DCFC Level 3 charging not reliable

[keepgoing]

Have a 2014 BEV with DCFC option. Have not been able to experience Level 3 DC charging during the first 4 years when vehicle is still under warrantee. Recently there are some DCFC station (managed by chargepoint) popping up in my area.

Station A (from a Jaguar dealer): After account authorization and plugging into vehicle, most of the time, the charge port lock socket failed to engage, and a fault error will come up on the charger saying lock failed. I would just to keep trying plugging in and unplugging until the charge port lock engaged magically. Usually about 5 to 10 mins of trying plugin and un-plug. Some time re-authorize the chargepoint account by tapping the card again because of time out. I thought my lock socket is probably dying since I realized the lock no longer engaged after I locked my car when plugin to a level two charger. The lock used to engaged on level 2 charging as well after I lock the vehicle. I saw some post in this forum (thanks a tons for the info) on how to replace the charge lock socket. Then I had experience something totally different in a brand new DCFC station, below.

Station B (from a Harley Davidson Motorcycle dealer): After account authorization and plugging into vehicle, the charge port lock socket engaged within 3 sec of plugin, and then the yellow light flashing, then about 10 secs later, the lock will dis-engaged and the yellow light stop flashing and white light on, and charging never get started. There is no error on the screen of the charging station either, just saying plug in to charge, or waiting for vehicle to start charging. So I unplug the charger and plug it back into the vehicle to try again. The charge port lock socket engaged again within 3 sec of plugin, then repeat the above. I tried the same steps above (over 20 times) and the charge port lock socket never failed to engaged and locked the pin in the beginning. Only to dis-engaged after 10 sec of communication between the charger and the vehicle. So I can't charge at all after 20 mins of trying back and forth. I called charge point help line and they logged that someone (Chevy Bolt) did charged successfully a day ago. So the charger seems to be fine.

At this point, I don't know if my charge port lock socket is at fault because it seems to works (lock and unlock). It may be BMW software issue dealing with DCFC stations. Both Station A (6 months old) and Station B (2 months old) looks identical to me, and managed by chargepoint as well. I guess I will stick with Level 2 charging since they seems to work regardless of the lock and less complex in negotiating to start charging.

 

[vreihen]

The one and only time that I had to DC fast charge, it took me 5-6 tries with the plug before the EVgo station would finally initiate charging. I read someone else posting that the additional weight of the larger DC cables may cause connection problems at the car, and holding the plug up until charging starts is the workaround. I haven't needed to charge on the road since then to see if it works or not.....

 

[Drumheller]

I have tried a DCFC Chargepoint at a Harley Dealer in Hobe Sound F.L.
with the same result. Calling Chargepoint twice did nothing.
My conclusion is that those chargers are Only for Harley Bikes.
You could walk in to the store and ask why it doesn't charge.
My guess would be they will turn you away because it's not a Harley.

 

[keepgoing]

The folks in the Harley store is pretty nice and they don't mind any other EV to charge either. That station is charging 10 cents/min with 24kW output. the cost is reasonable, if it actually works. They don't know why it does not work for the i3 either, and suggest me to contact Chargepoint for support. From the charging history of the station, there were other EV successfully used the station prior, such as Hyundai Kona, Chevy Bolt, VW e-Golf, Chevy Spark. But no BMW. I guess it is the BMW software not catching up with new Hardware since my car has not had a software update since Aug 2017. Can't get any update for free since it is out of warranty. This is another instance to jealous of Teslas owner who get OTA update.

 

[Drumheller]

Thats pretty strange. I wonder if those other cars actually charged, Or just showed
that they just made a connection. I wonder if Chargepoint can shed some light on that one.

 

[PBNB]

I had mine at my local BMW dealership which has a Charge-point L3 setup there. I left the car and returned a few hours later to pick it up and found it attached to the charger.

It was funny that they tried a few times to disconnect it. This may be a feature of the L3 charging as it may want to throttle down before letting the plug go.

It was pretty quick to get to ~80% charge from what I was told.

 

[jfran2]

I'm sorry we're all having this problem, but glad it's not just me! I have a 2014 Rex model, and attempt to charge at an Electrify America station 40 miles away sometimes. I think only twice out of the last ten times have I been able to plug in and charge immediately. Most of the rest of the time I get the same problem with not being able to initiate the charge. Usually, but not always, I can eventually get one to work. Sometimes I have to drive home on gas. Thank you REX!

 

[joni3s]

i’ve had some pretty good luck then. I fast charge almost 3-4x a week without an issue. 2018 model.

 

[tjsean0308]

The local Harley dealer near me just put in one of those KeyWatt by ies 24 Kw chargers in and it wouldn't charge my car either. Chargepoint was no help, and the Harley folks were adamant that it was for the general public to use, but didn't have a livewire bike to test it with yet. Same symptoms as described above. The car completed the handshake and showed an active DCFC session locked the plug and everything. The Charger just keep saying "waiting for vehicle" eventually it would timeout and the car would unlock the plug. I tried everything while on the phone with CP, wanted to try and get this working since its in a great spot for me and the Harley folks seemed happy to have me there. Never got it work after three separate times stopping in and calling CP. Always the same symptoms, the charger just didn't want to finish the handshake with the car.

I think ies has an issue with their protocol, but I can't say for certain that the charger works with other EV's. The charger showed up on the Chargepoint map when it was first turned on, but since then it has been removed from the CP map and no one besides me has checked in on Plugshare at that location.

I have had no issues with EVgo chargers and the Electrify America chargers work well once I figured out the trick i'll explain below. I'm lucky and still have the ChargeNow DCfast on my car until next fall. So I use the RFID keytag and the EVgo chargers have been rock solid using that method.

The EA charger was a bit counterintuitive to get the session activated, but it worked fine once I figured out the App's UI/UX. The EA customer service recommended using the swipe to start in the app, over the NFC tap to start. Once I knew to just try the swipe to start, I found the EA chargers to be quite reliable, but it's not intuitive. You have to swipe the charger that says "unavailable" It's confusing because you're not sure its the right charger or another one that broken or something. It would be better if it said something like in-use or occupied.

The tap to start using NFC has never worked for me on the EA chargers with iOS. I wouldn't count on the card reader either, they all seem broken at the chargers near me. Maybe that's the issue with the NFC, the reader they went with.

So I think the Harley chargers are the issue, not necessarily your car. Was the Jaguar charger a KeyWatt charger like the Harley one? This is the manufacturer tag https://imgur.com/gallery/OG5QOBl

 

[frictioncircle]

keepgoing –

I've had similar problems with my 2014 BEV. My dealer worked with BMW NA to get them to cover 95% of the repair cost out of warranty.

Very well handled by my dealer and BMW NA.

Details:
Charge door no longer locking and unable to CCS charge now
https://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5015

 

[frictioncircle]

BTW, a rogue auto-correct may have changed your thread title.

The Level 3 charging technology in the i3 is usually referred to as DCFC (DC Fast Charging), SAE CCS (Society of Automotive Engineers Combined Charging System), or just CCS.

Just wanted to mention it as "DCFS" in the thread title may have prevented others from coming across this based on normal search terms!

 

[jadnashuanh]

FWIW, the CCS charging protocol is more complex than that used with an EVSE. Two of the pins normally used for acv input get repurposed to be data lines. Throw in the fact that the CCS plug and cable is heavier, and you need all of the pins to be making proper contact, and that the latch may be slightly off, means that properly activating a CCS charge may be a bit more problematic than when using an EVSE. That's not saying that it shouldn't be seamless, it should, but it may not be. Throw in that there MIGHT be slight variations in the communications protocol, they may not play together well all of the time.

While my i3 has it, I've not found occasion to use a CCS unit, so have no idea if it would work or not. I've only used a couple of EVSEs outside of my own, so not sure if there are differences there, too. That protocol is much simpler than the CCS one as there's no digital data being exchanged, only analog signals.

 

[electronchaser]

FWIW I've done a lot of DCFC lately, love it! other than the heavy cables, kinda odd to get it in , due to the port being slightly angled, and the CCS plug being a bit heavy towards the plug end with the weight of the cable pulling at a funky angle. But no problems at all with pin locking.

However one weird anomaly has been throwing up the red blinking light around the port, and shutting off the EVSE (session terminated). Don't know if its from the car or the EVSE. I heard the pin disengage but didn't pay attention if that happened pre or post termination.

on the plus side:

 

[electronchaser]

https://ibb.co/ZJgJk2f

https://ibb.co/NFH9SS9

(This was at sub 40kW power at all times)

 

[JackOakley]

I have a 2016 i3 REX:
Same Issues as all the above posts with DCFC.

1) Electrify America: It takes me 4-6 attempts, the car usually locks the DCFC cable, you will need to wait about 3-5 minutes for the car to realize it's not charging and release the cable. I have call EA support - they are very nice, have rebooted the charges remotely for me and suggested I hold up on the cable handle to assure a firm seating of the charge plug.

2) Harley Davidson Charger - will not work, looks like it is going to work, but never starts the charging. i3 Issue. I think it has something to do with it being 25kW - possibly a limit set internally on the I3 for DCFC.

3) EVGO - usually 2-3 tries and it works - Just expensive compared to EA.

4) Home SIEMENS level-2 charger - when I enable a departure time and enable climate (heat) the preconditioning works, but when I enable the climate feature to warm the interior the SIEMENS charger fails and I get red lights on charger and i3 charge socket - If I reset the charger and plug in again it starts charging. Called Siemens, very helpful engineers. They said it's on the i3 implementation of the HAND-SHAKE protocol to connect a charger during the request for power as the heater is automatically turned on, they said they are partners with BMW, raised to their attention in 2015 and BMW refuses to make adjustments.

I love my i3, but their reluctance to not address charging issues is unacceptable. This is a new standard, should be as easy as LEVEL-2 charging and as easy as filling an ICE gas tank. I tried calling BMW customer support, no help. Spoke to my dealer - helpful to the respect that they openly shared they have no FIRMWARE updates from BMW for the charging system - They agreed an issue with the i3.

So like many of you - I stand and watch BOLTs, Hyundai, KIA and recently an AUDI eTRON plug into the Electrify AMERICA station near me and they just plug in and start charging - They get the entertainment of me struggling to get the i3 to release the charge cable with CONNECT FAILURE messages on the charger.

Not sure how we get BMW to provide the same attention to our i3s and keeping the up to date with the latest charging technology.

 

[robthebold]

2017 i3 Rex

I've found that the DC charger at the BMW dealer is pretty reliable, but the only other one I use (ChargeNow, free) only works when I'm alone -- no kids in the car. Don't know how it knows, but so far it's been a 100% accurate predictor.

 

[RobustBob]

I’ve had a 2014 REX for a few months now and would have to agree that DCFC is completely unreliable.

 

[electronchaser]

Might be more of an issue with older models. Since taking delivery, I've done over 5000miles of dcfc-ing, with a 98% success rate, and the one two errors I got were from the DCFC unit and not the vehicle.

Haven't been stranded once, and I discharge the battery a lot. I think if reliability was an issue, I would have needed to flatbed the car on countless occasions.

 

[panamamike]

FWIW, the CCS charging protocol is more complex than that used with an EVSE. Two of the pins normally used for acv input get repurposed to be data lines. Throw in the fact that the CCS plug and cable is heavier, and you need all of the pins to be making proper contact, and that the latch may be slightly off, means that properly activating a CCS charge may be a bit more problematic than when using an EVSE. That's not saying that it shouldn't be seamless, it should, but it may not be. Throw in that there MIGHT be slight variations in the communications protocol, they may not play together well all of the time.

While my i3 has it, I've not found occasion to use a CCS unit, so have no idea if it would work or not. I've only used a couple of EVSEs outside of my own, so not sure if there are differences there, too. That protocol is much simpler than the CCS one as there's no digital data being exchanged, only analog signals.

If you haven't tried CCS, you will probably find a free charger at your local BMW dealer. My dealer has the 24Kwh variant of fast charger, just needed a chargepoint account that you can put on your phone for free. If you're not sure they have one, you could check with the chargepoint or plugshare app.

 

[ScottOwnsAPanda]

Today, I charged my i3 at a local Harley-Davidson dealer for the first time. It was a ChargePoint 24 kw charger. It was free, and available 24/7. It worked great, other than being slower than a 50 kw charger.