Scheduled charging issue (2016 PPlus/Tech/Sport) ...

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paulshikleejr

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Joined
Jan 30, 2018
Messages
1
I have a 2016 Premium Plus with the Tech and Sport packages.

Within the last 30 days, I noticed that the car would start charging immediately upon plug-in even when scheduled charging is active.

I actually took a video of this and sent it to my dealer.

I took in the car last Tuesday and they had it until Friday.

In the end, they told me the e-tron was designed to immediately begin charging if it is plugged in with less than 60% charge.

I've looked through the manual and there's no mention of this.

This conflicts with my memory of when it actually followed the schedule and current reality (it is now follow the schedule).

What's going on? Has anyone else experienced this?
 
The dealer's response makes no sense whatsoever!!! If it were true why would you even have the option to schedule charging? I have had my 2018 Technik for 7 weeks and when I plug it in, I can let it continue to a scheduled charge event or I can push the bottom button and tell the car to start charging immediately. The state of charge made no difference. Go back to the dealer and insist they fix it!!! Good luck.
 
I concur with Deepbank, my 2016 Technik (with sports pkg), I believe, is the same as your Premium Plus (I'm in Canada).
I've never heard of such a foolish excuse.
The only thing I can think of, that has affected me, is when I plug in using another L2 unit (not the Audi supplied unit).
I have a ChargePoint model in my garage which I have to "wiggle" slightly for the car to recognize it (the light pulsates) . If I plug in using the Audi unit, it's fine.
I would definitely take it back to Audi for them to thoroughly look at, if your issue isn't like what I have with the ChargePoint unit.

Update: On Friday I had my 55,000 km service and there was a software update to the EV module. Don't have all the details yet as I'm still waiting on the service information to be emailed to me.
But with the update the issue I had with my CP home charger is gone.
 
My 2016 Audi e-tron (Japan model) also experienced the same symptoms from the end of last year.
And my dealer was the same unbelievable explanation.
However, they were not convinced about this explanation and tried and errored the method of setting timer settings and presented a solution that I can convince.
My charge timer setting was from 23 o'clock to 7 o'clock and the start time was 7 o'clock. With this setting charging started immediately.
The alternate setting that the dealer has proposed was from 0 o'clock to 7 o'clock and the start time was 7 o'clock.
This proposal solved my problem for the time being.
 
I have the same problem with my 2017, but it is intermittent. Maybe once or twice a month when charging every evening. My dealer appears confused about how it works and keeps offering dubious explanations. I have, however, seen mine charge immediately then switch over to timer mode after a few minutes (as if it took a while to realize the preferred charging time was set, or perhaps it needed a little charge before going into timer mode). But I can't recall if it has happened only when the charge is empty. Please let me know if you have a resolution! Thanks.
 
The exact thing happened to my car. It happened after it threw a cel. The dealer determined a battery charger module was at fault and replaced it. (J1050) on the invoice. As soon as the CEL lit I noticed my delayed charging wasn't working correctly. The red led was lit by the delayed charge icon but the charge light would pulse green and the car would charge immediately.
The dealer is telling me the same story with the 60% charge etc... It worked fine for the year I've had it. I would drive about 20 miles on battery til the engine kicked on, so no ev mode left. I had my timer set to start at 11 pm and a departure time of 7 am. As soon as I plug in the audi supplied charger the green light flashed a few times the turned off. Now it just pulses a steady green with the timer light on. Using 110v. 2017 prem plus early build (no apple car play).
 
Thanks for the info! Was the problem intermittent like mine (very infrequent) or was it consistently disobeying the preferred charge time? BTW - I was able to show that the departure time can override the preferred charging window, even if the electric AC checkbox is empty. I set a departure time for 30 minutes hence and when I plugged in the charger it started charging immediately (disobeying the preferred charging window). I had thought that the departure time applied only to the electric AC and was used to precondition the car, but now I'm thinking it also applies to charging (i.e. it tries to get the car is fully charged before the departure time). As far as the electric AC checkbox goes, I can't figure out what it does since checking the box doesn't seem to do anything. Then there is the entirely separate auxiliary AC timer setting! Geez, do you have to speak to a German engineer (in German) to get an explanation of how these settings interoperate?
 
Update:
The dealer had my Etron for over ten days to try to fix the fault with the scheduled charging issue. Since it took so long, I was guessing they weren't going to fix it. Sure enough today I'm told its working like its supposed to. To Audi , scheduled charging means even though the scheduled charging timer is set, the car will start to charge immediately until to battery reaches 60% of its charge. Then it is supposed to switch to the programmed timer. This is a laughable excuse. It worked fine for over 16 months. This totally defeats the purpose of setting a charge time when electric rates are more favorable.
They had no idea how to fix this (I'm mostly blaming Audi corporate tech help , somewhere on the east coast)so now I'm stuck with a car with faulty software or parts and a useless timer function. Does anyone have any ideas what to do next?
And to make my day even better, The dealer gave me back my car with zero electric miles!
 
I'm still wondering if your problem is intermittent or if it switches to immediate charging every time. If it happens every time, then check to see if the timer light blinks a few times before switching to immediate charging. If it does blink, then I believe it is telling you that the timer is not active. In this case you need to make sure the timer check-box is checked and that you have the timer set as a repeat timer, not a one-time timer. I experimented by setting a one-time timer. The next day it would not obey the timer and that's because it deactivated the timer (the check-box was empty) after the one-time event had passed. I.e., if you are charging every night in a preferred window, then set timer 1 as a repeat timer, every day of the week, and make sure the checkbox for timer 1 is checked when you back out on the previous screen. Also make sure departure time is well outside of your preferred window (for example, if preferred window is 11PM-7AM, make the departure time 3pm or something like that). I say this because I observed that the departure time can override the preferred charging window and cause immediate charging if the departure time is near when you plug in. I'm guessing that charging will start immediately if necessary to have the car fully charged by the departure time.

I set mine according to the above and it works nearly every time, except once in a while (maybe every 20 charges) it will disobey the timer. In this case the red light comes on like it should (it does not blink), but then I hear a dull pop and it switches to immediate charging. I'm waiting for it to happen again, but the last time it happened it charged for a few minutes and then switched to timer mode automatically! (I never bothered to wait the other times). If I find that this happens consistently, then it leads me to believe that there is something to this seemingly bogus 60% rule. This would mean it will only disobey the timer when the battery is very low, but I need more occurrences to confirm that.

Note: "60% charged" may be ambiguous. I seem to recall hearing or reading that 50% of the battery is reserved for hybrid mode. If this is true, then I would picture the battery as having 2 partitions - one for hybrid mode and one for EV mode. When I say "hybrid mode," I mean operation when the stored battery partition is empty (not to be confused with 2017 hybrid mode, in which the car runs as a hybrid but uses the stored battery too). The hybrid mode I'm talking about is called "battery hold" mode on my 2017. So, once the stored battery "partition" is empty, the hybrid partition level is now fluctuating and may be below 60% at the time you plug in the charger. Bringing that partition up to 60% does not change the fact that your stored battery partition is still empty. Of course I'm speculating here!
 
I Have changed settings in the Timer. The last setting I used was start time of 11:00pm end time 9:00AM and a departure time of 3:00 PM. It seemed not to have any effect.
What is happening now is when plug the car in after work (with 0 ev miles) the timer led is a solid red,
The main light is solid amber for a few seconds, there is some clicking under the hood and it starts charging (solid pulsing green). Then it charges until the battery has about 6-7 miles of range, (which comes out to about 2 1/2 hrs at 110v), maybe 50% of the time it will stop charging and enable the scheduled charging or just keep going until it is charged. I'm using my Audi charger unit plugged into 110v. I tried it at work with a level 2 charger. It charged til it had 6-7 miles of range then the scheduled charge enabled.
This all started after the CEL went on with a faulty battery charge module. The previous 15 months worked like it was supposed to. I would always plug in with 0 EV miles, the green light would flash then go off after a few seconds. The car would start charging at the scheduled time. Audi calls this instant charging normal because they cant figure out how to fix it. Now I'm stuck with a useless scheduled charge function.
 
That sounds almost exactly what mine is doing, except for me the problem is intermittent. Yes, I agree that the Audi techs have no clue how the charging timers work and that your charger is not behaving correctly. It sounds like you are setting the timer up correctly (especially since you had it working fine before). I've had my car in the shop 2 times now for the charger and both times I got bogus explanations just like you did. I'm at a loss right now figuring out how the situation can be escalated. I've called Audi's general customer support number and they are even more clueless than the shop techs. Maybe we should try a non-dealer repair shop?
 
I don't think a Non dealer Audi shop would touch this car. I'm guessing that this will be some kind of software issue and access to the code will be required. My SA told me they were uploading all kinds of files from the car to Audi's tech help center with no problems found.
I'm going to try a few more dealers in the area to see what happens but I'm not expecting anything. Glad that I leased it, only 19 payments to go. Too bad this car is too complicated for Audi to support.
 
Thanks, Bros, for this. It was very helpful for me. I have been using the etron app - which works well for me, but is not very intuitive to learn. I had decided that even though my electricity provider won't use my smart meter on the house to offer different rates, I should still try off-peak charging just to help reduce peak loads and maybe use up some of the excess night-time wind power we have here in the mid-west. The owner's manual is very cryptic and I wasn't mastering the app until I read your helpful post. I went looking for "repeat timer." I had seen the term "Indiv timer" but didn't figure out that that meant individual day or single event vs. repeat. When I finally followed the arrow, there I found the necessary repeat timer. It's great to be able to establish two sets of days -- like week days and weekends. Anyway, it's working great now. I really appreciate the time people take on this forum. It's helped me with a number of issues.

Charging at 2 am is just a small thing, but I feel every little bit helps. That is kind of what electric mobility is all about. One person's contribution is very small, but it's part of the sum and a hopeful direction. It's like voting. You do your small part and hope it goes in the right direction. Thanks again.



bros225":3c2td5kz said:
I'm still wondering if your problem is intermittent or if it switches to immediate charging every time. If it happens every time, then check to see if the timer light blinks a few times before switching to immediate charging. If it does blink, then I believe it is telling you that the timer is not active. In this case you need to make sure the timer check-box is checked and that you have the timer set as a repeat timer, not a one-time timer. I experimented by setting a one-time timer. The next day it would not obey the timer and that's because it deactivated the timer (the check-box was empty) after the one-time event had passed. I.e., if you are charging every night in a preferred window, then set timer 1 as a repeat timer, every day of the week, and make sure the checkbox for timer 1 is checked when you back out on the previous screen. Also make sure departure time is well outside of your preferred window (for example, if preferred window is 11PM-7AM, make the departure time 3pm or something like that). I say this because I observed that the departure time can override the preferred charging window and cause immediate charging if the departure time is near when you plug in. I'm guessing that charging will start immediately if necessary to have the car fully charged by the departure time.

I set mine according to the above and it works nearly every time, except once in a while (maybe every 20 charges) it will disobey the timer. In this case the red light comes on like it should (it does not blink), but then I hear a dull pop and it switches to immediate charging. I'm waiting for it to happen again, but the last time it happened it charged for a few minutes and then switched to timer mode automatically! (I never bothered to wait the other times). If I find that this happens consistently, then it leads me to believe that there is something to this seemingly bogus 60% rule. This would mean it will only disobey the timer when the battery is very low, but I need more occurrences to confirm that.

Note: "60% charged" may be ambiguous. I seem to recall hearing or reading that 50% of the battery is reserved for hybrid mode. If this is true, then I would picture the battery as having 2 partitions - one for hybrid mode and one for EV mode. When I say "hybrid mode," I mean operation when the stored battery partition is empty (not to be confused with 2017 hybrid mode, in which the car runs as a hybrid but uses the stored battery too). The hybrid mode I'm talking about is called "battery hold" mode on my 2017. So, once the stored battery "partition" is empty, the hybrid partition level is now fluctuating and may be below 60% at the time you plug in the charger. Bringing that partition up to 60% does not change the fact that your stored battery partition is still empty. Of course I'm speculating here!
 
Glad to help Robbiejoe, although I'm still bewildered by the concept of having a charging schedule at all. It seems to me that if you want to charge you plug it in, and if you don't want to charge you don't plug it in. The preferred window makes sense here but not the timer schedule. The timer schedule for charging only makes a tiny bit of sense if you are going to leave on vacation for a month or so and leave your car plugged it... but why would you do that? So, I'm thinking that the timer schedule is primarily for preconditioning. That makes some sense to me - e.g. you live in a cold climate and you want the interior to be warm mon-fri by the departure time (say, 8am). Since you need some battery charge to precondition the car, then I suppose charging according to the timer and according to the departure time (i.e. bundling the preconditioning and the charging into one Gordian knot) kinda works.
 
OK, Charging:
1. My car followed the schedule since new in that it wouldn't charge outside of the scheduled time. This is IMPORTANT because we have very high on-peak hours electric costs compared to off-peak. I'd rather burn gas than buy on-peak electricity to charge this car, even to 60%. Given the small battery, I never return home with anything close to 60% charge.

2. However, I believe that at the turn of the year to 2018 the car began ignoring the schedule and would charge all the way up (not 60%) upon a plug-in from the factory charger (240V, 100%). (I couldn't determine the exact date). The dealer technicians scratched their collective heads until they produced a factory bulletin stating that the car should charge to 60% when plugged in, irrespective of the schedule, and refused to fuss with it further. My incredulity peaked, I played with the schedule. Setting and resetting the schedule has corrected this non-nonsensical and never-before-seen behavior. That reminds me, time-of-use rates and hours changed on 1 May. I need to reprogram the charging schedule.

3. Bonus gripe: I understand the usefulness of a departure time setting if one wants to pre-condition the car before leaving home on a regular schedule (I don't). But, why, oh why, does the car not just start charging as soon as its plugged in if within the scheduled charging window, or immediately upon entering said time window? The charging programming in the car appears to be designed to start charging as late as possible to be fully charged at the departure time, rather than charging as soon as possible when entering an allowed charge window and topping off before the schedule window end or to pre-condition. This seems like lazy programmers/business analysts at work. I know I can manually push the button to initiate charging, but I'm not wanting to remember just when electricity low-cost (off-peak) periods start and end on weekends, holidays, weekdays, etc.
 
I have a 2017 model and it appears to be working reasonably. If I plug it in outside of the preferred charging window, it will wait and start charging when the window starts. If I plug it in inside of the preferred charging window, it starts charging immediately. The exception to this rule is when the departure time is near - in this case it starts charging immediately, even if outside of the preferred charging window. In this case the red timer light still comes on (and I think it blinks) but you can hear a click as the car switches to immediate charging.

Re- peak rates. Maybe my calculations are off, but I concluded that using one of the EV rates plans in California would actually cost me more than the "any time" rate plan that I have now. It might be because the capacity (6.8 kWh) is so small that the savings do not make up for the increase in rates I would pay for other electric use during peak times. At an average cost of $0.17 per kWh I'm paying approx $1.17 per charge. My gripe is that I get gouged at public charging stations because I end up paying the maximum (fixed fee + per kWh charge) but the small capacity doesn't get me very much for it. I.e., I'm paying $2.75 for 15 miles (I know the car says 25 miles, but 15 seems to be the reality). I've also been unplugged by EV car owners asserting their priority. When this happens I can pay the max and not even get my full charge!

I still like the car though - super quiet, comfortable, and what a fun ride!
 
When I first got the car I thought about how I would bring my EVSE and charge when out and about (ie visiting family, down at the cottage, etc). But after a year and a half (well I realized it pretty quickly) it's clear to me that the battery really only works for commutes. Mind you it works well in that respect, it just covers my 30km drive to work unless it's cold out, which is probably 75% of my driving. Outside of that commute, it's just a hybrid like a prius -but way nicer :)
As for rates, I can charge off-peak overnight for the morning commute, and at the office they don't care to meter my usage, so that's a little bonus.
Doing the math over the first year, I figure I saved approx. $900-1k (CAD) on travel vs gasoline.



IAN
 
So Jumper,
Just to clarify:
2. However, I believe that at the turn of the year to 2018 the car began ignoring the schedule and would charge all the way up (not 60%) upon a plug-in from the factory charger (240V, 100%). (I couldn't determine the exact date). The dealer technicians scratched their collective heads until they produced a factory bulletin stating that the car should charge to 60% when plugged in, irrespective of the schedule, and refused to fuss with it further. My incredulity peaked, I played with the schedule. Setting and resetting the schedule has corrected this non-nonsensical and never-before-seen behavior. That reminds me, time-of-use rates and hours changed on 1 May. I need to reprogram the charging schedule.

Does this mean your car no longer starts charging (to 60%) as soon as its plugged in irrespective of the scheduled charge timer?
 
khs604":1tto4b0s said:
So Jumper,

Does this mean your car no longer starts charging (to 60%) as soon as its plugged in irrespective of the scheduled charge timer?

Yes, I just got home and plugged the car in outside of the scheduled charging window. It gave a few quick green light blinks and is waiting until a couple of hours before the scheduled departure time to start charging.

I do think that when it started charging on plugin that it may well have gone to 60 percent, and that it stayed at 60 percent, at least at times, even through the scheduled charging time. I recall coming out in the morning and wondering why the car was only partially charged. It never occurred to me that it would charge to a percentage, so I didn't pay it much attention in that context.

My weekday charging schedule is 11:01PM-6:59AM with a 6:00AM departure time, and no pre-conditioning.
 
My weekday charging schedule is 11:01PM-6:59AM with a 6:00AM departure time, and no pre-conditioning.
I tried your charging schedule. No luck, it started charging right away until it got to 6-7 miles charged up,(~60%) then the timer kicked in.
I tried 2 dealers, both said this was normal. They cant explain why it worked normally for 15 months though.
 
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