Charger lock - make it stop

Is there a way to turn off the charger lock? In my 3 years with the leaf I never once needed a lock - now I find myself in my garage fishing around for the unlock button so I can disengage the charger every morning. This is the pretty much my only complaint. The charger should only lock when the car is locked and automatically unlock if key is in pocket like the doors do - or the lock should just be an option you have to turn on.

I have found this my largest complaint also. It's a fairly consistent group ev vehicles that use the two available chargers near my work and I hate even plugging in the morning because if I get stuck at work I am preventing anyone else from using the charger all day. The volts and leafs, unsure in other models, automatically unlock the charger once fully charged so basically I let them get the Chargers in the morning and if I can step away at lunch, I can unplug theirs and plugin mine, but that's pretty annoying. And even with that, say my car is done by 3pm, I'm still usually at work until 6pm, so I'm preventing someone for a three hour window of possible use. I feel like this issue is going to make other ev owners not very happy with golfs in their area.

After you pull the other guys charger, how do you get your car into his slot to be able to charge?

Ron

Cove3... Charge plug can reach to next parking spot... :roll:

I'm starting to think this is a potentially huge problem for charging away from home. Not only is there a problem with not being able to unlock somebody elses charge port, and the problem of finding charge locations especially unused ones, there's the problem the system depends on people acting responsibly by moving their car when charging is over

Even with a long cable and assuming you could unlock, what if the adjacent spots are taken by ice cars?

Ron

I'd say most of the current "shared charger" systems like the previous posters are describing are at people's workplaces. People *generally* act responsibly at work

Most of the remainder are at shopping areas where people probably don't stay much longer than a few hours anyway... or there is a charge so they want to move quickly.

We have 2-4 EV parking spots per charger at work. People need to be nudged a lot to remember to move their cars though.

I would like to disable the port lock to help with sharing. Also, I usually have something to put into the car (like my kid) before I can get to the charger lock and by then it has relocked.

I called carnet today. There is not currently a way for the egolf to unlock a charge plug. I explained the situation and requested they make this a future software update for remote options. I think this is the largest issue I have with the car thus far. A work around for me is to go at lunch and unplug one of the other evs that charges in the morning. For the location, this is at California park n ride, it is close to many businesses but not a "work" parking lot. These stations aren't in an area of the lot that ice cars park, so they never take the surrounding spots to the chargers. About 6 cars can park close enough for ev charging to two charge point stations.
Hope that helps clarify.

"About 6 cars can park close enough for ev charging to two charge point stations. "

I wish they would do this with ALL chargers and put them AWAY from the front door of a store/work.

This would would great and let people SHARE the spots, plug/unplug others in.

The charging lock surprised me this morning - this is my first time charging, and I thought that something was broken. We have a Leaf, as well, and the charging lock has to be toggled on; which is much better.

I've noticed something that seems odd coming to the car in the morning and it's somewhat related to the charging lock, so I'll post it here.
I open my garage in the morning and the car is charged. The light in the port on the car is off and the fast charger is in idle mode. Because the cable is locked to the car (even if I didn't lock the car explicitly) I have to hit the unlock button on the key fob. This wakes the car up and it turns the charging back on - the charging light comes on and I hear the relays trip in the fast charger. Now I have to hit unlock again, sometimes multiple times, to get the charging to shut off and unlock the cable.

Does this happen to everyone?

GadgetGav - yep, exact same thing happens to me. I just wish it would be more consistent regarding unlocking the charging lock. One to sometimes several clicks on the unlock button kinda bugs me.

Yes - same here. This adds insult to injury with the auto lock. It resets the kWh display on my JuiceBox Premium, so if I forget to read the charge before I remove the plug, I lose that data.

Also, the lock seems to delay it's release; and having the plug be slightly angled toward the back of the car adds to the awkwardness of plugging in and removing the plug.

I think it knows when I'm posting... This morning it took about a dozen presses to get it to release the cable! I tried single presses, double presses, quick presses, slow presses, re-locking then unlocking. I still have no idea why it actually worked the final time.

It seems to be a bug that unlocking when it's not actively charging sets it charging again. That's what gets into the whole mess about whether it's safe to release the cable or not. I hope they address this in a future update.

We leased an e-Golf this week and this charge port lock is the most annoying thing I have ever seen on an electric vehicle.

The way the charge port works makes perfect sense in Europe where they use the Type-2 connector. The Type-2 handle does not have a button, so it depends on the vehicle to lock the handle in so that it's not yanked out while it's passing current. However, with the J-1772 (Type-1) handle, it's completely a security issue because pressing the button on the handle will automatically stop charging so it is safe to disconnect. Using the same protocol and procedure on a J-1772 vehicle is totally inappropriate and annoying.

IMHO, these choices should be added to the Car menu on the NAV screen.
Charge Port Lock
- Lock Always (requires pressing Door Unlock to release)
- Lock with Doors (always unlocked when doors are unlocked)
- Lock While Charging (Doors must be unlocked to stop charging)
- Never Lock

However, adding these choices will force them to comply with the J-1772 protocol and observe the handle button to stop charging. As it is now, they can ignore the button and use their own button to control when the car stops charging. In fact, when I was figuring out this charge port lock stuff with the provided 120V charge cord, I heard the button activating its switch and the car did not stop charging.

Regarding the earlier posts - if the car starts charging again with the green light pulsing, press the charge button to stop it. Then push the unlock. The car must not be charging in order to release the charge port lock, so pressing unlock doesn't do anything.

I've never had problems getting it to unlock on one button press, although you can try to pull the handle too quickly.

The doors may unlock instantaneously after the button press, but the chargeport lock takes a few seconds. I give it a 2-3 count before hitting the thumb release on the J1772 cable. If it's quiet, or if you have good hearing, you'll hear when the servo releases.

Mine was being very temperamental this morning and I think I might have figured something out.
When I get to the car it has finished charging, the charging light is off in the car socket area and the wall charger is in standby. When I press the unlock button the charging light comes on and the wall charger kicks on - I hear the relays fire. Multiple presses of the unlock button on the key fob often don't turn off charging and unlock the cable, but this morning I manually stopped the wall charger and on the next press, the cable unlocked. Maybe that's the trick...

I hate to drag up an old topic, but this issue has me perplexed.

For the first couple of weeks I had the eGolf, I had to use the key fob (pressing unlock, sometimes repeatedly) in order to release a charger. As has been noted, this is/was incredibly annoying and something that deterred me from using many public chargers unless I knew that I'd be departing within a short time.

However, within the past few weeks (also since I performed the 12V battery reboot...coincidence...I presume) I have been able to remove chargers with impunity. In fact, I seem to be unable to lock the charger, and I can remove any J-1772 regardless of car lock status. Have others experienced this? Am I missing something obvious? Even if I've locked the doors and the key fob is nowhere near my person, this works. It also seems reliable regardless of charge status (charging, paused, or complete).

Cheers,
Tim

Oh I hope this is the case. Just had the firmware updates at the dealer so hope they changed that.

Following up with more info. [edited to reflect new understanding...doh!]

Turns out that what I experienced was probably unique to the Siemens charger. For other chargers that I've now tried (Charge Point and Bosch), the charge-lock still happens automatically as the doors lock. [snip] removed dribble about thinking there was some sort of magnetic mechanism. Duh. It's a physical lock that restricts the clamp from opening far enough. [/snip]

So, I'm back to the idea that to allow the charger to be removed from your car without you present, it will be up to unlocking via Car-Net. Now that I have Car-Net remote functions working (thanks to the 12V disconnect/reboot trick), this seem possible. Because the eGolf re-locks within a minute or so after all doors are closed and key is not present, well, it has to be a 'timed' removal. I'm going to test this idea soon (taking a short trip and parking at an off-airport lot w/ free charging). I'll report back if anyone responds to the note I plan to leave w/ instructions.

{edit part 2} still linking to other thread with Siemens dock photos, but no longer going with faulty 'magnetic' idea: http://www.myvwegolf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2187#p2187. Still back to the idea that VW needs to fix this or we have to work w/ Car-Net to unlock remotely for public charger sharing. {/edit}

Cheers,
Tim