new carnet web site...

[svento]

Is it possible they made this site worse?! Here is my list of problems I found during about the first 2 minutes of use:

1) need to reset password upon first log in, and no special characters are allowed (and to add to the stupidity of that requirement, the message that comes up when you try to use a special character says nothing about the password requirements. I had to guess that was why I was getting an error and remove the special character).
2) time zone has suddenly changed to EDT, with no obvious way to change what time zone is displayed. Any of the time specific functions now reflect EDT (I only know this because my previous 8AM settings suddenly now show as 11AM).
3) consumption graphs are hilariously wrong. Over the course of a week I apparently ranged from 0 miles/KWh to 30 miles/KHw. If only 30 was true...
4) at this point I just logged out. Was hoping this new site meant a re-work of the hilariously horrible old site... but it seems that, amazingly, it's worse! Good job, Verizon/VW.

-Scott

 

[uthe]

Looks like they are scrambling to do some damage control as they disabled everything related to car remote control and communication.
Regarding the required new password, they sent an email notification upfront but I agree about the poor implementation of password acceptance/special characters. This is not the only website with such issues though. Let's just hope they get their act together since the new web interface seems more usable overall - if it works.....

 

[SaintTiki]

The new unadvertised password requirements are a pain in the neck.

The new site seems like it may have affected the mobile app too. I haven't had the car long so I don't have a lot of previous experience to compare but today while charging, it was difficult if not impossible to get the app to refresh. I'd hit refresh and it would send the request but nothing would happen. If I exited the app and waited two minutes then I could load up and get new data but it would never display new data while it was open. I could still remotely send commands though but with no feedback.

 

[umicar]

Site is super slow for me, and it appears that is changed all my charging schedule setting to be ready by 10am, when I had it set for 7am. I can't find EST anywhere on the site, but basic math is making me think that it got reset to EST. So I did change it to 6:30am. Does this mean that my car will possibly be set to be ready at 3:30am, which will really screw me over with regard to off peak charging time (11pm-7am pst)?

 

[svento]

Site is super slow for me, and it appears that is changed all my charging schedule setting to be ready by 10am, when I had it set for 7am. I can't find EST anywhere on the site, but basic math is making me think that it got reset to EST. So I did change it to 6:30am. Does this mean that my car will possibly be set to be ready at 3:30am, which will really screw me over with regard to off peak charging time (11pm-7am pst)?

I doubt they changed the actual stored times. I would strongly guess the new site just displays all times as eastern time, and thus you probably should keep it at 10am. But you'll know tomorrow [well, that is, if delayed charging actually works at all]

 

[umicar]

I am actually all charged up right now, so I wouldn't know! But I am impatient and just called Carnet. They checked for me and said that I would need to reset to the correct time for PST. Our individual accounts are supposedly set to our current timezones, so we will need to reset our profiles to the timezones we expect them operate under. So... if it doesn't work out that way when I do have to do a delayed charge this week, I will be sending them a bill.

Edited to add: maybe others should call them, too, and see if they get a similar answer.

 

[BarryMW]

Dear VW
DId you even bother to test your new website.
Prior to new site my 6am pacific departure time worked just fine.
Now it's ready to depart at 3am pacific.

You forgot time zones, really, how rookie is that.
Just as rookie as not testing.

Please get some real life beta testers, oh in every state.

You should find future software updates less embarrassing for the VW brand.

Sincerely disappointed

Barry

 

[snAKes]

It no longer shows "next departure time" so there's no indicator for whether my schedule is working or not. That function was very unreliable (in the mobile app too) so maybe they took it out due to that.

3) consumption graphs are hilariously wrong. Over the course of a week I apparently ranged from 0 miles/KWh to 30 miles/KHw. If only 30 was true...

The graph is correct but the vertical axis shows kWh consumed for the trip, not mi/KWh that I would expect. It would be much more helpful to show mi/kWh on the graph IMO. You can click on each of the circles and see the mi/kWh. It's a step in the right direction because previously it showed KWh/100 miles which wasn't very useful.

It's much more intuitive where to find things now, and the site works much better on a mobile device than it used to.

 

[svento]

The graph is correct but the vertical axis shows kWh consumed for the trip, not mi/KWh that I would expect.

You are right that the vertical axis is not claiming to show (the much more useful) miles/kWh... however if it's showing kWh as it says, it's important to note that it's still wrong. You can pretty quickly see this by switching back and forth between the "consumption" and "distance" charts. For me at least, the y axis title changes, but the y numeric labels and corresponding chart data remain exactly the same. This would only be true if I always drove with a consumption rate of 1 mile/kWh (which is thankfully not true). I further confirmed this by clicking on each day's data.

I don't quite understand why it's so difficult to make this correct! I imagine it's difficult to have it look nice (something they seem to have achieved), but a nice looking chart is pointless with consistently wrong data.

 

[oftheseven]

To me, the site is not much better than before and it's pretty slow. Even myFord site is better.
I assume this hasn't fixed the delayed charging issues since it's related to the TSB in the vehicle?

 

[Skryll]

To me, the site is not much better than before and it's pretty slow. Even myFord site is better.
I assume this hasn't fixed the delayed charging issues since it's related to the TSB in the vehicle?

Lol I am glad I did not bother logging in yet. I only use the app on the iPhone and that is painfully slow but works. I just tend to treat it as a batch job, submit and walk away, come back and check results later.

Love the egolf and am glad we have the iPhone app, with all its deficiencies it still adds a lot of value to the usability of the car.

I'll check the website in half a year when the shakeout is over and they realized they need some real software engineers look at things rather than interns (thats my best guess).

Michael

 

[umicar]

As of today when I go to look at my battery and charge settings on the site, I get an error message that "Remote Control is temporarily unavailable". And must this site run at the speed of the internet running from a dial up connection in 1997? VW should really be ashamed of themselves for putting their name on this garbage experience. As much as they want to point fingers that this is a Carnet thing and developed by a third party, the fact of the matter is that it is called "VW Carnet", therefore this is totally on them.

 

[umicar]

Update: I did look at my Carnet app today after setting up the web schedule to change the times back to what I had originally scheduled before the Carnet website change. They told me last night to change my web settings back to the times I had originally set and were changed to EST. Well... I changed the website to have my car ready at 6:30am, and noticed my CarNet app setting was now set to be ready at 3:30am, so CLEARLY the people at Carnet have no clue what they are talking about, and the stupid website update is defaulted to EST.

I can't believe that the update made Carnet even worse. I actually managed to start working around the horribleness of the previous site. VW really needs to get their acts together.

 

[umicar]

Third update: 9:30pm and noticed that my charge light was on. Looked at my Carnet app that said I had 6:30 left to get to my full charge and it would be ready by Saturday at 9am (that is my weekend schedule). Called Carnet and was told to call back tomorrow to speak with a tech support person who will tell me how to correctly set up my departure times. Um... THEY WERE SET UP CORRECTLY until they did whatever the heck they did with this crazy update of theirs.

Anyone else experiencing all these issues with the update?

 

[GadgetGav]

Are there moderators on this board?
Shouldn't this topic be in the sub-forum that's dedicated to CarNet?

 

[uthe]

Anyone else experiencing all these issues with the update?

Yep you are not alone, I am sure everybody has this experience.
Really embarrassing how they taint a real nice car experience with such poor software implementation, this really needs to be elevated at VW

 

[sweetwagon]

On the app, i didn't notice any changes in behavior or performance. slow as usual but no worse than before. I am still able to do my departure time based charges, remote status updates, etc.

I took a quick look on the web site for status updates - seems to work fine. again, it's slow as usual but no worse than before. I usually do the scheduling on the app so can't say anything about that for the website.

 

[user 241]

This should go in Car-Net topic category.

 

[voidstar]

Here's my janky workflow to make off-peak charging work without needing to go to the garage after 11pm and put the plug in the car:

1. After finishing car use for the day (could be early afternoon, could be late evening), connect car to L2 EVSE. I have a scheduled charging set to have the car ready by 6:55am, so the car doesn't start charging when I plug the car in.
2. After 11pm, use iOS Car-Net app to manually start charging.

Simple, right? Well, sometime in the last few days, even this stopped working. I would check the car in the morning and the charging had stopped at around 70 miles of range. Power to the EVSE is still fine. My charging profile is set to charge the battery to 100 percent. Pretty sure VW has managed to make things worse. I don't have the energy to bring this up with them.

 

[Electricbowtie]

Man, I thought OnStar website for my Volt was crap but CarNet makes it look like a shining star. At least OnStar uses some logic with user interface, off peak charging and other nice features. Still love our e-Golf but wish the website and app would catch up. I agree with most folks here that the new website is even worse.