Departure time is ignored and starts charging immediately

Just to confirm a few things:
- miimura has it right. When you plug in, the car figures out how much power is available from the EVSE, how much charge the battery needs to get to the set "maximum charge level", and how much before "departure time" to start charging.

- My M-F setup has a 6:30a departure time and 11p-7a peak hours set. This appears to work for me for the last several weeks. There have been times when I plugged in at 7pm, needed at least 12-13hrs of charge (I was on a 120V EVSE at the time), but looking at my PG&E usage charging did not start until 11pm that night.

- The other factor is "minimum charge level" setting. When you plug in, if your battery is below that level, charging will start immediately, ignoring the peak rate settings.

- The calculations the car does when you plugin are not perfect. Several of us have seen it start charging from a 120V source too late (consistently about 30-45min in my case) to actually finish by the departure time. I haven't seen this problem with the few days of 240V charging I have done so far.

sjegolfuser said:

I believe this is a software bug that corrupts the departure record. I did the following and it started to work:

1- Under e-Manager, under "Departure Time", I went to "Manage Charging Locations"
2- I turned OFF the "Off-Peak" time option
3- Saved the record
4- Hooked up the car to make sure it works and picks the right departure time
5- I disconnected the car
6- I went to "Manage Charging Locations"
7- I turned ON the "Off-Peak" time option
8- Saved the record
9- Hooked up the car and this time it honored off-peak time

This tells me it is a software bug that under certain condition the departure time record gets corrupted. If you save it few times, it eventually works.

The problem resurface whenever you make changes to "Departure time" through e-Manager.

Click to expand...

After reading your post I attempted to follow the steps you have outlined. Unfortunately in my case this did not solve the issue. So back to departure time charging. As of yet the departure time charging is working as designed so I'm inclined to leave it alone even if the off peak feature starts working again. I have read somewhere that the departure time charging was created so the electrical grid would not get a huge hit from all the EV's starting to charge at the same time.

kirby said:

- The calculations the car does when you plugin are not perfect. Several of us have seen it start charging from a 120V source too late (consistently about 30-45min in my case) to actually finish by the departure time. I haven't seen this problem with the few days of 240V charging I have done so far.

Click to expand...

Agreed. I also observed that the 120V charging over-runs the departure time. I think they just don't have the right efficiency compensation in the calculation for the 120V case. In Europe everything is 230VAC, so they may not have done a proper correction for the provided EVSE in USA. Kind of a significant oversight on VW USA's part. I made sure to mention that to the e-Golf specialist when I was talking to her after the timer problems were resolved when we first got the car.

miimura said:

kirby said:

- The calculations the car does when you plugin are not perfect. Several of us have seen it start charging from a 120V source too late (consistently about 30-45min in my case) to actually finish by the departure time. I haven't seen this problem with the few days of 240V charging I have done so far.

Click to expand...

Agreed. I also observed that the 120V charging over-runs the departure time. I think they just don't have the right efficiency compensation in the calculation for the 120V case. In Europe everything is 230VAC, so they may not have done a proper correction for the provided EVSE in USA. Kind of a significant oversight on VW USA's part. I made sure to mention that to the e-Golf specialist when I was talking to her after the timer problems were resolved when we first got the car.

Click to expand...

What is your estimate the efficiency compensation factor should be for the Delphi 12 A 120V version of EVSE?

Yup, same issue here. Starts charging immediately. Per my utility usage data, it has been doing this since the start of the year. I will disable Night Rate timer and hopefully that would help me avoid having to actually wait for 11 PM to plug-in.

Quezno said:

Yup, same issue here. Starts charging immediately. Per my utility usage data, it has been doing this since the start of the year. I will disable Night Rate timer and hopefully that would help me avoid having to actually wait for 11 PM to plug-in.

Click to expand...

Curious

1) What is your min battery set to? (Min was default at 30)
2) What was your battery level when you plugged in?

JoulesThief said:

miimura said:

kirby said:

- The calculations the car does when you plugin are not perfect. Several of us have seen it start charging from a 120V source too late (consistently about 30-45min in my case) to actually finish by the departure time. I haven't seen this problem with the few days of 240V charging I have done so far.

Click to expand...

Agreed. I also observed that the 120V charging over-runs the departure time. I think they just don't have the right efficiency compensation in the calculation for the 120V case. In Europe everything is 230VAC, so they may not have done a proper correction for the provided EVSE in USA. Kind of a significant oversight on VW USA's part. I made sure to mention that to the e-Golf specialist when I was talking to her after the timer problems were resolved when we first got the car.

Click to expand...

What is your estimate the efficiency compensation factor should be for the Delphi 12 A 120V version of EVSE?

Click to expand...

I've never collected the data to know for sure what the charging efficiency is on 120V. All I know is that the timer over-runs the departure time, so VW's calculation is off.

After thinking about this a bit, here is a guess:

The DC power supply (AC->DC converter) in the car is probably less efficient at lower loads. My limited experience with DC power supplies is that they are way less efficient at low load compared to 75% or higher load. As an example I happen to have, a spec sheet from a MeanWell 48V DC power supply says it is 85% efficient with a load that is 10% of capacity, but that goes up to ~92% efficiency when the load increases to at least 30% of capacity. This is an expensive and from what I have seen unusually efficient DC power supply, I imagine that the one in the e-Golf isn't as good so may have a wider spread of efficiency when dealing with 1.4kW of power (120V/12A) vs 7.2kW of power (240V/30A)

kirby said:

After thinking about this a bit, here is a guess:

The DC power supply (AC->DC converter) in the car is probably less efficient at lower loads. My limited experience with DC power supplies is that they are way less efficient at low load compared to 75% or higher load. As a example I happen to have, a spec sheet from a MeanWell 48V DC power supply says it is 85% efficient with a load that is 10% of capacity, but that goes up to ~92% efficiency when the load increases to at least 30% of capacity. This is an expensive and from what I have seen unusually efficient DC power supply, I imagine that the one in the e-Golf isn't as good so may have a wider spread of efficiency when dealing with 1.4kW of power (120V/12A) vs 7.2kW of power (240V/30A)

Click to expand...

I use a MegaWatt 12V 36 amp PSU for recharging the surplus Teleco Deka AGM battery on my travel trailer when dry camping, and have noted the same thing when recharging. The last 5 to 10% of recharging any battery is very inefficient, especially if you are burning gas in a generator to make the power to do so. What many RV'ers do is run the generator first thing in the morning to get the bulk charging done efficiently with the gas burning generator, and switch over to solar panel power to top charge the last 15 to 20% of the battery, since it is a process that takes much time, to top charge.

kirby said:

After thinking about this a bit, here is a guess:

The DC power supply (AC->DC converter) in the car is probably less efficient at lower loads. My limited experience with DC power supplies is that they are way less efficient at low load compared to 75% or higher load. As a example I happen to have, a spec sheet from a MeanWell 48V DC power supply says it is 85% efficient with a load that is 10% of capacity, but that goes up to ~92% efficiency when the load increases to at least 30% of capacity. This is an expensive and from what I have seen unusually efficient DC power supply, I imagine that the one in the e-Golf isn't as good so may have a wider spread of efficiency when dealing with 1.4kW of power (120V/12A) vs 7.2kW of power (240V/30A)

Click to expand...

Yes, this is the basic idea. Other EVs that have liquid cooling have another problem - the pumps have an additional accessory load on the input power which results in even worse efficiency. Since the pumps are basically running continuously at a low speed regardless of the charging power, the longer it takes, the more power is wasted. So that makes faster charging even more efficient. However, the e-Golf doesn't have any liquid cooling for the battery, but maybe the on-board charger does. I doubt 120V charging would require the charger to be cooled unless the ambient temp was also high.

So I tried an experiment last few days.

Settings
30% Min
M-Sun 11pm - 7am Off Peak
7am Departure
2016 SE
Clock matches my local time.

Friday Night 9pm - 25%
Stopped car, it goes into delayed charging mode. (Says on the screen and delayed light on plug is lit) Plug in , delayed changes to immediate. I attributed it to the 25% charge left.

Monday Night 7pm - 60%
Stopped car, it goes into delayed charging mode. Plug in, delayed charges to immediate . HUH

So far I'm 0-2 on getting the delayed charging mode to work /sigh

hello all, I'm wondering if you guys tried the 12V disconnect on your car since you got it? I did it a few days ago and not only did it fix my car-net issues but also fixed my delayed charging. Try it and Good luck!

sjegolfuser said:

I believe this is a software bug that corrupts the departure record. I did the following and it started to work:

1- Under e-Manager, under "Departure Time", I went to "Manage Charging Locations"
2- I turned OFF the "Off-Peak" time option
3- Saved the record
4- Hooked up the car to make sure it works and picks the right departure time
5- I disconnected the car
6- I went to "Manage Charging Locations"
7- I turned ON the "Off-Peak" time option
8- Saved the record
9- Hooked up the car and this time it honored off-peak time

This tells me it is a software bug that under certain condition the departure time record gets corrupted. If you save it few times, it eventually works.

The problem resurface whenever you make changes to "Departure time" through e-Manager.

Click to expand...

Hi
Where is the "manage charging locations" and "off-peak" option?
I see e-manager but under that is 3 sets of timer options.
I open timer 1 and I can see "departure time" but that's it. Only option is to set time.

pls advise

thanks

From the main menu (at least on iOS)

• Select "e-manager" tile
• At the bottom of the three departure times, there is a "Manage charging locations >" option, select it
• You should now see one or more charging locations select one
• You're now editing a single charging location, scroll down to the bottom of this screen. A little bit above "Delete charging location" there is a section for "Off-peak power"

kirby said:

From the main menu (at least on iOS)

• Select "e-manager" tile
• At the bottom of the three departure times, there is a "Manage charging locations >" option, select it
• You should now see one or more charging locations select one
• You're now editing a single charging location, scroll down to the bottom of this screen. A little bit above "Delete charging location" there is a section for "Off-peak power"

Click to expand...

ok i was going to webpage not app.

mvolta said:

hello all, I'm wondering if you guys tried the 12V disconnect on your car since you got it? I did it a few days ago and not only did it fix my car-net issues but also fixed my delayed charging. Try it and Good luck!

Click to expand...

Tried delay charging again. No luck.
It's 850pm so i Set charge start time at 9pm
I see the quick flashing green light w the delay charging button lit, so I think Im ok but 15 seconds later the car starts charging....argh.

I think my start time maybe too close to current time so i change to 1000pm. Flashing green light appears, then car starts charging as i walk away....
i despise carnet.
Why cant i just set a start time??

Does the 12V disconnect really work? So just disconnect the positive or negative terminal or both?

Or should I spend time at the dealer w the TSB?

so frustrating.

Assume:
EVSE is 240V 30A and the car has 7.2kW charger.
Battery level is 50%
Maximum Charge is 100%
12:00 departure time means Midnight.

How it works:
You plug in the car at 7:00pm and the car sees 240VAC and 30A pilot signal. It calculates that it needs 22kWh*50%/(240*30*85%)=1.8 hours to charge.
from Midnight, subtract 1.8 hours, so the car sets the timer to start at 10:12pm.

So, if my assumptions about your situation are correct, it should not have been charging at 8:00pm, it should have charged from 10:12pm to Midnight.[/quote]

Im so fed up w VW/carnet. So frustrating. spending hours trying different parameters to get delay charging to work. Carnet service is no help. Dealers are clueless....

Im using Juicebox40, 220V, 40amp.
PLugged in car at 1000pm. I've followed advice by turning off the Night Rate option. Just using departure time method. So I need about 2.5 hours charge time so I set my departure time at 5:00am. Im assuming that the car will start charging latest at 2:30 am? My off-peak hours are from midnight to 5:00am. I guess it could start charging at 10:00pm to midnight too which would screw me since it's not in off-peak rates.

We'll see if this works when i wake up at 7:00 and check on the car. I need 30 miles tomorrow so it better be charged.

Cclcal said:

mvolta said:

hello all, I'm wondering if you guys tried the 12V disconnect on your car since you got it? I did it a few days ago and not only did it fix my car-net issues but also fixed my delayed charging. Try it and Good luck!

Click to expand...

Tried delay charging again. No luck.
It's 850pm so i Set charge start time at 9pm
I see the quick flashing green light w the delay charging button lit, so I think Im ok but 15 seconds later the car starts charging....argh.

I think my start time maybe too close to current time so i change to 1000pm. Flashing green light appears, then car starts charging as i walk away....
i despise carnet.
Why cant i just set a start time??

Does the 12V disconnect really work? So just disconnect the positive or negative terminal or both?

Or should I spend time at the dealer w the TSB?

so frustrating.

Click to expand...

it really works, i think you will be pleased. I took out the negative terminal for like 20 seconds. Plugged it back in.... Went into the car, there were 8 error messages. Drove the car for less then 100 feet and all the error messages went away. 2 hours later the carnet green light came back on and everything is perfectly normal. I would say its safe and easy to do, no need to go to the dealership. I think there is a software bug when it comes from the factory and the car really just needs a reboot, which you give after the 12V disconnect. Try it and believe me i think you will be happy with the results

Using only departure time the car was charged in the morning.
Im hoping it charged bw midnight and 500am as I didnt check on car till 700am. (It could have charged from 430-700)

But maybe I'll disconnect 12V battery as well to see what happens.

thanks!

Short of trying the disconnect the 12V battery trick, I have tried all variations of setting and resetting charging locations as well as minimum battery settings and come up with two way to get the delayed charging to work.

1. Turn off off-peak feature in the charging locations profile. This will charge based on the departure time. I set mine for 5:00am as I don't leave until 6:30am. so far every morning the car is charged and ready to go.

2. You can set the off-peak time to start at 12:00am. I know most people's off peak starts at 11:00pm but by making it 12:00am.....it will once again behave as it did back in 2015...albeit an hour later.

Good Luck