It's unintuitive, but you still need to enable the timer in the car. When you switch off and before you open the door a menu will pop up with some options and one of them will be timed charging.

 

Hmmm. I thought I did. I had set a timer with a 9 am departure time, turned it to on, then I had hit the clock on the charger screen. I'll play with it some more later.

 

although the charger is displaying 50%. I couldn't find a way to change that to 100%, is it just a matter of line capacity that it's figuring out?

Between the "50%" and "100%" lights is actually a capacitive button. If you hold it, then it will switch between the modes.

Beware though, make sure that the wiring in your house is good enough to handle pushing that much power continously. Audi did a recall to add temp sensors to the charging cable because of issues with customers' house wiring, and the new charger is limited to 7.2kw to avoid the issue entirely.

 

That's what I had thought and I did try that, but it didn't change anything. I wonder if it detects the quality of the circuit and adjusts accordingly. It's wired for 50 amp 240, so in theory 12 kW, but it was charging at 6. Like I said, I'm ok with that and probably will never want it to go the full 12 or even much higher than 6 because of the way our electric billing works. Ideally, I'd actually like it to be 3-4 kW. Most of the time, I'd rather charge for 12 hours at 3 kW than 6 hours at 6 kW.

 

AFAIK you can use the charging time window, OR the departure time calculation, not both. They are different timers. There's a recent thread on this.

And yes, "unintuitive" is being kind.

 

Hmmm. The manual says, "With the advanced charging settings, you can define addresses (locations) at which certain charging settings should apply. These will be applied as long as your vehicle is near a specified address. The charging target that is set will be used both for immediate charging mode and timer charging mode."

So it at least seems like it should work with both the departure timing and the charging window. And it actually should do exactly what I would like, start charging at a time I specify. That said, I can't seem to get the location based window to work, either by itself or with departure timing set. I did get the departure timing to work by itself after deleting my entry for the location.

 

It's unfortunate that unlike other EVs, you can't change the charging speed from the car. Luckily, I can do this from my EVSE and this is how I normally handle a departure timer instead of fiddling with the car MMI.

 

Is EVSE a charging box?

I looked it up and see that yes, it's a charging box. What brand/model do you have?

 

50amp home circuit is good for 9.6kw continuous.

 

Is the charge controller subject to the recall for the cord and, if so, was it performed?

 

No idea on either, I'll look into it.

 

Is the Audi portable brick limited to 32A at 100%? That would be 7.7kW, or 3.8kW at “50%”. 30A for 7.2kW?

Dunno where 6kW is coming from. Supply voltage can vary a bit, especially if there is a long cable run involved.

Out of morbid curiosity, do we know if the upgraded L2 plug/cable has an intelligent overheating protection circuit that will reset, or is it a one-and-done cutoff?

 

Dunno where 6kW is coming from. Supply voltage can vary a bit, especially if there is a long cable run involved.

That was just an estimate based on percentage increase over two hours. I'm not sure how accurate the Audi is with what is indicated. (18% increase so (.18 x 77)/2 = 6.9 kW) So maybe it is trying to do it at 30 amps, which as you say would be 7.2 and the 6.9 that I saw was within the error margins. This article says 32amps, but the charger was displaying 50% and it definitely seemed like more than 16 amps, given the increase in battery over 2 hours.

I do plan to get am amp meter to measure the actual current in the circuit. I want to measure a few other things too.

 

The 2019 e-tron may have had a bundled charger that is more sophisticated than that provided with Q4s. They aren't all the same. And some can accept 3-phase 208V supply as well as 240V single phase, or 120V. "Available current strength" is probably assumed, NOT measured.

The charger that was bundled with my 2022 Q4 is rated for 40A @ 240V, or 9.6kW. Allegedly it can be dialed down to 50% of that, but mine is unused. And I haven't gotten around to getting the 240V plug/cable replaced under recall.

Since this Q4 wasn't purchased from an Audi dealer, you really need to investigate that recall. There is a risk of fire, especially if the bundled portable charger is plugged into a "residential grade" 240V outlet.

 

Audi's recall site shows one open recall, for "Brake Control Unit Software" when it doesn't show being in neutral correctly. Nothing about the portable charger. Here is the recall info for anyone who stumbles upon this thread. I wonder if the cable was already replaced or if it just doesn't show up in the carfax or audi's recall site because it is not technically part of the car.

The net of all of this is I'll be charging at 50% for two reasons now - keeping our peak electrical usage down and because there may be issues with the cable at 100% on 240v, at least until I talk to Audi about it.

 

Ok, I've figured out a few things. Definitely some user error involved.
1) To switch from 50% to 100% you can't be currently charging.
2) You have to hold down the button for several seconds, it's not just a press and release, but I did get it to work while not charging.
3) The departure timer stuff is really confusing. If you have "Select All days" on, the individual days look like they are turned off. Turn that off and all individual days are now on. ¯\(ツ)/¯ I'm assuming that "Select All days" on means all days are selected, but who knows.
4) I had both a location based timer and the scheduled departure timer set. It's mentioned above that this may not work. It seems like it should since when you click on the clock symbol, but are listed. I wonder if it didn't work because the departure minus charge time calculation was a time before the start window for the location? I'll try to play with that some in the next few days. If you can just have a charge window for location, that seems perfect and way easier to control than the departure time stuff.
5) It looks like 100% charging should be at 32 amps and 50% at 16 amps. This would mean 50% should be charging at 16 x 240 = 3.84 kW. Yet the battery was increasing at a rate closer to 7 kWh per hour over the course of 2 hours. I calculated this based on the change in (percentage charge change over 2 hours x 77)/2. Basically it went up 18% (61-43) in 2 hours, to me that seems like it's (.18 x 77)/2 = 6.93 kW. It would be nice if the car displayed what kWs it's getting.

 

If the portable charger recall doesn't show up in a search by VIN, it's because it's already been resolved by a dealer for that particular vehicle, or it doesn't apply to the production year and date of the vehicle. It is a formal recall, tracked by VIN.

If your charger is rated for 32A @ 240V, that's a different charger, as was hinted at by @TehPenguin. Is this Q4 a late 2024 or 2025? ( Model 45 or 55? )

 

It's a 2023 model 50.

 

Maybe an Audi dealer satisfied the recall on OPs Q4 by supplying a whole new portable charger rather than just the revised 240V plug/cable? Weird.

I think there is supposed to be a software revision on the portable charger as well as the 240V plug/cable replacement. Dunno what that entails. Maybe some day I will get around to actually doing it. It's a bit of a commute and it involves dealing with a service advisor salesperson.

 

BTW, there are many good options for wall-mounted L2 chargers, and most of them will allow you to set the charging power as you see fit. I use a hardwired ChargePoint HomeFlex CPH50.

 

So I looked at my cable and it's a 40a part number 8V4.971.675.BB. It also seems "backwards" where the display ends up facing the wall when plugged in. I saw some complaints about the replacement cable being backwards like that. So, I suspect I may have the replacement cable, although chatgpt gives another part number for the replacement. For now I'll just charge at 50% and will be contacting Audi next week. I need to track down my 10 digit pin so I can get the Connect stuff to work from my phone. Annoying it's not on a card with the manual like BMW's radio codes used to be.

 

LOL. YES INDEED, you have the replacement cable and so have the older version of the Audi EVSE, which can switch between 20 and 40A. With the updated EVSE, when you plug the L2 into the wall the EVSE brick should power up at 50% and you have to use the center button to switch to 100%, if you want to use it at 40A. Do this only if you have a 50A/240 house circuit. The replacement cable was a true FUBAR and lowpoint of Audi engineering when Audi shipped out the replacement cables and they ended up all having the plug put on backwards. I bought a little 3 ft extension cable to use so that I could twist the cable around 180 degrees without putting too much stress on the cable.

 

The anatomically confused 240V pigtail is a tell for “recall repair” of the portable charger originally supplied with Q4’s. I haven’t let the dealer touch mine and it still protrudes in a reasonable direction. But it does need to get “repaired” under recall.

I will post images of the original 240V pigtail. This is a safety issue.

“Charging target” ( % SOC ) can be set in either the “advanced settings” location based window or the “main timer window” in which you actually activate a timer ( “click the clock” ).

I don’t change the charging target very often, but I think I change it in the main timer window whether I’m doing “charging window” timer charging or immediate charging, because that’s the most convenient place once the location-based settings are set. I never use “departure time” timers.

The Owners Manual is not specific to Q4 ( whether or not it’s supposed to be… ) and it is confusing at best and wrong at worst. Proceed with caution. I vaguely remember pulling my hair out over this for a while until I stumbled into something that works for me. Good luck.

 

Original ( NOT yet replaced under recall ) 240V pigtail for Audi portable charger supplied with early Q4’s for the US ( North America? ) market. Don’t use this at home!

 

So by "updated" you mean the software update that is supposed to be applied to the "older" Audi EVSE as part of the recall? Interesting.

To be fair, it was Audi's supplier that screwed up the manufacturing of the revised 240V pigtail, but I guess we'll never know if Audi engineering gave them FUBAR specs or technical drawings. 🙃

I am a bit curious about what I'll get when I finally submit mine for repair. Some day.

 

Yes, I think the main software change for the brick had to do with the plug-in default. Originally, when you first plugged the L2 cable into the wall, the brick would power up at 100%. People were plugging that into 32A dryer outlets and frying their circuits. The software update made the brick power up at 50%. Now you had to consciously decide to pick the 40A setting.

 

Yay. Got a timed charge to work. I deleted my location based timer and just set a departure based timer and it worked over night and started around when I thought it would. I may play some more with the location based timer, but it doesn't seem to work how I would expect it to, or maybe it doesn't work at all. I couldn't get it to work with it as the only timer nor when combined with a departure timer. Annoying but not the end of the world.

Next up is trying to get the 10 digit code so I can get myAudi Connect fully functional (lots of threads about that on here, none give me a lot of hope, either getting the code or getting the phone app to do what it's supposed to if I do).

 

See “Scheduling a charge” thread.

If you use “current location” when you are at your preferred charging location, it should work. But you have to activate the timer for every charging session by clicking the “clock” icon on the main charging page of the MMI, or maybe on the shutdown screen if you have just stopped the car.

If you have set a location, the MMI should flash a message any time you return to that location. “Advanced charging settings at this location” or some such.

But it doesn’t work the way most humans would think it should, IMO.

I can’t speak to whether the app is preferable because my wife is the primary driver of Q4 and the whole “key user” thing is just too annoying. YMMV

Of course, I get to be the primary charger of Q4, troubleshoot arcane and sometimes unanswerable questions like “Honey, why is/isn’t it doing this?”, etc. I have accepted my fate. 🙄

 

Yeah, I created a "Home" location, did the "set location" while creating it, gave it a time window that started 5 minutes from the current time, hit the clock, plugged the charger in. It showed the message that it was waiting for the timer (or something, I don't remember the exact verbiage). Time window came and went without any change. I may play with it more, and I'll check out the thread you mention. I was looking at another thread that had the link to the Audi tutorial video and basically felt like it showed exactly what I had done. It's from 2019 for the original e tron, but seemed mostly the same. But, given that I got the departure timer to work, that is probably good enough. I do wish the light on the car at the plug in had an additional color. Seems like White is handshaking, red is there is a problem, and green means both charging and standing by for the timer. They should have blue or something for the standby indicator.

 

I don't disagree, but green blinks differently for "standby" ( waiting for timer ) and actively charging.

"Strobe" = waiting for timer

Soothing pulse = charging

Solid green = done charging

There's a little pictogram in the charging port enclosure, if you're into riddles.

I have seen red once, when I made the newbie mistake of trying to pull out the plug while it was actively charging. Don't do that.

 

I think @Ender meant he would prefer that it blinked blue while waiting for a timer. Maybe blonde hair as well?

Unless it changed with the mid-2024 refresh.

<edit> Or maybe it's different for RS GT than Q4.

Mine just flutters its green eye.

 

It must have changed in the 2025. Come to think of it, my 2023 also flashed green.

 

 

Yeah, I paid more attention last night. When a timer is set, it lights green for a few seconds and then it starts blinking green.

 

Gotta say, different colors are probably more intuitive than different blinks, but it is what it is. I rarely pay any attention to those lights unless something is wrong.

 

Yeah, now that I know the timer situation is working (at least the departure based, I haven't retried the location based timer) it's fine, but it goes from white to green to green fading in and out to actually blinking. The fading in and out is the same as what it does when actively charging.