Car-net and delayed charging

[Unbeliever]

Clipper Creek and Volkswagen (the companies) are talking to each other now.

 

[Unbeliever]

Also I am not sure if me requesting status updates through the web and phone application to see if it started charging actually triggered the charge start or if it would have started the charge automatically.

In my experiments with my HCS-40, it was the status refresh request that triggered it. It was repeatable. And that bit of info is part of the data dump Clipper Creek and I gave to VW.

 

[voidstar]

Also, I'm having a really hard time understanding how the Clipper Creek L2 EVSEs can be unique in failing to charge. Like somebody said earlier, the logic board is the same in the CC L2 as the L1 that is provided with the car, because the provided one is designed by CC.

Maybe there's a bug specific to the L2-ness. The board may be the same, but the data (e.g. available charge current) being sent from the board to the car are (obviously) different. I don't know ... it's just a wild, uneducated guess. Guessing, at the very least, distracts from the feeling of general helplessness I have about this issue.

I've had to resort to starting the charge manually through the app after off-peak hours start at 11pm.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Unbeliever]

Clipper Creek and I have shared theories. I'm waiting for VW to chime in before I share them openly.

 

[uthe]

Also I am not sure if me requesting status updates through the web and phone application to see if it started charging actually triggered the charge start or if it would have started the charge automatically.

In my experiments with my HCS-40, it was the status refresh request that triggered it. It was repeatable. And that bit of info is part of the data dump Clipper Creek and I gave to VW.

Confirmed - I did not use any application this morning to check on the status and the car did not charge at all, therefore the status refresh must have triggered the charge earlier.

 

[PowdaSuga]

I also have an HCS-40P (plug in version) level 2 charger from Clipper Creek and I have been unsuccessful is getting delayed charging to work. I have had a case open with VW for over 30 days trying to find a resolution. Ever since I installed the new charging station delayed charging has failed.

Sometimes it will charge the car for a short amount of time. The car will reach 30-45 percent charged. The dealer applied the latest TSB and I tried unplugging the battery.

All attempts have been unsuccessful.

I will reach out to Clipper Creek tomorrow to see if there is anyway I can help in finding a resolution to this. I live 20 minutes from their home office so maybe they need a car to test with?

Love the car but I have been staying up until 11pm every night just to save on the charging costs and manually staring the charge. Getting a bit "tired" of that, pun intended

-Powda

 

[madscot]

Ooh - new car-net page. Looks slick. Let's see if I can set up a profile...no same old failure.

https://vimeo.com/132027965

Goto 2m54s to skip to very long 2 minute timeout.

Arrggh. 7 months, 3 trips to dealer, 1 stranding on the freeway due to failure to charge, 40 phone call and still not fixed.

 

[uthe]

I played around with the new web app 30 minutes ago and it looked pretty good, remote functions seemed to be accessible but I did not try to add a new profile. Now I tried to copy what you did but I am getting a timeout from the server when trying to access the "Remote" menu: "Remote Control is temporarily unavailable. "
Hopefully they are still working out some kinks.
I doubt that the new web version will address my Clipper Creek related charging problem though.

 

[PowdaSuga]

I took my car up to clippercreek for some testing. Everything we tried failed to invoke the scheduled departure time. The car doesn't seem to wake up and tell the charging station to turn on.

They are working with VW on this. They sent the test results to them, hopefully we will hear something soon.

-Powda

 

[arcane]

Thanks for doing that! I was contemplating going up there myself and demonstrating it to them in person. Hopefully, this is resolved soon...

I took my car up to clippercreek for some testing. Everything we tried failed to invoke the scheduled departure time. The car doesn't seem to wake up and tell the charging station to turn on.

They are working with VW on this. They sent the test results to them, hopefully we will hear something soon.

-Powda

 

[PowdaSuga]

Thanks for doing that! I was contemplating going up there myself and demonstrating it to them in person. Hopefully, this is resolved soon...

I took my car up to clippercreek for some testing. Everything we tried failed to invoke the scheduled departure time. The car doesn't seem to wake up and tell the charging station to turn on.

They are working with VW on this. They sent the test results to them, hopefully we will hear something soon.

-Powda

I hope so too. I haven't heard back from clipper creek yet. Car is back at the dealership now, they have had it for a few days and have done nothing. I am getting so frustrated with the lack of movement on this issue. I have spent several hours of my time and I feel like VW is dragging their heels. Anyone on here have success with the dealer?

 

[miimura]

Thanks for doing that! I was contemplating going up there myself and demonstrating it to them in person. Hopefully, this is resolved soon...

I took my car up to clippercreek for some testing. Everything we tried failed to invoke the scheduled departure time. The car doesn't seem to wake up and tell the charging station to turn on.

They are working with VW on this. They sent the test results to them, hopefully we will hear something soon.

-Powda

I hope so too. I haven't heard back from clipper creek yet. Car is back at the dealership now, they have had it for a few days and have done nothing. I am getting so frustrated with the lack of movement on this issue. I have spent several hours of my time and I feel like VW is dragging their heels. Anyone on here have success with the dealer?

On the Clipper Creek specific issue, I don't expect the dealership to be able to do anything but collect data for VW corporate. Corporate will have to get an engineer on the issue to figure out what's going on.

 

[PowdaSuga]

Got the car back from the dealer after 4 days. Departure time setting did not work on their bosch charger either. They "re-flashed" the update to my car and said they were able to get it working from there. I picked up the car and tried to charge it Saturday night...Same issue, departure time did not work.

In fact with the schedule activated on carnet my manual charging did not work either. It only charged about 45% then stopped. So when I woke up it was only half charged.

I wonder if I can get a different charger that has scheduling built in to workaround this issue. At my wits end...

 

[voidstar]

In fact with the schedule activated on carnet my manual charging did not work either. It only charged about 45% then stopped. So when I woke up it was only half charged.

I've had this problem too and it's very frustrating. Makes me wish I had held out for the ChargePoint Home unit; I'd be able to factor out the Car-Net issues altogether.

 

[VWVic]

I'm using a relay that turns on my CC charger at 11:30 PM every night. The car is fully charged in the morning when I leave for work at 6:00 AM. I was also at wits end with Car-Net (I now call it Sky-Net) and delayed charging so I made an external relay with timer. Pretty easy to make and not very expensive. This provides me more sleep and less stress until VW gets the bugs worked out with delayed charging and Car-Net. I can provide details to anybody interested.

Regards-

VWVic (2015 e-Golf)

 

[miimura]

In fact with the schedule activated on carnet my manual charging did not work either. It only charged about 45% then stopped. So when I woke up it was only half charged.

I've had this problem too and it's very frustrating. Makes me wish I had held out for the ChargePoint Home unit; I'd be able to factor out the Car-Net issues altogether.

It remains to be seen whether the ChargePoint Home unit will be compatible with the e-Golf. If they implemented the vehicle interface portion of the timer function the same way Siemens did, it likely won't work. The only way to make EVSE delayed charging work with every EV is for the hardware to signal to the car that a new plug-in event happened when charging is supposed to start. If they delay signaling the car that the plug has been inserted until the designated charging time, it will present a safety hazard because the car can then drive away with the plug still connected.

There is yet another potential problem with the e-Golf that I haven't see in any other EV. VW is relying on the state of the port lock to implement the J1772 safety protocol. Normally, there is no charge port lock and the J1772 handle button is relied upon to stop the charging before the handle is pulled out. I have observed that the e-Golf ignores the J1772 handle button and continues charging because the port is locked. I say that because I can hear the microswitch activating in the handle of the provided 120V charge cord and the car does not stop charging. You have to use the buttons next to the charge port to stop the charging. The potential problem is that if they assume that there cannot be a new plug-in event when the port is already locked with the handle in place, then it may not wake up when the EVSE wants the car to start charging. That is currently the problem with the Siemens and others - the Presence Pin has the correct signal for the handle to be plugged in, but the car goes to sleep without charging when there is no pilot signal. The EVSE starts up the pilot signal when it wants the car to start charging, but the car doesn't see it because it's asleep.

 

[eGopher]

My VW customer care reps calls me every couple of weeks to tell me there has been no resolution to the "Delayed Charging" problem with the e-Golf.

This issue, combined with the inability to turn off the charge port locking function are serious issues with the overall value proposition of this vehicle.

Lack of reliable delayed charge function negates the financial benefit of lower EV power rates ($.09 off-peak vs $.43 peak kWh in Northern California)
At 43 cents/kWh and 4 Miles/kWh this is over 10 cents/mile - which is about the same or worse compared to the Gas or Diesel vehicles.
Assuming the Golf TDI gets 31mpg city and diesel fuel is $ 3.19 / gallon, that is also 10 cents / mile.
Highway range over 350 miles too!

Even a Golf TSI at 25mpg city with gasoline at $3.39 / gallon is pretty close - better if you consider the highway mileage at 36mpg.

Even if we get the delayed charging fixed, if we add the monthly cost of the car-net subscription after 3 years then the value proposition evaporates.
Then what about the cost to replace the battery?

On the charge port locking issue, the forced locking invalidates the ability to utilize most public charging stations either at work, airports, shopping malls, public lots or in multi-family residential situations.

This makes the car unusable for day trips with a radius greater than 40 miles because of the lack of reliable charging on the road.

Had I known of these issues and I would certainly not have purchased this vehicle.

Even without accounting for the sluggish infotainment system and car-net, this vehicle does not make sense for most people.

How can we increase the pressure on VW to get remediation on these issues?
Would we have more power as a group rather than individuals?
Any lawyers on this board with advice on legal options?

 

[sweetwagon]

The delayed charging issue should be fixable. Although it is not as easy as it should be, there are quite a few of us out here that have it working.

As for the locking port. I don't think that's gonna be fixed.

I'd like to see them fix the locking issue in 2016 model and put charge scheduling built into the car infotainment without having to rely on Car-net.

 

[miimura]

My VW customer care reps calls me every couple of weeks to tell me there has been no resolution to the "Delayed Charging" problem with the e-Golf.

Unless you are talking about compatibility with a specific EVSE, I don't think this is true. I had major issues with CarNet and Delayed Charging when the car was new and I got them fixed. My car has been working "as intended" since May. I am in Northern California and had the car worked on at Sunnyvale VW. I also got a goodwill payment from VW corporate for my trouble since it took them 3 days to fix it. Others have received monthly goodwill payments for this issue prior to May 2015. If you haven't received any compensation, I would bring that up with your VW Customer Service rep.

If I were you, I would take the car to a dealership and insist on a loaner car. Provide a written account of what the car is doing and what you think it's supposed to be doing. Don't pick up the car until it works with the provided EVSE "as intended". The problem is clearly with the parts in your car or how they are programmed or configured. However, if they can get the car to work properly with the provided EVSE and the station installed at the dealership, but it still doesn't work with an EVSE you have at home, then I think they have met their obligation and you may have to change your EVSE at home.

I don't necessarily like the way that you have to set up the delayed charging, but once it is set up, it just works. You don't have to use the app or the web site regularly, it's just needed to upload the schedule to the car. Clearly it would have been better to allow you to set the schedule on the infotainment head unit, but that's not going to change for the 2015 cars already produced. I would not expect any change in function to the existing cars. VW is not Tesla.

I also don't like the charge port lock, but it is what it is. It's true that you cannot leave your car for someone else to unplug without the key. However, you should be moving your car as soon as it's done charging anyway.

Good luck and I hope you can convince somebody to get your car working the way it should, or replace the car with one that does work as intended.

 

[eGopher]

According to my VW Customer Care rep AND ClipperCreek support, there has been no resolution to the "Delayed Charging" problem with the e-Golf. I was told there are several people who have reported the exact same problem.

- VW told me that engineering understands the issue and it has been escalated to the highest level possible.
- ClipperCreek stated they have provided VW engineering with their EVSE; the problem is well documented and understood.

I understand that certain combinations of EVSE and e-Golf are working properly since the May TSB update, but that is not the case for my situation.

When I plug in the eGolf during peak times, it properly knows NOT to start charging - shows the orange clock symbol.
However during the off-peak period it will not start charging on its own.
I have to manually wake up the car by either the Mobile App, Web Site or by physically pressing the button on the vehicle.

I tested this with both the provided Level 1 EVSE and my ClipperCreek HCS-40 with the exact same result.
I suspect that people who rely on Level 1 charging do not also sign up for time-of-use rates so that is the reason they may not encounter the problem.
ClipperCreek as the provider of the supplied Level 1 EVSE claims the control circuit is exactly the same on their Level 2 EVSEs so that should not be the cause of this issue.

Regarding VW Sunnyvale's service department, I've already brought the car in to them several times however they have never offered me a loaner car.
I will request one the next time I bring in the vehicle for service and will keep the loaner as long as it takes until they get the problems fixed. (intermittent A/C problem, finicky charge port lock, parking brake)

My "goodwill" payment was $200; I've heard others got $400 for their troubles. I guess I haven't been complaining to the right people.