evse recommendations?

  • Thread starter Thread starter KeninFL
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MichaelC said:
That is absurd and unfortunate.

If you could reliably reproduce the problem, I'd say that showing them the problem with an "approved EVSE" they must have on-site should help you convince them to take you seriously. Another approach could be to ask them to point you to MINI's list of approved devices (which almost certainly does not exist), then press them about whether or not public charging infrastructure is "approved" or not (again, with any supporting documentation from MINI).

But at this point it's clear you're not dealing with someone willing to be reasoned with, or certainly not competent enough to diagnose/solve your problem. I think you may be better off escalating to MINI USA.
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They say they do not have an approved EVSE on site. I should supply one. According to pages 231 and 232 of the owners manual, mine are suitable. It does not state that only the BMW EVSE can be used. Maybe their service stuff does, but that shouldn't be my problem.
 
pictsidhe said:
They say they do not have an approved EVSE on site. I should supply one. According to pages 231 and 232 of the owners manual, mine are suitable. It does not state that only the BMW EVSE can be used. Maybe their service stuff does, but that shouldn't be my problem.
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Time to plan a road trip to another authorized MINI dealer!
 
pictsidhe said:
They say they do not have an approved EVSE on site. I should supply one. According to pages 231 and 232 of the owners manual, mine are suitable. It does not state that only the BMW EVSE can be used. Maybe their service stuff does, but that shouldn't be my problem.
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If they do not have an approved EVSE on site, meaning they don’t sell any MINI EVSE? And they are using unapproved EVSE to charge the SE they sell or they charge their SE to sell from the power point at the wall? Or they don’t charge the SEs they sell at all?
 
azausa said:
If they do not have an approved EVSE on site, meaning they don’t sell any MINI EVSE? And they are using unapproved EVSE to charge the SE they sell or they charge their SE to sell from the power point at the wall? Or they don’t charge the SEs they sell at all?
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Those bmw mini branded ones all broke… think Xbox ring of death. a friend of mine got one with his SE and they replaced it with a chargepoint unit last year after months of fighting with BMW. My car is a 23 and i got the flex charger with it.

this is just a dealer being stupid and EV clueless. This is why people end up buying Teslas
 
Not wanting to sound as stupid as the dealer, but does the EVSE in question need to "call home" for authorization? I probably just did, but my wifi connected Grizzl-E can be temperamental at times due to interweb or server related things. At a glance, SE appears to be charging, but it is not.
 
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ColdCase said:
Not wanting to sound as stupid as the dealer, but does the EVSE in question need to "call home" for authorization? I probably just did, but my wifi connected Grizzl-E can be temperamental at times due to interweb or server related things. At a glance, SE appears to be charging, but it is not.
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No. Each time I've caught it, the EVSE has been waiting for the car. The last few times, either locking or unlocking the car resulted in immediate charge. The EVSE has no way of knowing about the locks...
I did have a timed charging failure last year after the EVSE lost track of time due to network issues. That was easily diagnosed from the EVSE webpage. But this is a separate issue where the EVSE is willing to charge, but the car is not. At least until someone locks or unlocks the car with the fob. Apparently, the lock status should never affect charging.
 
azausa said:
If they do not have an approved EVSE on site, meaning they don’t sell any MINI EVSE? And they are using unapproved EVSE to charge the SE they sell or they charge their SE to sell from the power point at the wall? Or they don’t charge the SEs they sell at all?
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They have a chargepoint unit out front. But they can't use that for diagnostics for some reason.
Mine was not fully charged when I picked it up new. I think 60%
 
pictsidhe said:
No. Each time I've caught it, the EVSE has been waiting for the car. The last few times, either locking or unlocking the car resulted in immediate charge. The EVSE has no way of knowing about the locks...
I did have a timed charging failure last year after the EVSE lost track of time due to network issues. That was easily diagnosed from the EVSE webpage. But this is a separate issue where the EVSE is willing to charge, but the car is not. At least until someone locks or unlocks the car with the fob. Apparently, the lock status should never affect charging.
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I didn't try locking/unlocking to clear a charging stall. My SE used to not report charge details until the doors were locked. I may want to do that next time it happens. Most of the time pulling the plug and reinserting one to three times cleared it, there was timing involved if I recall correctly.

Perhaps mine actually has/had a similar issue as yours, and I just blamed it on Grizzl-E or the network. It could have been the SE not calling for juice. I don't recall the indicator status but the plug's indicator did not start flashing green. But then I haven't noticed the stall since I mentioned it to Chargelab a year or so ago and after they updated the EVSE firmware..... knock on wood.

Just a data point that may be helpful. Oh, when I was having EVSE charging stalls, the little 120 volt charger supplied with the SE never failed to charge, hence why I thought it may be a network issue.

Obviously I don't know what I don't know.
 
pictsidhe said:
But this is a separate issue where the EVSE is willing to charge, but the car is not. At least until someone locks or unlocks the car with the fob.
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I've run into situations where the relationship of your timed charge and when you plug in the SE causes some charge-starting issues. If you have delayed charging set plugging in inside or outside the charge window can cause different behaviors. Also I found plugging in, unplugging, and replugging can cause strange behaviors.

One other issue I found is if the EVSE isn't energized when the SE tries to talk to it can mess up the process, I think because it's in a state where the SE knows it's plugged in but isn't able to communicate to the EVSE so it seems to disable the automatic scheduled charge. Locking/unlocking the SE would wake it up and probably go through the connection process again where it can "see" the EVSE.

Some food for thought, maybe my anecdotes can offer some avenues of investigation.
 
All clues are welcome! Even the ones that seem crazy...
It wasn't me who thought to try locking or unlocking, I wouldn't have thought of that. It was my cat sitter. Her car blew up while I was away so she got to drive the Mini. She could not get it to charge at first. Tried mucho messing with EVSE. Unplugging, replugging, on/off/on, power cycle via the breaker. She's not stoopid, so it probably wasn't anything dumb. Nothing. Right up to the point where she locked the car. Ker-lunk goes the EVSE and the car charged. It did the same thing the next two days, too. I had left everything set for immediate charge, I knew her car was sick...
My EVSE will not do timed charges if I mess with its timer after plugging in and the timer is the same day. If it's next morning, it works fine. So that gremlin only ever comes out after midnight.
I have noticed that if I do scheduled charges with the car, it will do a ~10s test when I plug in. Possibly to determine charge rate. I usually have the car on immediate and use the EVSE timer so I can charge to 80-90%. Until I got fed up with not getting to work on time because it had randomly not charged. Now immediate charge and pause a second to hear the ker-lunk and I know I'll be good.
My EVSE is hardwired so almost always powered. I tend to notice power outages...
 
pictsidhe said:
My EVSE is hardwired so almost always powered. I tend to notice power outages...
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I was thinking more the timer setting on the smart EVSE. It might be on but wouldn't be energizing the charge side that goes to the car, so the car wouldn't sense it. But since I have a "dumb" Grizzl-E I don't know how those fancy EVSEs work. :D
 
Puppethead said:
I was thinking more the timer setting on the smart EVSE. It might be on but wouldn't be energizing the charge side that goes to the car, so the car wouldn't sense it. But since I have a "dumb" Grizzl-E I don't know how those fancy EVSEs work. :D
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It would be nice if we could find out the algorithm for charging. Sadly, we can't to talk to anyone who knows the intricacies of the system.

I think I need to get my cat sitter to show me exactly what she was doing to get it to play up three days running.

I either have my mini on immediate charge, or the EVSE. I know the mini wants to test the EVSE when plugged in if it is going to do a scheduled charge.
 
pictsidhe said:
It would be nice if we could find out the algorithm for charging. Sadly, we can't to talk to anyone who knows the intricacies of the system.

I think I need to get my cat sitter to show me exactly what she was doing to get it to play up three days running.

I either have my mini on immediate charge, or the EVSE. I know the mini wants to test the EVSE when plugged in if it is going to do a scheduled charge.
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Did your cat learn any new tricks while you were out of town?
 
pictsidhe said:
They have a chargepoint unit out front. But they can't use that for diagnostics for some reason.
Mine was not fully charged when I picked it up new. I think 60%
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That’s a shame, I would have thought they will exhaust all possibilities including using all charge points. Guess I am really lucky with my dealer, we got our SE with 100% SOC, and with all visits I had re issues, they exhaust all possibilities.
 
azausa said:
That’s a shame, I would have thought they will exhaust all possibilities including using all charge points. Guess I am really lucky with my dealer, we got our SE with 100% SOC, and with all visits I had re issues, they exhaust all possibilities.
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Mine defaults to trying to find a reason something is not covered. I really don't want to have to argue about warranty stuff. I'm already irritated when it needs work. I haven't even managed to get this issue put in front of an actual tech, yet.
 
I dropped in to my dealer and spoke to the salesman instead of NoSir service guy.

Approved EVSE list:
2x BMWs, 2x others. All are wall mounted type. And I thought my openEVSE was pricey.

https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=21100970011

For some reason, the supplied L2 EVSE is not on the list? Have an L2 charging issues and you are hardwired, you'll need to bring your hardwired EVSE in! Not a big issue for me, but most people would need an electrician.


If you are wondering, this is Flow Mini in Winston Salem. Yesterday, service said that they wouldn't look at the ceramic coating, which supposedly had a 5 year warranty and is already losing its properties. The sales and parts sides are good, but service specialises in telling people to get stuffed. Not the usual way to treat people who buy cars with cash? I won't be buying another car from them and will likely be making the 100mile trek to the dealer in Charlotte for warranty work.
 
Funny you should talk about Flow service. I had my first scheduled routine service at Flow 20 years ago. They did everything they were supposed to do, but no one talked to me about it. No communication at all. I don't even think they said "here's your key, what's your hurry".
 
Puppethead said:
"Approved" or "recommended"? Sheesh. But if the ChargePoint and JuiceBox are in the list, no way can they justify claiming EVSEs have to be "approved". Those are about as general-purpose 3rd party as you can get.
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Yeah, it's advertised to be a j1772 car than can charge at 50,000 public stations, or at home. Not one that will only charge reliably via the supplied EVSE.
I suspect Tomm may be interested in this story if they don't get their act together. MiniUSA says that all warranty decisions are made by dealers.
 
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