charging station this weekend. I can try to investigate the electrical system at home more closely, but I won’t be there until next week. The system is most likely TN-C or a TN-C-S combination, since most of the sockets are ungrounded, and the house was built before the 1990s

 

If the BCI message also appears when using a public AC charge point then I think that might rule out an house supply earth problem. Other known reasons for this message are earth leakage faults within the car. The air conditioning compressor is one known cause, as the earth leakage from that is also tested before the car will start an AC charge. Another known cause is an earth leakage fault in the motor, or in the BCB, the filter block. I'm not a Zoe expert at all, but do know enough to suspect that earth leakage, essentially an insulation resistance fault, seems to be a fault that has been reported here by others when the BCI message appears.

The reason this message doesn't appear when DC charging is because the car doesn't use the motor or BCB when DC charging. The Zoe uses the motor coils as inductors for its AC to DC switched mode charger, which is why it checks for earth leakage before requesting power from the AC charge point.

 

Have you tried a different A/C cable? A couple of years ago my Zoe had same issue, drove ok. I tried three charge points, a very kind gentleman let me try his cable, worked fine and cleared the fault. I bought a new cable, no problems after.

 

I’ve the one that came with the car and my wall charger has its own cable. Neither works, but guess I could test my dad’s cable as well

 

My daughter's car does this and my own has done it once. Do you have access to a granny cable? We cured ours by charging on the granny cable. We were able to charge normally the next time.

 

My dad has 1P 16A charger I could give a shot one day. Good shout!

 

See if you can find a tethered 43 Kw AC charger, they should have a good earth, but I expect its your Zoe, I never got the AC charging impossible error but plenty of Red Nose charging errors, managed to clean the contacts using break cleaner and cotton buds for a quick fix when we used to have a Zoe back in the the day

 

Most here are 22kW, but I’ll keep an eye out!

 

No clue about the charging issue but I did have great difficulty finding a OBD dongle that worked.
Bought 5 before I found one that worked on my ZE50, this is the one that works for me.

Vgate iCar Pro Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) OBD2 Fault Code Reader OBDII Code Scanner Car Check Engine Light for iOS/Android https://amzn.eu/d/illjUZH

 

Okay, found a nice fella on the road whose charging outlet can be configured via software. So when put on 1 Phase, it doesn’t red nose, but it doesn’t charge either. The charger instantly says that the charging has been stopped and the car flashes yellow with ”Checking in progress..” and it does not go anywhere from there. 2P or 3P it instantly fails with the ”AC charging impossible” error..

 

I strongly suspect that this has narrowed down the fault to an insulation resistance breakdown on either L2 or L3, given that the BCI message comes up on 2 or 3 phase. Over here in the UK there is an independent EV repair specialist that has fixed this fault on a few Zoe's, Cleevely. There's also a member here, @G.a.r.y , who has made a few videos about repairing Zoe's, including this one covering the BCI error message:

 

Update #1500. 1P charge doesn’t work either, same issue. Tried charging the 12V but it’s okay. 12,8V when off for a while and 13,5V when the DC/DC kicks in. I’ll have to call Renault tomorrow and hope that there’s something they can do that doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg..

 

Update #1501 – This time with a happy ending.

I managed to source a vGate iCar Pro from someone who didn’t need it. I first tried the CanZE app, but on iOS it’s pretty limited—great for diagnostics and live data, but there’s no way to read or clear DTCs, as far as I know.

So, I went ahead and downloaded the Car Scanner app. I was able to read and clear the fault codes with it. There were a few codes, but they looked pretty generic, so I didn’t have high hopes. Still, after clearing them… the car started charging again!

I’m super happy it’s working, but the more I think about it, the more frustrated I get with the Renault engineers. Why is there a fault code that completely blocks AC charging, yet there's no visible check engine light or any other indicator? The only sign was an error message that briefly appeared only when trying to charge—and it disappeared as soon as the cable was unplugged. And why is there a persistent fault that doesn’t reset on its own, yet can be cleared with a $20 tool?

Anyway, bottom line: the car charges via AC again, and it only cost me twenty bucks! Still... what were the Renault engineers thinking??

Here are the codes Car Scanner picked up:


============================
OBD-II
No DTC found.
============================
ABS control unit (29 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
S-GW3 (29 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
E-ACT-EBA (29 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
EVC-HCM-VCM (29 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
INV-ME (29 bit)INV-ME (29 bit)
DTCs: 3
----------------------------
P0801(22) [0x080122] Archive (inactive)
Reverse inhibit circuit - circuit malfunction
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
----------------------------
P0861(96) [0x086196] Archive (inactive)
Gear shift module communication circuit - low input
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
----------------------------
P0852(F2) [0x0852F2] Archive (inactive)
Park/neutral position (PNP) switch - input circuit high
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
============================
BCB-OBC (29 bit)BCB-OBC (29 bit)
DTCs: 3
----------------------------
P0667(64) [0x066764]
ECM/PCM/TCM internal temperature sensor - range/performance problem
Status: Test failed, Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear, Test not completed during this operation cycle
----------------------------
P0667(96) [0x066796] Archive (inactive)
ECM/PCM/TCM internal temperature sensor - range/performance problem
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
----------------------------
P0690(94) [0x069094] Archive (inactive)
Engine control (EC) relay - sense circuit high
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
============================
LBC2 (29 bit)LBC2 (29 bit)
DTCs: 1
----------------------------
U2143(81) [0xE14381]
Status: Test failed (current drive cycle), Pending, Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
============================
LBC (HEV) (29 bit)LBC (HEV) (29 bit)
DTCs: 3
----------------------------
P1B0E(41) [0x1B0E41] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
----------------------------
U2143(81) [0xE14381]
Status: Test failed (current drive cycle), Pending, Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
----------------------------
P1B20(81) [0x1B2081] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
============================
SRS/Airbags (11 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
Power steering (11 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
Dashboard/Instrument cluster (11 bit)Dashboard/Instrument cluster (11 bit)
DTCs: 1
----------------------------
U2113(87) [0xE11387] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
============================
Heater & air conditioning (11 bit)Heater & air conditioning (11 bit)
DTCs: 2
----------------------------
B24A5(14) [0xA4A514] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
----------------------------
B24C0(09) [0xA4C009] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed, Test failed since last DTC clear
============================
BCM (11 bit)BCM (11 bit)
DTCs: 3
----------------------------
B2C21(23) [0xAC2123] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed
----------------------------
U1C00(08) [0xDC0008] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed
----------------------------
C1714(7B) [0x57147B] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed
============================
EMM (11 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
Sonar (11 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
Hill start assist (11 bit)Hill start assist (11 bit)
DTCs: 1
----------------------------
C1015(86) [0x501586] Archive (inactive)
Status: Test failed since last DTC clear
============================
Key hands free (11 bit)Key hands free (11 bit)
DTCs: 1
----------------------------
U215B(87) [0xE15B87] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed
============================
Multimedia system (11 bit)
No DTC found.
============================
Emergency Call and Communication Module (11 bit)Emergency Call and Communication Module (11 bit)
DTCs: 5
----------------------------
B2E13(8F) [0xAE138F] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed
----------------------------
B2E49(06) [0xAE4906] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed
----------------------------
B2E23(06) [0xAE2306] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed
----------------------------
B2E34(13) [0xAE3413] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed
----------------------------
B2E17(F0) [0xAE17F0] Archive (inactive)
Status: Confirmed

Thanks everyone for your help! And for anyone coming from Google, try resetting your fault codes!

 

Worked for me, thanks for posting

 

Great news! Finger's crossed that all your issues have gone away, hopefully never to return!

 

Hope so! This is the first issue I’ve had with the vehicle so far, and I’ve been super happy with it overall. The fuel cost savings have been a huge bonus—especially when charging at home here in Finland. On windy days, electricity prices often dip into the negatives, and during the summer months they hover around 0 c/kWh. Last month’s average price was 2.11 c/kWh, and the 12-month running average is 4.78 c/kWh.

It’s a great feeling to charge the car while technically being “paid” to do so—though of course, with taxes and fees, that’s not entirely true. Still, getting 1,000 km of range for under 10 euros isn’t uncommon with these smaller EVs.

 

Zoe’s can log a load of codes sometimes and just clearing them fixes it. Hopefully will stay that way.

cheers

 

Seems so. Crazy that there’s no CEL to indicate the logged code though. Maybe intentional to push people into more expensive repairs at the dealership?