AC 3-phase charging only at 3.6kwh

L

Luis Abreu

Member
Hello guys.

Not sure on what happened, but it seems like something is wrong when using ac 3-phase carging: instead of getting the 10.6 kwh, I'm only getting 3.6 kwh now. Single charging (from wall socket) and DC charging are working as expected. Any clue on what might be happening? Maybe the internal onboard charger broke? I've already done a couple of tests and the cable and charger are working fine (I've tested both with other car and everything is working as expected). I still haven't tested charging with a single phase type 2 cable (I'm thinking that using it might allow me to get 7 kwh and it would proove that something is wrong with the 3 phase onboard charger, but not sure if this is something I should do).

Any clues on what's going on? Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this issue?
 
Are you in Britain where 3-phase AC charging is possible? Check your settings. MINI ships the car to the US set to use the lower of two charging rates.
 
Hi.

No, I'm in Portugal. The setting you mention is the level 3 charging that can be set to maximum or reduced iirc (there's another which is used for setting level 2 charging from the wall socket). That charging doesn't really affect 3 phase charging though it will affect single phase charging from 32 amp boxes.

Any more ideas?
 
Luis Abreu said:
Hi.

No, I'm in Portugal. The setting you mention is the level 3 charging that can be set to maximum or reduced iirc (there's another which is used for setting level 2 charging from the wall socket). That charging doesn't really affect 3 phase charging though it will affect single phase charging from 32 amp boxes.

Any more ideas?
Click to expand...
It sure sounds like the problem so many US owners experienced before correcting their charging settings. You wrote that your 3-phase EVSE works as expected with a different car--can you try your SE on a different 3-phase EVSE? If you're sure the settings are correct for 3-phase charging, that's the only simple diagnostic I can think of.
 
THe more I look into it, the more it seems like there might be an issue with the on-board charger...anyone knows if using an obd + android app is enough for getting the on-board charger status?

Btw, one more question: according to the charging table presented here, I think that using a single phase cable on a 32 A 3 phase charging station should give me 7.4 kw, right? Just asking to see if getting a single phase cable might help me get more charging speed until the issue gets solved...
 
Last edited:
Luis Abreu said:
THe more I look into it, the more it seems like there might be an issue with the on-board charger...anyone knows if using an obd + android app is enough for getting the on-board charger status?
Click to expand...

Nope, pretty much none of the ODB apps work for EVs since they are not required to comply with the standard. The only app that'll connect is "electrified" but it only a small amount of live info and definitely no troubleshooting
 
Luis Abreu said:
Btw, one more question: according to the charging table presented here, I think that using a single phase cable on a 32 A 3 phase charging station should give me 7.4 kw, right? Just asking to see if getting a single phase cable might help me get more charging speed until the issue gets solved...
Click to expand...

Yes, maximum 1-phase Level 2 charging is 7.4 kW. This is what I get on my Level 2 home EVSE. 3-phase should be max 11 kW, but those of us in North America using J1772 connectors can't use 3-phase.
 
insightman said:
It sure sounds like the problem so many US owners experienced before correcting their charging settings. You wrote that your 3-phase EVSE works as expected with a different car--can you try your SE on a different 3-phase EVSE? If you're sure the settings are correct for 3-phase charging, that's the only simple diagnostic I can think of.
Click to expand...

What i meant was that my 3 phase type 2 cable works ok with other cars on the same charging station ( public charging station).

This really isn't a software configuration issue... It was working fine 4 days ago. Unfortunately, it really looks like the on board charger is damaged...
 
Luis Abreu said:
It was working fine 4 days ago. Unfortunately, it really looks like the on board charger is damaged...
Click to expand...
Oh, I didn't realize it was working before. I just jumped on the problem many owners encounter with their new MINI Cooper SEs. Because it used to work but no longer allows full-speed charging at the same public 3-phase EVSE, your suspicions are probably correct. If the problem is the on-board charger, it's nice that it kept trying to do its job as best as it could at a lower charging speed.
 
True... On the other hand, and since i do my charging on public stations, it's really bad... Until now I was able to get 30% in 1 hour. Currently, it barely reaches 9%...
 
Luis Abreu said:
THe more I look into it, the more it seems like there might be an issue with the on-board charger...anyone knows if using an obd + android app is enough for getting the on-board charger status?
Click to expand...
This may not be helpful because it isn't an Android app, but I've been using a free iPhone app called mi3 that I learned about from a post by @MichaelC. I've been using it to get more precise SoC values before and after charging on the "EV" tab, but I noticed a "Charging" tab as well. I just plugged in my SE to see what charging data shows. Again, this may not be useful without an iPhone, but it'll show some of the data that's available through ODB. Screenshot below from a couple of minutes after plugging in with my Grizzl-e set to 24A.
mi3_charging_tab_reduced.webp
 
Luis Abreu said:
Hello.

It shows plenty of info...it even shows the number of phases that is being used... Thanks for the tip.
Click to expand...

I noticed that the narrow screen of my iPhone 12 Mini truncated one of the items on the mi3 screenshot in my previous post. This morning I tried the mi3 iPhone app on my iPad while car was charging and got slightly wider screenshots. (To find it in the iPhone app store, searching on "mi3" didn't do it for me--searching "mi3 ev" found it.)

Charging and EV tabs are shown below. (I let app run a few minutes before taking screenshots so chart could fill in a little. A little bit of vertical scrolling is required in practice to see all the content below; for each tab, I spliced together two screenshots to show entire tab content.)

mi3_charging_ipad.webp
mi3_ev_ipad.webp
 
Hello again guys.

More feedback about my issue with 3-phase charging. So, today the KLE was replaced and guess what? still charging at 3.6kw...now, they're waiting for instructions from B;W to see if they should replace the EME.

What a mess!
 
Luis Abreu said:
Hello again guys.

More feedback about my issue with 3-phase charging. So, today the KLE was replaced and guess what? still charging at 3.6kw...now, they're waiting for instructions from B;W to see if they should replace the EME.

What a mess!
Click to expand...
Thanks for keeping us updated. What's the EME? Does it control the KLE onboard charger?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top