Why is the delayed charging button always pre-selected when I'm plugging in my charger?

[mreintz]

Hi,

I've just purchased a brand new e-Golf in Norway. I'm pretty happy with it so far, but a charging quirk is bugging me: I want the car to charge immediately when I plug it in, but the physical button for delayed charging next to the connector is always pre-selected (light is on). I always have to manually push the "charge immediately" button, and it bugs the hell out of me. My services company doesn't offer low-rate hours yet, so the option isn't useful to me.

This is my setup:

• I have departure time set up

• I'm using the default charging site

• My default charging site does not have low-rate hours defined (the checkbox is not checked, no hours set)

Why can't the car remember my last selection (charge immediately)? Is it because I've got a departure time set? I gather that the car should time the charging so it's finished at my departure time, but I sometimes need to leave early and don't like this option.

If — as on Saturdays — I do not have a departure time and leave the pre-selected option on, what will happen? Since I do not have low-rate hours defined, then when will charging start in this case? 0:00 hours? 12:00 hours?

I haven't dared experiment too much yet since I need the car charged for my morning commute every day, so I've just been manually pressing the "charge now" button every time.

Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong, or is this just the way it's supposed to work?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions that might point me in the right direction.

 

[Szyszka]

Try un-checking all the boxes in the e-manager.

 

[manybees]

The easiest method to get it to charge immediately to a certain percentage state of charge is to set the “minimum charge percent” to, say, 90 or 95%. This tells the car to immediately start charging up to that percentage whenever you plug in and the SoC is less than the value you set for that setting. It overrides all other charge schedule settings, including departure time and off-peak settings

 

[mreintz]

Thanks both of you for your replies. I've already set the minimum charge percent to 100, so there had to be something else. I drove by the dealership today. They haven't been very helpful on this front on previous occasions, but this time I met a salesman who told me to uncheck the "charging" option for my charge site, leaving just the "air conditioning" box checked. This does seem counterintuitive to me, but we tested it on site and the car startet charging immediately (green, pulsing LED). Very strange. I'll let you know what I find out. If anyone understands this proposed fix better than me, please let me know why unchecking "charging" should make it charge

 

[eGolfJoe]

please let me know why unchecking "charging" should make it charge

Because if you check anything, that's setting up a scheduled charge.

I have to remember to turn off all scheduling when I get to work so that my 2019 immediately charges and to 100%, vs at home when I only need a 50% charge for the next day's drive in.

 

[manybees]

There's no doubt that the design of the charging configuration and scheduling software in the e-Golf is unintuitive and confusing to many users. There is a kind of warped logic to it all, but they could do so much better and actually try to delight their customers by adding and improving features to the system rather than just doing a "minimum viable product." A company like Tesla is constantly improving their software and adding features for people who already own the car, much to Tesla owners' delight. VW (and other OEMs) seem to have the philosophy of "we got your money already when you bought the car so why do we need to do anything more? Leave us alone unless something's broken." It's the modern software update mentality vs traditional automakers' mentality of "you get what you get so don't throw a fit."

 

[f1geek]

I always heard "you get what you get so don't get upset".

 

[cctop]

Hi mreintz — Welcome to the board!

Yes, because you have a departure time set, the car will delay the start of charging so that it finishes at your departure time.

If you always want to charge immediately, turn off your departure time. You can also turn off your minimum charge level: it should not be necessary though it doesn't change anything to have it set.

If you don’t have lower electricity rates at certain times of day then I don't see a reason to set a departure time.

 

[mreintz]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Removing the "Charge" tickbox on my default charge site seems to have done the trick. I've still got departure times on weekdays, but that seems to work OK. Car now accepts charge from the moment I insert the cable, and it's warm when I open the door at 7.30. I'm still a bit baffled by the user interface, but as several of you have already noted, this does not seem to be VAG's strongest point.

Again: Thanks everybody. To me this specific set of features is now "solved", but I'll approach the next change to my settings with some trepidation.