BEV DC Fast Charging Fail

J

jackertracker

New Member
Every morning, I stop at an EVGO L3 fast charger and charge up my Clarity Electric from ~50% to 80% (takes about 10 minutes). This gives me enough headroom to not have to worry whether I'll make it home or not.

This morning, it would not charge. I tried three different charging stations and had the same result, so I am sure it's the car. I plugged the car in, the green light on the charging port flashed as usual, but it then went dark instead of turning solid green. The charging station reported "failure to communicate with vehicle".

I will explore later today whether it will charge using a L2 240V charger. I suspect it is the onboard charger used for DC that is the culprit, in which case L2 would work. But I will find out at lunchtime.

Has anyone else had, or heard of, this issue before?
 
In theory, DC charging involves the onboard charger much less, without the AC to DC and voltage conversions, but obviously you have some issue. Please keep us posted (even though most of us are PHEV owners with no DCFC option).
 
css28 said:
In theory, DC charging involves the onboard charger much less, without the AC to DC and voltage conversions, but obviously you have some issue. Please keep us posted (even though most of us are PHEV owners with no DCFC option).
Click to expand...

I think you're correct - the DC charging essentially goes directly into the battery. The onboard L2 charger converts AC to DC, IIRC.
 
Since the SAE J1772 Combo uses the same communication contacts as level 2, that might mean more onboard charger involvement.

I have CHAdeMO on my LEAF and that's a separate connector entirely from the level 2.
 
Update: L2 charging was successful, so it must have something to do with the L3 DC charging hardware on the car. I will have to take it to a dealer for repair.
 
It occurred to me that it could be a fuse, so I checked the manual. There are four fuse boxes in the cabin under the driver's panel, and two fuse boxes in the engine compartment, but I couldn't find anything that appeared to be for the charging system. They are all abbreviations or codes and nothing looked to be appropriate. The fuse for the vehicle battery is 175 Amps!
 
jackertracker said:
The fuse for the vehicle battery is 175 Amps!
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When I saw that number in the Owners Manual for my Clarity PHEV, I ordered one (~$12) just to see what a 175-amp fuse looks like.
Behold:

upload_2019-9-13_22-3-30.webp


Interesting that it reads "58 V DC" on the 175-amp fuse.
 
Look at the contacts on the car to see if you picked up some dirt or grime. The smaller pins on the J1772 plug tend to be very sensitive to this. This was a frequent problem back when I was using fast chargers because people would just drop the handles in the dirt or on the ground. The DC fast chargers are very sensitive to anything like this.

If they look dirty, you can use some compressed air and a q-tip to clean them up. In extreme cases you could use contact cleaner, but that’s probably overkill for regular use.

I always look at the inside of the plug at public chargers before using them for this reason.
 
Try lifting the charger plug while it's initializing the charge. It was a common trip for BMW i3 owners that had issues activating the charger.

Given that you do it every day, I'd assume something might be wrong with your car as well. Have you checked plug share to see if anyone else reported issues at the same charger?
 
jackertracker said:
Has anyone else had, or heard of, this issue before?
Click to expand...
We have had significant issues charging our BEV, including 7 failures in two days with the symptoms you describe. These failures happened under different circumstances - at the end of 150-200 miles day trips in hot (>100F) weather. On both EVgo and Electrify America networks. There is a particular code that is sometimes thrown in a transitory manner that the driver might not notice that prevents further DCFC charging. There is an orange light on the left "Power System" followed by the message "Quick Plug-in Charging System Problem. Standard Charging is Available." I posted an image of this some months back. Although the error disappears from the visible information system (after the car is restarted?), it is still in the non-volatile log and the Honda techs can see it. We have never gotten any help from any Honda dealer (or corporate) for any charging issue other than to clear the error codes. I guess if the CCS charge port was physically broken they would replace it. But with few exceptions the dealers do not have DCFC equipment and cannot test, diagnose, duplicate, or confirm fixes for DCFC problems and the ones we have dealt with will not go offsite to a DCFC even if it is 5 blocks away and you give them your charging card.
 
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