i3 Charging question/issues (2022 120ah model, UK)

[NeilHopkins]

Hi everyone

I'm new to the forum and new to i3 ownership (well, a couple of months in). We've recently had a home charging point installed, and I don't know if it's working as expected or whether there are issues.
We have contacted the energy company to ask for their advice, but I wanted to try here as well in case anyone has any insight...

We have recently had an Ohme Pro EV charger installed, and moved to the intelligent Octopus charging scheme to charge our 2022 BMW i3 (120ah). The car is in excellent mechanical order with less than 8000 miles on the clock having been a dealership demonstrator.

We have tried to charge the car a few times to 90%, and regularly receive errors from Ohme stating that the vehicle is charging slower than expected and to check it (please see screenshot from the app - link below). On the first day we tried it (the weekend after installation), we could barely get through an hour or two without the Ohme message appearing.

The vehicle stops charging and doesn't restart until we manually go into the Ohme app to force it to over-ride the schedule settings. Please see the i3 screenshot, also via the link below.

For example, last night we arrived home just before midnight, plugged it in (cira 15% battery) and about an hour later Ohme informed us that it was charging more slowly than expected, and then the car told us that there was a charging issue and that it was no longer charging. At this point, it had only topped up a few percent. The Ohme app confirmed that it was no longer charging. We manually started to charge it again through the app - it told us once that the charge was slower than expected, but for once it did not disconnect the charging process.

This morning, it stopped charging around 08:15 at about 65%. And then again as you can see in the screenshot at 10:13. Each time, we received the Ohme message and then the car disconnects saying that the charge has been interrupted.

We have one Ohme schedule set (charge to 90% by 0800 on every day of the week). The car's onboard charging settings are set to maximum (so not limiting the amount of power it can take in) and it does not have any calendar/timing charging schedules set. As far as we can see from all onboard settings (and a good amount of research), there is nothing that should be conflicting from the vehicle or from the Ohme app settings to cause this issue.

From everything that we've read, it sounds like we should just be able to plug the car in at any time of day/night and it will charge according to the Octopus algorithm. It should only stop when reaching the maximum level, when the algorithm tells it to or we unplug it.

This morning, I happened to be in a room with the lights on - at one point fairly soon after 10am, the lights started to flicker, then stabilised. I wasn't able to check the time {OK, I was having a very lazy bath!), but suspect that it was about the time that the car stopped charging with the Ohme message popping up on our phones.

Can you offer any help/assistance? This feels like there is an issue somewhere - but as this is the first time we have had a home charger installed, we don't know where else to investigate having done what we can based on the internet research available. We have not had this issue on any public charging points, whether 3-pin, 7kw or any other rating up to 150kw.

Thanks so much in advance!

Link to 2x screenshots: https://photos.app.goo.gl/5eA2RQVR7DCT4g868

 

[EvanstonI3]

really sounds like you have an electric supply issue that is affecting this. Until that is stabilized or corrected, this will continue.

"lights flickering" is a rather big give-away that something is wrong.

 

[NeilHopkins]

Thanks - I was thinking that myself... We've contacted Octopus so will see what happens...

The light flickering may have been at a different moment - we haven't noticed that before when it's disconnected with a "problem" but it did seem rather a coincidence this morning!

 

[frictioncircle]

Howdy NeilHopkins –

A few things to consider... do you live in a corrosive environment (near an ocean?) If so, corrosion can build up between the high-voltage socket on your wall or high-voltage plug that supplies power to your EVSE (wall box charger).

Second (and this is from a US perspective), high-voltage wiring should be terminated with ferrules:
https://www.americanelectrical.com/uploads/catalog/wireferrule_install.pdf

A few years back I had an overload at a 220V outlet that was likely a combination of atmospheric corrosion and the non-use of ferrules on the HV lines.

 

[NeilHopkins]

Hiya @frictioncircle

Thanks for that! We aren't in a highly corrosive environment that I am aware of - and we have only had the charger a few weeks so I'd expect any degradation to take a lot longer?

 

[Darlouis]

Hmmm, without being an expert in this stuff, sounds like something to do with the electrical supply or the load balancing.

The Ohme app isn't without bugs/undesirable features. One such feature is that if you have push notifications enabled then you will see the slow charging warnings sent to phone as the car slows the charge rate at approx 95% but you shouldn't be seeing these below 90%. I have push notifications disabled as those warnings over 95% annoyed me when it was charging as expected at that state of charge.

Have you tried disabling the Octopus managed charging/price cap and just using an Ohme timed schedule? I have an Ohme (non-pro) and use timed schedules but don't use the intelligent managed charging as I don't use the car enough to justify switching tariffs to a dual rate tariff so never used the 'only charge in cheap rate' stuff

Sorry if I've misunderstood here but I'm wondering if the charger is trying to charge within the Octopus cheap rate hours but you've used a schedule to charge in a schedule which exceeds the cheap rate time so might be causing a conflict. Worth trying anyway but doesn't explain the flickering lights.

If on the Octopus Go Tariff I think the cheap rate is 00:30 to 4:30 am so you wouldn't want to have a schedule set to charge to x% by 8am as it will charge very slowly or not at all before 4:30am depending on the current SOC and potentially the Octopus managed charging(Octopus integration) aspect will cut the charge session at 4:30am as the cheap rate electricity has ended.

 

[NeilHopkins]

Thanks for you reply . The Octopus Tariff is for cheap rate between 23:30 and 05:30 I think - and apparently everything happens intelligently in the background... Even if he hit the "Max" charging button (ie to over-ride any timed settings), we've still had the same thing happen..... Will continue to investigate!

 

[user 10067]

New owner, having just snagged a 2k mile i3s: buried in the iDrive menu is an option to limit the charging rate. When the dealer or you resets the car systems the charging rate will be limited, meaning it won't draw the full rated current from the supply, If you go in to the "My Vehicle" settings and have a poke around somewhere you'll find a "Charging current level" which have probably been set to "low" or "min". Whack them up to "high" or "max".

 

[NeilHopkins]

New owner, having just snagged a 2k mile i3s: buried in the iDrive menu is an option to limit the charging rate. When the dealer or you resets the car systems the charging rate will be limited, meaning it won't draw the full rated current from the supply, If you go in to the "My Vehicle" settings and have a poke around somewhere you'll find a "Charging current level" which have probably been set to "low" or "min". Whack them up to "high" or "max".

That's exactly it! I meant to post back on here - spoke to a BMW tech and he said that Low/Reduced is for 3pin plug charging to protect the house electrics.

Changed it to Max and all is as it should be!