ALL POSTS about Charge Timer Failure

[Bassman]

Anybody notice that when you open the door while the Rav4 EV is cell balancing, it shutsoff the charging and, in my case, caused a cable malfunction error to show on the dash info box to the right of the speedo. I replugged in the CS-60, turned the car on and off and hit the charge now button. It then proceeded to charge for another 13 minutes and then shutoff. Strange!

 

[waidy]

Anybody notice that when you open the door while the Rav4 EV is cell balancing, it shutsoff the charging and, in my case, caused a cable malfunction error to show on the dash info box to the right of the speedo. I replugged in the CS-60, turned the car on and off and hit the charge now button. It then proceeded to charge for another 13 minutes and then shutoff. Strange!

In my case, it said "charging interrupted by pull out" (something likes that) when I unplugged during cell balancing.

 

[Bassman]

This occurred when I opened the driverside door. I didn't even touch the j1772 plug.

 

[SeaMonster]

Has ANYONE on this forum yet to get any constructive feedback from Toyota (Tesla?), or actual "fix", for our RAV4 EV's onboard scheduled charge timer problem??? Anybody???

I have been told that the firmware update I received fixed 3 of my 4 charging issues. I replied to them that I only have one issue: The car doesn't reliably charge on schedule. They reiterated that they had fixed 3 of my 4 issues, but they couldn't tell me which three. But they were sure that three had been fixed. That was several weeks ago. My car fails to charge at about the same frequency as before the "update".

I have heard nothing since then. The dealership's customer advocate guy tells me that he has never seen Toyota take any issue this seriously and dedicate so many resources. I replied that in my business, if I had a software bug of this level, and after 5 months I didn't have ANY information about a fix, I'd be out of business. All he could do is shrug.

Sigh... My lemon law case is now underway. They sent me a massive document request, I believe trying to intimidate me. I sent them everything and sent them my own document request. Double sigh... Not where I wanted this to go.

 

[yblaser]

This occurred when I opened the driverside door. I didn't even touch the j1772 plug.

I see the same thing. I have a timed departure set for 6 am and usually leave at 5:45-5:50am. Charging usually stops at 5 am or earlier depending on how much charge was left (see below). At 5 am I get both a charging complete email and see my household power draw drop to nominal. When I enter the garage the CS-60 has the charging enabled light on indicating the main relay is closed supplying 240 V to the car, but as soon as I unlock a door or open a door I can hear the relay open, the light go off on the CS-60, and I get a charging interrupted message (on the dash and email). I think I've seen the same behavior if I've left after the departure time, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

I installed a CS-60 in the end of May. Previously using a Voltec ~15A Level 2 EVSE, the RAV4 seemed to think it was a Level 1 EVSE and started the charge accordingly. Looking back at the last few weeks with the CS-60 the RAV4 seems pretty consistent in estimating the charge time incorrectly, generally overestimating the charge time by 80-100%. My normal daily commute dictates a 1 hour charge time and it finishes an hour early. If I do not charge everyday and let the SOC drop to a point where a 2 hour charge time is needed it ends slightly less than 2 hours early. At these longer times, it seems to be overestimating the charge time by 80%. I don't have much data at longer charge times as I usually charge every night, but what I do have seems to be consistent. I have not experienced a failure to charge with the CS-60 at this point.

 

[yblaser]

I reanalyzed the data realizing/assuming that for a 6am departure time the car would try to finish 20 minutes early. In this case the over estimation of charge time is independent of charge time and the car consistently over estimates the charge time by 2/3. Would be curious how this varies with evse amperage.

 

[AvLegends]

I only charge at home with the supplied L1 unit and when using the charge timer with a 7:00 am departure time it also overestimates the time needed to finish... at least by an hour and mostly more. Last night it started around 8:00 pm and finished around 4:45 am. When I plugged in last eve. it said the finish time would be around 6:30 am. Is this pretty normal?

I have never yet had a charge timer failure on 120V, although I don't charge every night. Am I lucky or are most of the timer problems associated with L2 charging?

 

[Dsinned]

Has ANYONE on this forum yet to get any constructive feedback from Toyota (Tesla?), or actual "fix", for our RAV4 EV's onboard scheduled charge timer problem??? Anybody???

I have been told that the firmware update I received fixed 3 of my 4 charging issues. I replied to them that I only have one issue: The car doesn't reliably charge on schedule. They reiterated that they had fixed 3 of my 4 issues, but they couldn't tell me which three. But they were sure that three had been fixed. That was several weeks ago. My car fails to charge at about the same frequency as before the "update".

I have heard nothing since then. The dealership's customer advocate guy tells me that he has never seen Toyota take any issue this seriously and dedicate so many resources. . .

SeaMonster,

Sadly, I had high hopes your case would lead to a breakthru in this matter, but alas, looks like I was wrong. I can hardly believe Toyota - least of all Tesla - put their best foot forward on this matter. It's like they are not even trying to resolve the issue, which has been "in the works" for what seems like FOREVER! It's almost like, since nobody was killed, due to faulty equipment or a flawed design, resolving this issue just doesn't warrant anything more than what amounts to doing practically nothing. Guess I'll have to be content with manually charging my RAV4 on weekends, or not going to bed until after midnight on weeknights for the duration to keep my battery charged. :roll:

 

[Kohler Controller]

I only charge at home with the supplied L1 unit and when using the charge timer with a 7:00 am departure time it also overestimates the time needed to finish... at least by an hour and mostly more. Last night it started around 8:00 pm and finished around 4:45 am. When I plugged in last eve. it said the finish time would be around 6:30 am. Is this pretty normal?

I have never yet had a charge timer failure on 120V, although I don't charge every night. Am I lucky or are most of the timer problems associated with L2 charging?

for whatever reason, mine always starts/ends 2 hours before it said it was going to.

 

[SeaMonster]

SeaMonster,

Sadly, I had high hopes your case would lead to a breakthru in this matter, but alas, looks like I was wrong. I can hardly believe Toyota - least of all Tesla - put their best foot forward on this matter. It's like they are not even trying to resolve the issue, which has been "in the works" for what seems like FOREVER! It's almost like, since nobody was killed, due to faulty equipment or a flawed design, resolving this issue just doesn't warrant anything more than what amounts to doing practically nothing. Guess I'll have to be content with manually charging my RAV4 on weekends, or not going to bed until after midnight on weeknights for the duration to keep my battery charged. :roll:

On Friday I decided to send an email to my dealer to see why it has been a month with no news whatsoever. They responded by telling me that they had already told me it will be "a couple months" before they hear from Toyota. In fact, it has been over two months since Toyota removed the recording instruments, and that is "a couple" in my book. I think Toyota is mishandling this issue quite badly. They are completely silent on the real issues, but they are telling some people that the only issues are with their EVSE and telling other people (me) that they have fixed most of the issues even though the firmware update they gave me changed nothing.

 

[khaliss]

Tested the Rav4's charge timer last night for the first time. It worked just fine with our Clipper Creek CS-60 unit... although it finished 1.5 hours before the scheduled departure time. Doesn't matter to me, since the CS-60 charges at full speed... we are still within PG&E's offpeak time frame.

 

[Dsinned]

I "tested" mine too. Here's what happened since yesterday, on Sunday afternoon during a standard (80%) "scheduled" charge, preset for completion by 7am this morning.

Sunday (with ~45mi on GoM prior to plugging in):
:
4:45pm: Parked car and opened charge port connector cover (but, did not plug in).
5:32pm: Rec'd Charge Timer Failure email notification.
9:00pm: Plugged in Leviton 32A charger, and verified dual LED started blinking.

Monday (with 100mi on GoM after unplugging):
1:59am: Charge initiated as verified by email notification.
4:47am: Charge successfully completed as verified by email notification.
6:41am: Cell balancing charge initiated automatically as verified by HEM sensor on L2 EVSE.
7:09am: Cell balancing charge completed automatically as verified by same.
9:15am: Unplugged and verified successful charge on dash.

Conclusions for this scheduled charge:
1. Scheduled charge was generally successful, except for a late completion time of ~10 mins.
2. There is nearly 2 hours "gap" between normal charge completion and subsequent cell balancing.
3. Not counting cell balance, it took ~2 hrs 48 mins to add 55 miles range to the GoM.

Speculation:
Depending on how much charge already exists, when a scheduled normal charge, including a 2 hour delay restart for cell balancing, has sufficient time for completion at a preset time (+10 mins), it seems to work properly.

The next time I do a scheduled normal charge, I will move back the preset completion time by at least 10 minutes and see what happens. I predict the actual completion will then occur by 7am.

If this is the best it gets, I'll just live with it this way. :roll:

 

[yblaser]

I "tested" mine too. Here's what happened since yesterday, on Sunday afternoon during a standard (80%) "scheduled" charge, preset for completion by 7am this morning....

Thanks for the additional data. I don't think that the "cell balancing" is taken into account when the car is doing a scheduled charge. In fact I've only seen my car do it once, after the one and only extended charge that I have done. Besides that time I have never see any additional power draw (at least nothing I can see over my normal household usage) from the car after it stops charging. Excluding the cell balancing, your data agrees with what I have seen in that it overestimated the time to charge by almost exactly 2/3 even with our differing charge rates. It really seems that it has got to be a fairly simple bug in their program.

 

[fooljoe]

I just charged on 240V at home for the first time Saturday night / Sunday morning, and it finished well before the scheduled departure time of 6 am. I'm used to this phenomenon coming from driving a Leaf, and just adjusted my departure time (or "end time" in the Leaf) through trial and error until the real completion time actually started happening just before 6 am.

But... On the dash, the Rav4 provides additional information the Leaf doesn't - when you power off it says when it plans to start and stop the charge. In my case the car said the charge would start at 2.20 and finish at 5.40, while it actually started at 1.09 and finished at 3.52. So the car's actually not that bad at guessing the actual charge duration - it only overestimated by a little over a half hour - but why in the world would the car say it's going to start charging at 2.20 and then start at 1.09?

This piece of data seems like a clear malfunction to me, and if we all just kept track of when the car says it will start charging vs when it actually starts (or if it doesn't ever start, as the case may be) I think we'd have a solid case to show Toyota / Tesla something is wrong and needs to be fixed. I've got one row in my spreadsheet so far!

 

[Dsinned]

The only REAL issue with Toyota, regardless of the actual technical issue here, is trying to convey without more precise control over scheduling, we cannot have control over what we PAY for electric rates! The whole point of owning an EV and keeping it charged (at home) is to avoid charging during periods when a homeowner pays much higher electric rates, often referred to as "Peak" or Partial Peak". The peak rate can be 3 or 4 times higher than "off-peak", typically from midnight to 6am, Monday thru Friday.

Another big automaker (GM) clearly understands this, as my Chevy VOLT recharges on schedule each and every time, precisely correct, after midnight, with completion typically before the time I preset for my "departure" time the next morning. The VOLT calculates how much time a charge takes and initiates the charge that many hours and minutes before the preset completion time; typically with 15 minutes to spare.

Furthermore, scheduled charging works absolutely flawlessly in my VOLT using EXACTLY THE SAME LEVITON L2 EVSE I'm using to charge my RAV4 EV. Leviton is NOT the OEM recommended by GM, but it IS recommended by Toyota, so how can this be???

Imho, after all this time, with the entire fleet of RAV4 EVs defective in this regard, Toyota is not even trying to "fix" this issue. Apparently, quality assurance and customer satisfaction is not as important after a car is sold and "somebody else's" problem.

This problem is totally obvious and so should the solution. In spite of the fire sale on these cars, we still paid a lot of money to buy them, yet we are being treated like rift raft customers!

 

[fooljoe]

The only REAL issue with Toyota, regardless of the actual technical issue here, is trying to convey without more precise control over scheduling, we cannot have control over what we PAY for electric rates!...

I agree completely, but I think we need to distill the issue down to something very clear and simple, so some call center customer support rep who knows nothing about EVs will agree there's a real problem that needs to be escalated. And I think that if we clearly show that the actual charge start times are consistently way off from the start times displayed on the dash that should be enough to demand action.

 

[Dsinned]

I had a very long telephone conversation already, with somebody deep within the bowels of Toyota about this exact same issue. I explained it THOROUGHLY, gave detailed examples, and must of cried a river of tears as to just how much of a dissatisfier this was to paying customers of one of Toyota's highest priced models. I also explained that "ALL" RAV4 EVs owners will experience exactly the same problem who may have followed Toyota's recommendation to buy a Leviton L2 EVSE, then attempt any scheduled charging.

That was months ago. I've heard nothing back as to when this issue will be resolved, not even if it has been prioritized or when to expect any follow up. NOTHING! Not a damn thing! All I got was essentially LIP SERVICE from some door mat of an excuse for being a so-called Customer Support Representative!

End of rant!

 

[fooljoe]

I had a very long telephone conversation already, with somebody deep within the bowels of Toyota about this exact same issue...

Lol, I know - I read through this whole thread before buying the Rav4 (and was almost scared off by it). I was just thinking - hoping - that maybe we need to try a new approach. Instead of listing off a bunch of problems and thoroughly explaining the issue, maybe just focusing on the very simple "says it will charge at x:xx but actually charges at y:yy" can get us past the flunkies and then get it to the point where someone who does understand the big picture and can do something about it will. Wishful thinking, I know...

 

[Aries]

I had a very long telephone conversation already, with somebody deep within the bowels of Toyota about this exact same issue...

Lol, I know - I read through this whole thread before buying the Rav4 (and was almost scared off by it). I was just thinking - hoping - that maybe we need to try a new approach. Instead of listing off a bunch of problems and thoroughly explaining the issue, maybe just focusing on the very simple "says it will charge at x:xx but actually charges at y:yy" can get us past the flunkies and then get it to the point where someone who does understand the big picture and can do something about it will. Wishful thinking, I know...

LOL. The only thing that will work is some kind of legal action or some kind of bad press. I did it a couple years ago when Nissan was hiding leafs at the port in long beach and blaming the Japan earthquake for delayed deliveries - a helicopter flight over the port taking photos of all those leafs sitting there got some attention.

Find a way to get some bad press on the issue and you'll find the problem is fixed so fast your head will spin! There is no "non negative" way to solve these kind of problems. You need a forcing function. Bad press or some kind of legal action.

 

[Dsinned]

Anybody got a contact or email address within a local TV station? I know channel 7 (KGO-TV in SF) has a daily news segment called, "7 On Your Side", hosted by Michael Finney. He puts out a different story every night on the 6 o'clock news. Other TV news programs often have consumer affairs stories and seem to like publicly shaming companies who have wronged their paying customers, especially when it comes to warranty claims.

SeaMonster, your case is probably the most well documented. Have you considered contacting a SF Bay Area TV news stations for consumer affairs assistance?