Strange charging schedule behavior?

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dndrich

dndrich

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KonaEVPals:

I have a USA 2020 Kona EV SEL trim. I come from a Chevy Bolt, and was used to the charging scheduling of that vehicle. I assumed the Kona would be similar, and it seems like it should be, but I may be doing something wrong, or do not understand how the scheduling works.

I have a standard 30 amp 240 volt EVSE in my home. I program the Kona for a departure time of say 7:00 AM. But when I plug in the car in the evening with say a 50% state of charge, it starts to charge immediately! I assumed it would calculate the time, and start at some point in the middle of the night to hit the target by 7:00 AM. Is this not correct?
 
Yea, not very intuitive. I struggled with it as well - trying to set a nightly (Off Hours) Charging schedule when plugged in. I just set a Start Driving (departure) time of 7:00 AM for every day of the week. Then I set OFF-PEAK Charging ON and set the time range of 9 PM to 6 AM .... (I did this using the BlueLink APP).

Every time I plug it in, regardless of the time of day, it doesn't start charging until 9 PM at night. I *think* there's an Option somewhere in the Charging settings that says something like "Start Charging when plugged in" ... or something to that effect. I'm not in front of my car. And I believe there's also a Button at the charging Port that you can PUSH to immediately start charging - e.g., if you are at a CHARGE POINT STATION, or just want to start charging immediately.

Side note: The BLUELINK APP keeps going back to 127% Charge Percent ... even though the vehicle's CHARGING SETTINGS shows 80%, which is what I set it to originally. That BLUELINK system/app is very very buggy.
 
OK, but what should happen, and what it seems to indicate in Hyundai's youtube video about this, is if one simply sets the time of departure schedule, it should start charging by calculation at some point in the middle of the night to be ready by the departure time. As it is, it simply starts when I have scheduled off peak. That does not make sense to me, and is perhaps a software bug that is not working correctly.
 
It does work as you describe, but sometimes owners don't leave a long enough "charging window". At 30A that should be at least 4 hours, but your settings allow a slower rate, so make sure Charging Current (AC Station) is on max.
Note that "Off Peak" is Hyundai's way of defining when to charge, so set an earlier start time to test this, or maybe set Off Peak to start at 2-3am.
 
hieronymous said:
It does work as you describe, but sometimes owners don't leave a long enough "charging window". At 30A that should be at least 4 hours, but your settings allow a slower rate, so make sure Charging Current (AC Station) is on max.
Note that "Off Peak" is Hyundai's way of defining when to charge, so set an earlier start time to test this, or maybe set Off Peak to start at 2-3am.
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Well, this is what I thought, but it does not work. I will try again and see. Just got the car a week ago, so minimal charging needs up to this point.
 
We don't have the app but surely the difference is on this screen. If Prioritised is checked it will start immediately if there is any chance it won't reach the desired charging limit within the Off-peak period set. EDIT: or, additionally, the set departure time if that is earlier than the end of off-peak.
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Mine is the SEL without the nav or location based charging. No, what has happened is I would have say a 70% state of charge, and want to bring the car up to say 100% for the next morning. I have the departure time set up, and the off peak unchecked. If I plug in the car, it starts charging immediately, which is not what it is suppose to do. It should wait until the middle of the night and charge calculating the amount of time needed. That is what my Bolt did. If I were to then put on off peak charging preferred, it then starts charging right at that time at say 11:00 PM when I have that set up. So, this behavior is not what is expected.
 
I'm clear on why it should wait till the middle of the night. If you don't check "off-peak tariffs only" it's going to start immediately (even if you're not currently in that period) if it can't fit the expected charging time from the start of the off-peak period allocated to the end of that period, or to the departure time if earlier.

With the charger (EVSE) plugged in, the car knows the Control Pilot rate (current) without starting charging and can calculate the expected charge time. It's probably very conservative. I stick to the off-peak only setting so there are no surprises.
 
No, no, it would have tons of time to complete. For example, the car needs like 14 kWh. Departure is at say 7:00 AM. I plug the car in at 9:00 PM. Yet it starts to charge right then. What my Bolt would do in that scenario is to start at say 3:00 AM and complete at say 6:30 AM, ready to go. I thought that would be the behavior of the Kona, and it is what is implied in the Hyundai youtube video on the subject, but that is not what it does.
 
Oh, I see. It doesn't "right-justify" the charge period to the end of the allocated off-peak only period. Yes, it should be designed that way but I have never seen it do that. Mine always starts at 9 pm, as set, and finishes when it hits the charge limit, or at the end of the set period.
 
KiwiME said:
Oh, I see. It doesn't "right-justify" the charge period to the end of the allocated off-peak only period. Yes, it should be designed that way but I have never seen it do that. Mine always starts at 9 pm, as set, and finishes when it hits the charge limit.
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Ok, great way to put that! Right justify...correct. That is the idea. That is what the Bolt does. In my situation I can certainly live with the charging setup as it is, and use off peak limiting to start the charging late at night, but it just seems weird that there would be a section for departure time. The only thing it appears to do then is presumably control the cabin climate right around the departure time if I were to use that setting, which I don't.
 
dndrich said:
Ok, great way to put that! Right justify...correct. That is the idea. That is what the Bolt does. In my situation I can certainly live with the charging setup as it is, and use off peak limiting to start the charging late at night, but it just seems weird that there would be a section for departure time. The only thing it appears to do then is presumably control the cabin climate right around the departure time if I were to use that setting, which I don't.
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Yeah, I tinkered with that setting too, and ran into the same problem.
Like you said, for some reason the departure time seems to only be good for pre-heating/cooling (I believe 30 minutes before departure time).
Very weird/buggy/disappointing.
 
Esprit1st said:
Yeah, I tinkered with that setting too, and ran into the same problem.
Like you said, for some reason the departure time seems to only be good for pre-heating/cooling (I believe 30 minutes before departure time).
Very weird/buggy/disappointing.
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We love the climate scheduling! I don't really care about when the car charges, but that's because we don't have variable electric rates.
 
NRH said:
We love the climate scheduling! I don't really care about when the car charges, but that's because we don't have variable electric rates.
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It's great of you know exactly when you'll leave and it's a great feature in general, but I'd like to have the "scheduled" charging work correctly as well. Especially since it seems to be advertised that way in the Hyundai Video.
 
Maybe a difference of opinion, but I would rather the car have a higher chance of being fully charged than waiting until the last possible moment to charge. Let's say there was a power outage, or some other issue where not as much power or time was available, I'd be irritated. I can't honestly think of a benefit to the delayed start, after reading this thread. Did the Bolt check the power delivery rate of the charger when it first gets plugged in so it knows how long it needs? Do you have to manually program in your charger power?
 
Another similar weirdity is that if you use the "off-peak tariffs prioritised" setting, in my experience it fails to exploit the time between the end of the off-peak period to the departure time, if any is present. If the charge time is determined to be longer than the allocated off-peak period it starts immediately.

An additional feature I would like is to allocate a second off-peak period, since I have another during the daytime 11am-5pm. My off-peak rates are just that, off-peak demand, not a less-expensive "controlled" load like a water heater on a separate meter and ripple relay which could be remotely disconnected if the utility needs to shed load. Our power is around 85% renewable but my lowest rate is 20 cents NZ, inclusive of all taxes.
 
styx66 said:
Maybe a difference of opinion, but I would rather the car have a higher chance of being fully charged than waiting until the last possible moment to charge. Let's say there was a power outage, or some other issue where not as much power or time was available, I'd be irritated. I can't honestly think of a benefit to the delayed start, after reading this thread. Did the Bolt check the power delivery rate of the charger when it first gets plugged in so it knows how long it needs? Do you have to manually program in your charger power?
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My Chevy Bolt charged this way for the 3 years I had it, and never had a problem once. The nice thing is that if you charge to 100%, which I do on occasion for a long trip or to balance the cells, the car sits at the 100% charge for a very short time. So, yes, the car can accurately predict when the charging should finish, and my Bolt did this regularly.
 
This is just a difference in design philosophy, not a fatal flaw nor a problem. The Kona will normally jump from 97% to 100% if no balancing is required, then switch off immediately upon reaching 100. 14 months later mine has never done the 'balancing act.'
 
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