ALL POSTS about Charge Timer Failure

[miimura]

I suggest that anyone that has completely missed scheduled charges post the following information:
- Fuel Gauge "Bars" at missed charge
- Which EVSE was connected at missed charge
- Which EVSE was previously used
- What time was the EVSE plugged in
- What was the scheduled departure time

IMHO, charge timer events that start too early are annoying but missed charges are completely unacceptable. If the car thinks it cannot finish charging by the departure time, it should start immediately, not skip it.

 

[Sport Mode]

I'll remain optimistic for your sake (and mine and everyone else). Please keep us posted and I hope this one will be a "winner"! :mrgreen:

Btw, if you don't mind, can you tell us who is your dealer? If this update turns out to be successful, I'm sure a LOT of other owners will be interested in finding out which dealers can install the same update as yours.

Hi Dsinned:

Sorry for the delayed response....I wanted to test the new update (VB503150) before I reported back.

I have charged the car 4 times since getting the update.

2 times with about 12 miles of range left and 2 times with about 45 miles of range left.

All four times charging was ultimately completed.
All four times the charging started earlier than scheduled (45 to 110 minutes earlier)
The two times with about 45 miles of range the charging was completed without any interruption.
One time with 12 miles of range the charging was interrupted 1 time but started again in about 30 minutes and finished.
One time with 12 miles of range the charging was interrupted 4 times but started again each time in about 30 minutes and finished.


This is a big improvement.
Prior to the update, charging was interrupted about 4 out of every 5 charging attempts and never finished.

I still would love to know why charging is starting earlier than scheduled and why the interruptions are occurring.

This update is supposed to be issued as a Toyota Service Bulletin soon.
I will actually be at my dealer today and I will ask him how other owners can get this update.

 

[fooljoe]

This is a big improvement.
Prior to the update, charging was interrupted about 4 out of every 5 charging attempts and never finished.

I still would love to know why charging is starting earlier than scheduled and why the interruptions are occurring.

This update is supposed to be issued as a Toyota Service Bulletin soon.
I will actually be at my dealer today and I will ask him how other owners can get this update.

Your charging gets interrupted mid-charge? I presume you didn't unplug it yourself...

This sounds really weird, and I'd suspect it's more likely to be a problem with your home's wiring than the car. You might be getting some pretty bad voltage drop or something. I'd test it out somewhere else (easier said than done, I know) and possibly consult with an electrician.

I suppose it could also be a problem with your charging station.

 

[Sport Mode]

This sounds really weird, and I'd suspect it's more likely to be a problem with your home's wiring than the car. You might be getting some pretty bad voltage drop or something. I'd test it out somewhere else (easier said than done, I know) and possibly consult with an electrician.

I am 99% sure the interruptions are a Toyota problem. The interruptions rarely occurred when I Charged Immediately but were
happening all the time on the Scheduled Charge.

 

[fooljoe]

Hmm I dunno. The scheduled charging is known to do weird things like start way early or not start at all, but once it starts it should be indistinguishable from charging immediately. And the fact that you've never had a problem on L1 is telling - something about the high power draw is causing problems. It's not necessarily your home, but maybe something nearby like an overloaded transformer. The ~10kw draw while charging @40amps is non-trivial, and if your infrastructure isn't great you could be causing little mini brownouts. And it could be that someone else in your neighborhood has large power draws around the same time, which might explain why you've noticed the problem with scheduled charging (overnight I presume) but not with charge immediately (probably early evening or daytime?). You really need to measure your voltage both before and during charging, and consult with an electrician and/or utility. Also I'd make sure to rule out the charging station as the cause (is its relay opening during these interruptions?) but I think that's unlikely.

I had a similar thing happen in my Leaf while charging with a "quick220"-type adapter at my friend's condo with some pretty old wiring. Charging would go along fine for awhile, then cut out, then come back periodically. Nothing like that ever happened anywhere else, so it pretty clearly points to an infrastructure problem.

 

[Sport Mode]

I did show my logs to Toyota. My logs document the interruptions I have experienced.
They said there is a know issue with the software
that is causing my charging issue and they are working on a fix.

3-4 weeks later they provided me with the software update.

At this point, Toyota has not pointed the finger at the power at my house.

 

[fooljoe]

First realize that it's very unlikely that anyone you've spoken to at Toyota knows anything at all about EVs. People who work in service departments and customer service centers are very good at telling you that they understand your problem and are taking care of it, when in fact they have no clue and are just hoping you'll go away.

Now, it may well be that Toyota can "fix" (or did already fix?) the issue for you by updating the software to ensure that charging restarts automatically after an interruption. That's good, and as long as your charge completes in time I guess it'll work out for you. However, it does nothing to address the issue of why these interruptions occur in the first place, which I still think is very likely something outside of the car.

Even if the software updates work out for you by ensuring your charge completes, I'd still want to do some testing / contact an electrician / contact your utility. If there is some weak link in the infrastructure that's the underlying cause, that represents a potential fire hazard and needs to be addressed.

 

[fooljoe]

As this thread indicates, it's a good idea in general to let your utility know that you have an EV and what kind of power draw it uses and when. This is true whether or not you've experienced any problems that may or may not be infrastructure-related.

Utilities should really do a better job of being proactive about this and contacting new EV owners on their own, but EVs are still a very new thing, so they could use a little hand-holding.

 

[Dsinned]

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like your update was not entirely effective, but perhaps somewhat of an "improvement". Do you have any other details about this upcoming TSB? You referred to it as "VB503150" as apparently relates to the Navigation system. Do you think , if I ask my local dealer about this, and provide that same reference ID, he would know how to look it up in their system and find out more information?

 

[Sport Mode]

I referred to it as VB503150 because that was the only # on the screen. I have no idea what Toyota calls it.

I went to the dealer this morning, but the Service Manager was not in today.

I will be going back tomorrow and I will ask him how other RAV4 owners can request or find out about firmware updates.

He had told me it was going to be issued as a TSB (Toyota Service Bulletin). I have no idea how those are distributed
to the dealers and how RAV4 EV owners would find out about them.

 

[Bassman]

Rav 4 failed to charge this morning again. Errr! This was even after I plugged it into my CS-60 for 10 minutes last night around 8:30 PM to sample the EVSE charging rate. I charged at work with my Leviton 16 amp L2 unit. Drove home and plugged in for about 10 minutes, then unplugged the J1772, started the car and moved it about 2 feet, turned it off and the estimate showed a 240 volt start time of 2:45 AM, so I figured good it 'll start around 2 or so and plugged the J1772 back in. Woke up at 4 am and the car never started charging, so I had to start it using my phone app. Luckily and hour and a half later I had enough range to get to work. When I plugged in the second time my battery was showing 55% of a normal 80% charge remaining. COME ON TOYOTA, THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS! :evil:

 

[Blastphemy]

Have you reported this to Toyota corporate? The more of us who complain, the more likely it'll be addressed. I apologize for not having the appropriate customer service link included in this post...I'm out and about with limited 'net service.

 

[TeCKis300]

Have you reported this to Toyota corporate? The more of us who complain, the more likely it'll be addressed. I apologize for not having the appropriate customer service link included in this post...I'm out and about with limited 'net service.

Thank you for reminding me to do this. I'd encourage everyone to do so and post back.

My hope that a fix was imminently available is waning. So I did my part today to notify Toyota Coorperate at 1-800-331-4331. They were not aware of any particular update or fix available. :x The only action they are doing is to forward my concern to my local Toyota Service department who will contact me. Irritating that I've lost so many days of use because of the charge timer issue.

 

[Dsinned]

My hope that a fix was imminently available is waning. So I did my part today to notify Toyota Coorperate at 1-800-331-4331. They were not aware of any particular update or fix available. :x The only action they are doing is to forward my concern to my local Toyota Service department who will contact me.

This is almost the same thing as (Toyota) doing NOTHING AT ALL!!! I've been down this same road going on six months and still NOTHING!!! :x

 

[fooljoe]

After about a month of driving the Rav to work every day and charging up with a departure time of 7am (actually targeting it for finishing before 6am), I was beginning to think this timer's not so bad. But today I awoke to find that the car inexplicably decided not to charge last night. I did absolutely nothing different from my usual routine of backing it into the driveway, plugging it in, verifying the yellow lights, and locking it up. :roll:

 

[ravisekhar]

After about a month of driving the Rav to work every day and charging up with a departure time of 7am (actually targeting it for finishing before 6am), I was beginning to think this timer's not so bad. But today I awoke to find that the car inexplicably decided not to charge last night. I did absolutely nothing different from my usual routine of backing it into the driveway, plugging it in, verifying the yellow lights, and locking it up. :roll:

Same thing happened to me today. Its been charging correctly for the last 45 days and it skipped charging yesterday night or today morning.

 

[dark]

Mine failed to charge this morning too, this is the first time failing after the Tesla software updated. It worked for 1 week and failed today. I guess the Tesla update does nothing.

For my car, the pattern is when I have roughly half remaining charge, and the schedule departure seems to have 50% failure chance.

This is so random, I hate getting late to work when the car is not read in the morning. The Toyota services don't seem to know whats going on or they are just playing dumb trying to ignore the problem.

I am going to using the schedule departure feature, seems like a very easy fix defect that Toyota is playing dumb about it.

 

[miimura]

I find it interesting that it completely failed to charge on all three of you guys - on the morning of the 31st. That may or may not be significant, but there it is. I didn't have my car plugged in because I still had 75 miles of range left last night. I usually only charge every other day, but always every Friday night so I start the weekend with a full charge in case I want to take the family somewhere outside the normal work and errand radius.

 

[fooljoe]

That is very interesting, and seems a little too strange to be coincidence. It makes me think there might be some flaw with the car's internal calendar or something - but then again I have the exact same departure time set for every day of the week, so who knows. Toyota/Tesla please fix this!

 

[Brandy]

Duuhhh add one more to that list. I have not had a missed charge since last December and this is with a mix of the wall charger and the 240 UMC (12amp). Work perfectly until this morning. Totally missed a charge and no emails.

=D~~Brandy