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It appears my charging issue has actually been fixed!

5K views 16 replies 5 participants last post by  Chrisechild 
#1 ·
So I had previously mentioned that the multiple 'charging complete' notifications I had been receiving, every 5 minutes, had stopped with the app update. However I wasn't convinced that periodic charging between 79%-80%, every 5 minutes, wasn't still occurring but just not reported by the app.

To be certain about what was actually going on, I decided to charge from 73% to 80% just now. Normally I charge at night to take advantage of the lower EV charging rates, but because this is in the early morning hours I had no idea what was really going on. So this afternoon the SoC got to 80% and my ChargePoint Home Flex stopped charging as expected. Now the 5 minute wait. After 5 minutes I refreshed the app and saw the charge rate was now at 79%, but no charging was reinitiated. That was the key. It does appear, at least in my case, the problem is fixed. I don't know how an app update can do this, but it's definitely now a different (and correct) behavior than it was before.

The only remaining oddity is that the charge rate drops (apparently) from 80% to 79% in a few minutes. My assumption is that the SoC just barely reaches 80% when the charging is stopped. At that point, if my assumption is correct, it takes only a tiny amount of battery usage to drop it to 79%. It stays at 79% from that point on, so there's no real 'phantom drain' going on like in a Tesla.
 
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#2 ·
I don't know how an app update can do this, but it's definitely now a different (and correct) behavior than it was before.
Great news on your issue being resolved. In terms of the car to app relationship I've observed my etron doing some weird things with the overnight charge schedule (starting too soon and not sticking to the charge limit).

Turns out it's much more reliable if I let the car connect to the app for a few minutes before turning the power button off and selecting the overnight/scheduled charge button. Like it has to check in with the app thoroughly to get the config?

Previously on an evening I'd walk from my house to the car>unlock>get in and power on>change charge limit>turn off>set scheduled charge>get out>lock door>plug in.

The car would initialise and then wait for timer. Once in the house I'd see it starting the charge after 5 minutes aiming to get to 100% or an old target.

Staying in the car a couple more minutes resolves this issue.

It shouldn't be like this but the app seems to hold a lot of power over the car.
 
#3 ·
Turns out it's much more reliable if I let the car connect to the app for a few minutes before turning the power button off and selecting the overnight/scheduled charge button. Like it has to check in with the app thoroughly to get the config?
That‘s interesting. My charging procedure is different than yours in that I never use the car’s scheduler, only the ChargePoint’s software. The only reason I use the Audi app for charging, is to set the charging limit. So far I only did that once to initially set the 80% limit. Otherwise I only use the app for its other features.
 
#4 ·
I know right. I didn't think my routine would have anything to do with the app. After all, I set the charge target and activated the schedule from the car. That's all that should be required but it seems it interacts with the app or central server too. Maybe all 3 need to be given time to synchronise in my case. It feels to me like stuff happens in the background and hence the app update resolved your issue (perhaps they updated server side too).

I could raise a support ticket to query this but meh. That's a lot of effort.
 
#8 ·
Yeah, remember when I said it looks like my charging notification issue has been fixed? Well, I lied, it's back as of early this morning. :(

I don't know what changed, but at 2am I began getting the old 5 minute notifications as the SoC went from 79>80>79>80...you get the idea. I haven't had any issues with the app since the update nor have I logged out and logged back in. Everything is the same as it was when things were going well.

Pretty bizarre stuff. Hopefully it disappears as fast as it reappeared.
 
#9 ·
Has your issue been resolved yet? I still have the problem with the many notifications and the charge cycling between 79 and 80%. I’m guessing this constant cycling is no good for the battery? I selected the setting which releases the connector on charge completion but that made no difference. Any new ideas?
 
#10 ·
As long as my setting is set for unlock on AC, I’m good. Interestingly I charged at an EA charger today and when I got back to the car the charging was complete, but the SoC was 79%, not 80%. That 79% would trigger the cycling on AC if my setting was set to lock after charging is complete.
 
#11 ·
Is this being caused by a cell/pack imbalance, perhaps?

I've not seen/read about the etrons being affected by this or needing a calibration. But. Could discharging the battery to empty - or as near to as possible - and then slowly charging to 100% help or even resolve this problem? Might be worth a try?
 
#12 ·
I think it’s simply a case of the SoC barely reaching 80%, then dropping a tiny fraction to just under 80% causing the charging to reinitiate. Someone conjectured, logically, that the threshold to restart the charging is much too narrow and only a tiny drop below 80% is all that’s necessary to restart the charging. To me that makes sense.

I seriously doubt this has anything to do with cell rebalancing.
 
#13 ·
Well my thought was that a cell imbalance could be that tiny fraction; small enough to trigger the unwanted behaviour. If a couple of cells were not charged to the 80% target then they could be tripping the threshold??

Either way it doesn't make any sense to me that the pack would drop a percentage point or even a fraction so quickly that it starts charging again and then stops at 80% for it to quickly drop a bit again and repeat. Slim threshold or not, the SOC should stay steady.
 
#14 ·
Some of us have picked up new 2021s (remember this only affects 2021s) and have had this happen immediately upon the initial recharging. So IMO this further minimizes the possibility of cell imbalancing which you tend to think of as the battery ages.

There have also been those that have posted, that know much more than I do about battery chemistry, that have indicated why this SoC drop of a fraction of a percent could be the issue. It's not so much the fractional drop as it is the software is far too stringent in terms of where it determines to begin another cycle of charging.

If the software was written so that recharging wouldn't began until a true full percentage drop occurs (or 2% for that matter) then this problem would cease to exist. The fact is that after the initial drop of 80-79 (probably more like 80.0-79.98), the car can then sit there for days and you'd see no further drop below 79%. This proves the battery really isn't suffering from 'phantom drain' like Teslas do.
 
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