SLC Charging Problem Is Battery

Well, I've finally driven my i-MiEV in some real cold weather in SLC, and the results haven't been terribly promising.

First of all, despite being plugged in for more than enough time to get a full a charge, I didn't have a full charge when I got in my car the last two morning I drove it (Thursday and Friday — before I left town for the weekend.) On Thursday I was two bars shy of full, on Friday three. The good news is that I didn't lose much charge while parked outside at the airport for three days. The bad news is that I still barely made it home on a 23 mile round trip.

I'm going to have to check if my pre-heating is actually bringing down my charge or if the battery is charging slower due to the cold weather. I'll let you know what I find. Has anyone else encountered anything like this?

On the bright side, it's handled fine in the snow, and when traffic is moving at 20-30 mph due to weather, I don't use much of my charge at all!

nsps said:

I'm going to have to check if my pre-heating is actually bringing down my charge or if the battery is charging slower due to the cold weather. I'll let you know what I find. Has anyone else encountered anything like this?

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If you're charging and preheating with the OEM EVSE that came with your car, preheating is definitely costing you some range - The time to fully charge will be longer because the 8 amp EVSE only produces 960 watts and that's not enough energy to both charge and preheat at the same time, so charging takes longer. Also, I'm pretty sure preheating will use a little of your battery power, though it won't be anything like 2 or 3 bars since preheating is limited to 20 minutes

If you get your EVSE upgraded (http://evseupgrade.com/?main_page=index&cPath=3&zenid=1e5plppu8cd2ijfovp3p6addp3) then you can charge and preheat with 12 amps instead of 8 which will both speed up charging and give you a little more preheat. But, if you can get a 240 volt outlet installed, using that with your upgraded EVSE should solve all of your problems . . . . plus, you'll see what preheating is all about - A toasty warm car to start your trip

Don

nsps said:

First of all, despite being plugged in for more than enough time to get a full a charge, I didn't have a full charge when I got in my car the last two morning I drove it (Thursday and Friday — before I left town for the weekend.) On Thursday I was two bars shy of full, on Friday three... I'm going to have to check if my pre-heating is actually bringing down my charge or if the battery is charging slower due to the cold weather. I'll let you know what I find. Has anyone else encountered anything like this?

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Pre-heating should not reduce charge, even with L1 charging. You should check the charge status before turning on the pre-heating, you may have a battery problem.

Tony

nsps said:

Well, I've finally driven my i-MiEV in some real cold weather in SLC ...

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we were just in SLC for Thanksgiving - I think it got much colder after we left (as it did at home for us too).

I drove our iMiev in a few inches of snow yesterday, and like some others, I like to know how well it tracks, brakes, turns ... and was not disappointed at all. I couldn't make it slip or slide at all.

As far as the heat goes, it is pretty wimpy compared to the ICE heating we're all quite used to, especially if you're trying to keep snow from accumulating after the car has been sitting for a few hours out in the elements. But, off of the 240 v EVSE the pre-heating works great and let me keep a decent range in reserve for the return trip.

nsps, if your ...

nsps said:

pre-heating is actually bringing down my charge or if the battery is charging slower due to the cold weather.

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my guess is that you're only using the 120v charging or and/or your car sits outside - which would make it more difficult to keep the batteries warm enough and would limit the pre-heating. I've never had a problem charging and pre-heating on 240 v ... but I have tried pre-heating on 120v, and it doesn't do much at all.

Thanks for the input, all.

I'm charging L2 with an EVSE upgrade version of the OEM EVSE.

The car was only charged one bar over the halfway point this morning, and was not charging when I got to the car. The EVSE's ready light was blinking so I'm assuming it was the car that shut down charging? The car was plugged in from 6pm to 8am, but clearly wasn't charging during that whole period. I have a detached garage without 220, so I was plugging it in outside by my house. Could try 110/12 in the garage, but not sure it's much warmer in there…

I got the car in March, so I had it for the tail end of the cold season.

Yesterday's low was 14 degrees F, today's is 8.

nsps said:

The car was only charged one bar over the halfway point this morning, and was not charging when I got to the car.

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Check your MiEV remote to make sure it doesn't have charging timers set. Easiest way to do this is to turn on the remote while the car is charging, press the bottom button, then press send. (Hold top button, press bottom button, press top button, both on the side). See if it charges to full after that. If the EVSE kicks out about 30 seconds after pressing send, press it again, making sure you don't get an error. Best to do this on level 1.

I just checked on the car a couple hours after plugging it in and it seems to be charging OK at the moment. However, a light was on while it was charging showing a car with an exclamation point in it. Looking it up in the book, I discovered it to be the "electric motor unit warning light." I guess I will see if the light stays on when I start the card or only when I charge it.

Anyhow, we've yet to get below 8 degrees, and the manual identifies 5 as the point at which problems might start cropping up. I guess I'll keep an eye on things and if that warning light stays on, take it to a dealer.

Does it stay on after unplugging, then plugging the car back into level 2?
What about charging on level 1?

Bad news. Here's how things went through the night. I'm wondering if my battery warming system is malfunctioning. According to my manual, these things shouldn't happen until it's even colder.

5:30 p.m. — 16 degrees F
Plugged in car, outdoor L2. (near the end of its last bar due to the lack of a full charge the day before)

8:30 p.m. — 13 degrees F
Checked on car. ELECTRIC MOTOR UNIT WARNING LIGHT was on. However, charging at that time appeared to be happening — not quite as fast as in warm temperatures, but it had gained five bars and was well on pace to to be full before 8 a.m.

10:30 p.m. — 12 degrees F
Checked on car. Charge hadn't moved a whole lot, but had progressed to one bar shy of the halfway mark. ELECTRIC MOTOR UNIT WARNING LIGHT remained on. I unplugged the car for a few minutes and plugged it back in to see if the warning light would go off. Charging resumed as usual, and the warning light was gone.

1:00 a.m. — 14 degrees F
Checked on car. It was no longer charging. The charge was at the halfway mark. I unplugged it and plugged it back in. The charge indicator light blinked several times, then went out. I moved the car into my unheated detached garage and plugged in at L1. The car indicated it was charging, and I went to bed.

8:00 a.m. — 9 degrees F
The car did not gain any bars in those 7 hours.

nsps said:

Bad news. Here's how things went through the night...
... The car did not gain any bars in those 7 hours.

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I think you have a problem with your upgraded EVSE. Get backup EVSE first then hunt the upgrade service to have your unit fixed. I see in your previous posts that you had to send it back once.

jaraczs said:

nsps said:

Bad news. Here's how things went through the night...
... The car did not gain any bars in those 7 hours.

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I think you have a problem with your upgraded EVSE. Get backup EVSE first then hunt the upgrade service to have your unit fixed. I see in your previous posts that you had to send it back once.

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Thanks for your thoughts. Can I ask if there's a specific reason you suspect the EVSE? Last time, when it had trouble, the fault light went on. This time around it's been entirely triggered by the cold weather, and the EVSE has always appeared ready to charge.

Thanks!

nsps, sorry to hear about your issues. I can't help but wonder if there isn't some residual Remote program left in the system, although it should have cleared when you "started" the car. If I may suggest, plug into L1 again, use the Remote to START the charge immediately (i.e., program ON to be zero time delay) and program the ON-->OFF time to, say, 12 hours. There should be no ERROR with each of the programming steps.

Simply unplugging the car and then plugging it back in does not clear the Remote settings, IIRC.

Oh, and when you insert the plug, give it a good satisfying shove and thunk as you insert it.

Anyone in SLC able to loan nsps a 'virgin' Mitsu EVSE just to eliminate that as a suspect?

Low temperatures can do strange things to electronics...

Good luck, and let us know what happens...

I've never used my remote for anything other than pre-heating/cooling, so I don't think that's the case, but I'll mess around with it. I'd be very surprised if it isn't ultimately related to the cold weather.

I'll see if I can get my hands on another EVSE and compare. It's supposed to get a little bit warmer starting tomorrow, which is good in general, but perhaps bad for proper testing.

It looks like there are quite a few public charging stations in Salt Lake City. Maybe try your luck on one of those if your nearby (if you have about 4 hours to kill)?

Some of those spots (at least the ones closest to me) are actually just reserved (yet often ICE'd) wall outlets that the city put in. None of the Walgreens near me have them. A Leaf owner did loan me his EVSE once, though, and I might be able to hit him up again.

Well, last night I put a space heater in the garage, but that didn't help me get any more of a charge (seven bars, only gained one after switching to L1 in the garage from L2 outside.

Then when I drove it this morning, the electric motor warning lot was on, so I just took it straight to the dealership. I'll let y'all know if I find out what the issue was! I'm guessing it'll take a while as they'll probably have to communicate with corporate to figure it out.

Sounds like defective connections between battery packs or individual cells.

If it were bad connections, the car wouldn't be able to move more than a few feet without shutting down. More likely that the charger is bad.

Here, in Estonia, several iMievs had such symptoms. The reason was (at least as they explained for general public) defective connection. Cars were able to drive limited distance, but not just few yards. But the charging process was interrupted way before the battery gets full.

Source:
http://epl.delfi.ee/news/eesti/sotsiaaltootajate-elektriautode-akud-osutusid-praagiks.d?id=65399904
Use google translation, if you do not understand Estonian.

I didn't want to post any updates until it was definitive, but it sounds like my car is finally ready for pickup now.

The problem was battery failure — one of the cells died. The technician had to go through and test all 80 battery cells to find the one that died, although they replaced the full battery.

It seems likely to me that the cold weather sped up the battery failure, but that's pure speculation. It could have simply been coincidental timing.

I guess the good news is that this isn't standard behavior for the car in winter, which was my worry.