Level 2 charging failures, power outages, and a solution

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ralfalfa

ralfalfa

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Thought I'd share an issue I had over the last 24 hours; it's not new (I know I got some clues from other threads previously) but given it's storm season, thought I'd share anew.

THE PROBLEM: I have a 2018 Clarity and a hard-wired Chargepoint level 2 charger at home. Most days I drive the Clarity 35-40 miles on it and then leave it plugged in to charge overnight; sometimes there's another 5-10 miles of driving in the evening as needed to deal with shopping, social events, etc.

Twice now in the 14 months I've owned the car I've plugged the Chargepoint into the Clarity and the car has failed to charge; no green light next to the receptacle, no added EV range, etc. And both times I failed to notice it the first time; in other words, it was only the second day when I hopped in the car to head to work that I noticed there hadn't been any charging.

The two events were pretty far apart. I think the first one was in Sept. of last year, and then again today.

THE SOLUTION: Luckily, both times I figured out a solution quickly. As I would with an apparent charging issue on any device, I check the charger itself first, by simply plugging in another one (if you've got more than one). And in this case, I plugged in the Honda-provided level 1 charger (which now lives in the cubbyhole under the floor of the trunk), heard an audible clunk, the green light comes on, and it charges. If I then disconnect that and reconnect the Chargepoint cord, the Clarity starts charging with that too!

WHAT'S GOING ON?: There's another important factor to all of this. Both times the failure of the Chargepoint to charge came during a period where there had been a few minor power outages in my neighborhood; enough to flicker the lights but not enough to reset the clocks on everything.

I'm hesitant to blame the Chargepoint alone for this, for a couple of reasons. First everything seems to check out on it; all the various lights are right, no sign in the app log of resets, no circuit breakers thrown, etc. Second, I noticed that when I plugged the Chargepoint into the Clarity, instead of the pronounced "click" that signifies charging I hear much more subtle whirring and fainter clicks, for a few seconds, then nothing. Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing but it really seems like the Clarity is checking out the Chargepoint's supply of juice and then saying "nope, not taking that".

My guess (and I think I got this originally from another thread) is that the Clarity has a sophisticated set of breakers or code that analyzes the electricity coming into it's charger and rejects it if it isn't within specs. The Chargepoint is unlikely to be that careful; as far as I can tell it's nothing more than a transformer, not that smart. So maybe during these power outages the drop in voltage (or a surge when it returns) may be enough for the Clarity to say "no thanks" and stop charging. Somehow it remembers it, too; unplugging the Chargepoint cord and then plugging it back in doesn't help. Only plugging it in to a demonstrably different charging source (it's trusted Honda Level 1 charger) will reset the Clarity's "trust" enough for the Chargepoint to be acceptable again. This seems to happen very quickly. Today when I saw the level 1 charger was working, I unplugged that, plugged the Chargepoint back in no more than 30 seconds later, and the latter worked just as normal.

If anyone has a more detailed or technically-savvy explanation, please don't hesitate to chime in. My main purpose in starting this thread was to help out anyone that finds their level 2 charger has suddenly stopped charging their Clarity.
 
Good thoughts and valuable post for me, since I have a Chargepoint EVSE and have occasional power blips. Even last night the power flickered briefly, enough to reset clocks and such. I do have whole house surge protection devices on both my main electrical panel and garage sub panel. I wonder if that will make a difference in smoothing out the power to the Chargpoint and forestall the problem you've experienced.
 
Have you had the Service Bulletin SB 18-097 installed?
It fixes the over sensitive nature of the Clarity’s onboard charger. Note that’s it is NOT automatically installed by dealers unless you specifically complain about charging problems at public chargers. This is due to Honda not reimbursing them if they install it on their own without your complaint. So you can’t assume it’s been installed even if you have had other SBs installed in the past.
If it has been installed and this is still occurring, then you might use the app to reset your CP whenever you have a power loss. However, I have not had to do this for my hardwired CP and like @Sandroad, I too have a whole house surge protector but that only helps for surges not power fluctuations or outages. Let us know what you find out.
 
ralfalfa said:
The Chargepoint is unlikely to be that careful; as far as I can tell it's nothing more than a transformer, not that smart.
Click to expand...
I took the time to look up the service manual for the Chargepoint Home EVSE I have. It may not be smart, per se, but there's some sophisticated circuitry in there that, among other things, allows it to communicate with the Chargepoint app, provide internal GFCi, and send/receive signals from a variety of vehicles. I'm not certain it has any transformer either, since there's no reason I can think of to raise/lower the voltage going to the car. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out its somewhat sensitive to surges and other power condition issues. I have more to learn about it and that's the fun of all this!
 
ralfalfa said:
Thought I'd share an issue I had over the last 24 hours; it's not new (I know I got some clues from other threads previously) but given it's storm season, thought I'd share anew.

THE PROBLEM: I have a 2018 Clarity and a hard-wired Chargepoint level 2 charger at home. Most days I drive the Clarity 35-40 miles on it and then leave it plugged in to charge overnight; sometimes there's another 5-10 miles of driving in the evening as needed to deal with shopping, social events, etc.

Twice now in the 14 months I've owned the car I've plugged the Chargepoint into the Clarity and the car has failed to charge; no green light next to the receptacle, no added EV range, etc. And both times I failed to notice it the first time; in other words, it was only the second day when I hopped in the car to head to work that I noticed there hadn't been any charging.

The two events were pretty far apart. I think the first one was in Sept. of last year, and then again today.

THE SOLUTION: Luckily, both times I figured out a solution quickly. As I would with an apparent charging issue on any device, I check the charger itself first, by simply plugging in another one (if you've got more than one). And in this case, I plugged in the Honda-provided level 1 charger (which now lives in the cubbyhole under the floor of the trunk), heard an audible clunk, the green light comes on, and it charges. If I then disconnect that and reconnect the Chargepoint cord, the Clarity starts charging with that too!

WHAT'S GOING ON?: There's another important factor to all of this. Both times the failure of the Chargepoint to charge came during a period where there had been a few minor power outages in my neighborhood; enough to flicker the lights but not enough to reset the clocks on everything.

I'm hesitant to blame the Chargepoint alone for this, for a couple of reasons. First everything seems to check out on it; all the various lights are right, no sign in the app log of resets, no circuit breakers thrown, etc. Second, I noticed that when I plugged the Chargepoint into the Clarity, instead of the pronounced "click" that signifies charging I hear much more subtle whirring and fainter clicks, for a few seconds, then nothing. Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing but it really seems like the Clarity is checking out the Chargepoint's supply of juice and then saying "nope, not taking that".

My guess (and I think I got this originally from another thread) is that the Clarity has a sophisticated set of breakers or code that analyzes the electricity coming into it's charger and rejects it if it isn't within specs. The Chargepoint is unlikely to be that careful; as far as I can tell it's nothing more than a transformer, not that smart. So maybe during these power outages the drop in voltage (or a surge when it returns) may be enough for the Clarity to say "no thanks" and stop charging. Somehow it remembers it, too; unplugging the Chargepoint cord and then plugging it back in doesn't help. Only plugging it in to a demonstrably different charging source (it's trusted Honda Level 1 charger) will reset the Clarity's "trust" enough for the Chargepoint to be acceptable again. This seems to happen very quickly. Today when I saw the level 1 charger was working, I unplugged that, plugged the Chargepoint back in no more than 30 seconds later, and the latter worked just as normal.

If anyone has a more detailed or technically-savvy explanation, please don't hesitate to chime in. My main purpose in starting this thread was to help out anyone that finds their level 2 charger has suddenly stopped charging their Clarity.
Click to expand...
That is really interesting and gives some insight into how the system works. It's always nearly impossible to try and figure out what is going on inside of a black box, since only the engineers who designed it really know. But based on your well documented description I'm going to take a guess at what is happening. The Clarity charging system probably has some type of reset or reboot function. Reboot may be an overkill word but I am using that term because we are all familiar with the concept of rebooting our PC or phone (or Clarity infotainment) and having that sometimes fix problems. Rebooting resets variables back to default, clears data and reestablishes connections, and sometimes that is what is needed to "unstick" things.

The other part of my theory, based on your description, is that the Clarity charger recognizes devices, either by internal serial number or maybe just by device type. If you plug in the same device that you did before it recognizes that and just jumps straight into charging (of course after handshake and checking current and all of that).

But if you plug in a different device it is aware of that, and the charger "reboots" prior to using the new device. So - if something gets stuck that is keeping the system from charging, and it requires a reboot to fix it, if you plug in the same device it won't reboot and you can try all day and it won't work. But plug in a different device and the charger will reboot, that device will work, and then you can plug in the original device and it will now work (it will reboot again when you plug in the original but the problem was already solved by the previous reboot).

It could be that what SB 18-097 does is simply have the charging system reboot every time you plug in the charger, regardless if it is the same one or not.

Of course it's all just a theory/guess, but one way to test the theory is if you haven't installed SB 18-097 yet you could see if it takes longer to connect or start charging when you plug in a different EVSE than the one you used before. Then again the rebooting may take place so fast that you would not be able to tell a difference, but knowing how slow a lot of things work on our cars the difference might be noticeable.

Also there could be other charging issues that have different causes/solutions so this theory might not explain all of them, only certain ones.
 
We've had two instances where we got an evening notification that the car wasn't plugged into the ClpperCreek level II charger when we knew it was. Went out to car, unplugged and plugged back in with care, got green light, left car, and charging began as scheduled later on during the night.

FWIW
 
Does anyone know of any reports of problems with the 2019s? I think my car's production date was March 2019. I assume the 2019s have the latest charger software mentioned in the Service Bulletin A18-097?

I was charging on a public level 2 EVgo charger today, and it stopped at ~60%, and would not restart. Annoying as I needed full EV range to get home. Luckily as a PHEV I could just run in HV mode some of the trip, however was slightly annoying.

Car is now back home and charging fine on my Level 1 charger. Have used plenty of Level 2s in the month or so I've owned the car. This is the first hiccup, and maybe (hopefully) it is a one off.
 
I think we're over-analyzing this. Power interruptions, even ones that us humans cannot detect, trigger the protection mechanism in computer-based devices, whether it be a clock radio or a Clarity. We should not be any more surprised that we need to take action to reset the car than we are that we have to reset the time on the microwave.
 
Limey1976 said:
I assume the 2019s have the latest charger software mentioned in the Service Bulletin A18-097?
Click to expand...
It is my understanding that SB 18-097 is not routinely installed by dealers as you would expect if the car is in for updates. However I have no data or reports that it is or is not already on board the 2019s. We know that it did not come preinstalled on the 2018s.
It seems only to be installed when a customer complains about charging problems. My service advisor told me that’s because Honda won’t reimburse the dealership for installation unless it’s due to a customer complaint. So you can’t assume that your Clarity has this update.
If this becomes a recurring problem, then it might be worth some waiting time at the dealer to check if you have it or not and get it if you don’t. I suggest not taking anyone’s word that it’s installed unless they actually hook it up to their i-HDS and check.
 
KentuckyKen said:
It is my understanding that SB 18-097 is not routinely installed by dealers as you would expect if the car is in for updates. However I have no data or reports that it is or is not already on board the 2019s. We know that it did not come preinstalled on the 2018s.
It seems only to be installed when a customer complains about charging problems. My service advisor told me that’s because Honda won’t reimburse the dealership for installation unless it’s due to a customer complaint. So you can’t assume that your Clarity has this update.
If this becomes a recurring problem, then it might be worth some waiting time at the dealer to check if you have it or not and get it if you don’t. I suggest not taking anyone’s word that it’s installed unless they actually hook it up to their i-HDS and check.
Click to expand...
Good thoughts - thanks. I guess I’ll see how it goes and if it happens again I’ll see if I can push to have them check the charger firmware version for me when I go in for the first service. If any other 2019 owners experience issues or get the version checked that would be great info to share. As the service bulletin is only for 2018 PHEV, I can see the dealer being reluctant to check the firmware version, even though it’s very little work.
 
Limey1976 said:
I can see the dealer being reluctant to check the firmware version, even though it’s very little work
Click to expand...
When we bought the Clarity (Nov. 2018), I was aware of the 4 or 5 service bulletins that could have applied. I went to the service manager with the list, and asked him to verify that all of these had been incorporated. He looked on his computer and asserted "Everything is up to date". That is far less satisfying than a complete accounting of which SB's had been installed and when. It was either not possible for him to obtain the desired level of detail, or he didn't know how.

Anyway, let us know if you have any better luck obtaining specific information... Chances are very good that your vehicle already has these known updates from the factory since it is so new.
 
MrFixit said:
When we bought the Clarity (Nov. 2018), I was aware of the 4 or 5 service bulletins that could have applied. I went to the service manager with the list, and asked him to verify that all of these had been incorporated. He looked on his computer and asserted "Everything is up to date". That is far less satisfying than a complete accounting of which SB's had been installed and when. It was either not possible for him to obtain the desired level of detail, or he didn't know how.

Anyway, let us know if you have any better luck obtaining specific information... Chances are very good that your vehicle already has these known updates from the factory since it is so new.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you mentioned that, when I take mine in I am going to word it very specifically, "Can you tell me when these service bulletins were applied to my car". That way they don't have an easy out and have to either give the information or say they don't know.

The conversation may go something like this:

"Can you tell me when these service bulletins were applied to my car".
(two minutes later) "Yes they were all applied".
"Thanks but actually I asked when they were applied, do you have that information?"
"Give me a minute I will have to look at that up"

If they still claim that their system only tells them that the SB's were applied but not when, I will express my surprise that their system works like that. But I won't press it, but I will go to another dealer for my next service as I will now be suspicious of that dealer. If I get the same answer when I ask the second dealer to check then okay maybe Honda has some lame system for looking them up, but I would be quite surprised if it only shows that SB's were applied but not when, or if a particular SB does not apply to your vehicle.
 
@2002 -
My dealer did not even confirm that they were applied, never mind when...
Apparently the only thing on his screen was that this vehicle was "up to date".

He assumed that this meant that "all" SB's were applied.

I guess the only thing I can confirm is that I have not seen the HV range error, and thus, I assume that one is in place.
The others may not be as apparent to the user.
 
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When I took our Clarity PHEV in to get the leaky A/C condenser replaced, I was told that there were a number of Service Bulletin updates to be installed. I was surprised because I believed they were all installed (except for 18-097, which I didn't request), but I told the service writer to please make a list of the ones that needed to be installed. Later, he told me that there was some kind of error and that I was correct when I said the Service Bulletins had already been installed. So it's a hit-or-miss system. My dreamed-of total Clarity info display would include a list of the Service Bulletin updates that had been applied.
 
insightman said:
So it's a hit-or-miss system.
Click to expand...
I guess in the end someone who wants to know for sure will need to ask more than once, and ideally at more than one dealer. If you get the same answer the second and maybe even third time if you want to carry it that far, then the confidence level will go up that you are getting the correct information.
 
Based on what I’ve read here and what the service manager at my local dealer tells me (I take that with a grain of salt though), I think the system can say up to date without the SB 18-097 being installed since it’s optional and only installed if there is a charging complaint.

Also, I have had different service advisors tell me different things their computer (not the I-HDS in the Device bays) can and cannot search for or pull up. I find the info on this forum to be more complete and much more reliable than what I get at the dealer. So the only 2 reasons I go to the dealer’s service dept is that it’s free within my 8 yr warranty period and they have the i-HDS that integrates with the Clarity.
For maintenance, I am DIY or using my trusted local mechanic.
 
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