Charging randomly stops; energy level gauge 'slow'; hot weather problems

[petere]

Our 2012 imiev has recently had a few problems - maybe related?:

• Charging (via 240v 10A) sometimes stops for no reason - well before fully charged and when less than half full - eg after 2 hours today. Unplugging and replugging continues the charging but the length of these secondary attempts can vary from a few minutes to many hours.
• When the car is turned on the energy level gauge has immediately jumped to the current energy level from when new. However for a week or two recently it starts with zero bars and slowly climbs to the current energy level over about 3-4 seconds. This issue is not occurring at present.
• On a ~35deg C day recently my wife was driving and the car slowed down and went to turtle mode even though it had nearly 50% charge. The electric motor unit warning lamp came on (car with !) and the energy usage indicator was at the extreme left (ie not indicating energy usage nor charging) when the car was on 'ready' but stationary - see the attached image - and it would not move. About 20 minutes with it turned off allowed it to start again in turtle mode and she got home. A full recharge next day and it has been fine for the last week. Have not had such an issue previously.

NB the car has the 30kWh replacement batteries etc from Oz Electric Vehicles.

Any ideas very welcome thanks.

 

[MickeyS70]

This may be temperature related as the car can go ‘tortoise’ when the cells are getting too warm.

But the only way to know for sure is to read out the error code(s). See below on how to do that:

https://myimiev.com/threads/smartphone-tablet-apps-for-i-miev-c-zero-and-ion.4936/
https://myimiev.com/threads/overvie...ters-their-functionality-and-the-future.5719/

 

[michael8554]

As the car has the 30kWh replacement batteries etc from Oz Electric Vehicles., is this a Calibration issue ?
For instance at about a third SOC, about 10kWh, it's showing 113km range.
I'd expect far less than that ?

 

[MickeyS70]

For instance at about a third SOC, about 10kWh, it's showing 113km range.
I'd expect far less than that ?

Not necessarily, if I understand correctly, the car was running on reduced power (not sure for how long though) before the picture was taken, which could explain the ‘optimistic’ RR

 

[petere]

This may be temperature related as the car can go ‘tortoise’ when the cells are getting too warm.

But the only way to know for sure is to read out the error code(s). See below on how to do that:

https://myimiev.com/threads/smartphone-tablet-apps-for-i-miev-c-zero-and-ion.4936/
https://myimiev.com/threads/overvie...ters-their-functionality-and-the-future.5719/

Thanks for replying - yes I ordered an OBD dongle a few days ago, as I realised I'd have to start getting serious about these increasing problems.

 

[pbui19]

how's the 12v aux battery health ?

 

[petere]

how's the 12v aux battery health ?

Thanks for your suggestion: it's about one year old, and on 2/1/25:
Car off: 13.02v
Car 'Ready': 14.18v (and same while charging)
A few months ago it got too low and caused the usual sort of issues. So I got a charger to perk it up.
However the fact that is got low that time could be another sign of these deeper problems.

 

[Alan Benn]

We're in Perth too petere and having similar problems. It does seem to be temperature related but also problems with our aux battery not lasting long. A few times in the past if we've left the car locked (alarm on) for a few days, when we get back the aux battery has been "killed". Gone down to only 5-6V.
I know a voltage this low is supposedly fatal for a lead acid but last time it happened on Dec I just ran a standard power supply in to it and it came back up to 12.5V. Has been going OK since then. 12V or so when off. 14.1V when running - so it should be charging although probably needs replacing.
Car gave same issues as yours yesterday. Ran OK in the morning but in afternoon with outside temp 38C it did the slow increase on the charge gauge thing and took several goes to get it to Ready.

 

[Alan Benn]

I just called EFI (we got teh 30kWh upgrade through them too). and they have seen a few like this. They say its something to do with the "CAN box" in the upgrade and he's contacting the supplier of the upgrade kit to see what can be done.