Losing a few percentage after charging?

[Mach-Lee]

I got an OBD dongle to see some more data in CarScanner and noticed something odd that I suspected before. I have always thought my car is not using my 240v charger for power when remote starting. I have a Grizzl-E that has a light that blinks green when supplying power. When I remote start, the light is the solid green standby mode when plugged in.

In CarScanner, I can now see that the charger power is negligible, only like 0.1 kW, while the HVB and heater are drawing about 3 kW. Wondering if this is what’s draining a few percentage because it’s not drawing from the wall first as expected. Not sure if there is a setting I’m missing, but in Ford Pass, I have that “remote start while unplugged” unchecked within the departure time menu. I’ll have to see if departure times are also drawing from battery instead of wall, but no idea why it would be doing this.

That's odd, when I remote start plugged in it draws power from the EVSE. About 5 kW to match the heater load. Are you inside or outside of your charging hours?

This could be an issue with the Grizzl-E? I think you should look at the EVSE duty cycle being advertised to the Mach-E. I think that parameter is only available in FORScan or FDRS though. I have a theory the Grizzl-E has some bug that causes it to advertise an odd voltage or duty cycle to the car that causes it to charge slowly. Do you have a smart or dumb Grizzl-E, and do you have any charging hours set on either the Mach-E or Grizzl-E?

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[mkhuffman]

Preconditioning consumes kWh faster then the EVSE charges, therefore at the immediate end of preconditioning you may have lost SOC before giving it time to replace the kWh used.

That could be but I have also seen the SoCD drop overnight and I never precondition.

 

[Hammered]

That's odd, when I remote start plugged in it draws power from the EVSE. About 5 kW to match the heater load. Are you inside or outside of your charging hours?

This could be an issue with the Grizzl-E? I think you should look at the EVSE duty cycle being advertised to the Mach-E. I think that parameter is only available in FORScan or FDRS though. I have a theory the Grizzl-E has some bug that causes it to advertise an odd voltage or duty cycle to the car that causes it to charge slowly. Do you have a smart or dumb Grizzl-E, and do you have any charging hours set on either the Mach-E or Grizzl-E?

Mine does the same thing. If it's charged and I remote start, it turns on the charger to pull the load. It does the same thing when DCFC -- the load on the charger will go up or down based on heater / AC running. I was surprised to see they incorporated that logic into the MME charge controller. I'd seen a few YT personalities claim that heater / AC makes it charge slower because it won't pull additional current. I've seen this behavior (DCFC feeds more current) below 90kwh at least (when I paid attention to it, typically returning to a charging vehicle).

Anyone can try this out, simply turn on heat or AC when DCFC and watch the power delivered increase.

 

[JimmyMachE]

This could be an issue with the Grizzl-E? I think you should look at the EVSE duty cycle being advertised to the Mach-E. I think that parameter is only available in FORScan or FDRS though.

Car Scanner shows parameter: HV Charger Pilot Duty Cycle

 

[Mach-Lee]

Car Scanner shows parameter: HV Charger Pilot Duty Cycle

Thanks for that, I forgot that was in there. You'll have to make yourself a new custom dashboard page and select a few parameters. Note, there are two Pilot Voltage parameters for some reason. One is permanently stuck at 5.55V, don't use that one. Use the second one that should be either 6V or 9V.

Car started, plugged in, heater running, drawing 4 kW (Grizzl-E should be flashing green):

Plugged in, car not requesting power (vehicle detected, J1772 status B, Grizzle-E should be flashing Blue):

I have a 40A EVSE so the pilot duty cycle should be 66%, which it is. If you have a 48A charger it should be 80%. The pilot voltage should be 6V when power is being drawn from the EVSE. When the car is plugged in but not charging, the pilot voltage should be 9V. When the plug is fully inserted the proximity voltage should be 1.5V. When the handle release button is pressed, it should be 3.0V, and with the connector unplugged it should be 4.5V.

@DarkStang hopefully you can use this info to see what the Grizzl-E might be doing wrong, I'm curious what your findings will be. The pilot duty cycle the EVSE is advertising should be fixed at the % that corresponds to the EVSE setting, that's the most important one to look at. Mine was a constant 66% the whole time the car is plugged in because my EVSE is always advertising 40A available.

 

[Mach-Lee]

And just thinking out loud here, the solid green status on the Grizzl-E is weird and doesn't seem to be J1772 compliant? When the Mach-E is done charging, it will raise the pilot voltage from 6V to 9V and it expects the AC voltage to shut off (EVSE should go to blinking blue status). If the Grizzl-E doesn't shut the voltage off when the pilot voltage is 9V, then the Mach-E will set an error because that's not supposed to happen with the J1772 standard. I have no idea what state solid green mode is supposed to be exactly? It's not part of the J1772 standard.

As you can see in the last photo above, my ChargePoint EVSE correctly shut off the voltage when the pilot went to 9V.

If the Mach-E wants to draw power again, it will drop the pilot to 6V, voltage should turn on, and it should ramp up to whatever it needs, up to the max amps the EVSE says are available via the pilot duty %.

 

[DarkStang]

Thanks for the info @Mach-Lee . I tested it again yesterday morning and it pulls as expected during preconditioning. I tried remote start about 40 min later and it also pulled from the wall.

So not sure if the condition I experienced the other night is just a fluke that happens occasionally. But it was definitely not blinking green and CarScanner showed the battery was supplying the heater not the charger. I tested again today and it does appear that remote start pulls from the battery for about 20-30 seconds at first before the charger ramps up, then I see it transition to all charger (Grizzl-E dumb).

I also pulled some dashboards like you had. Everything seems to be normal. Although, the Grizzl-E does always stay solid green when plugged in. It only turns blue if I unplugged. I checked the manual and this appears to be normal. It says solid green when plugged in and fully charged, blinking green when pulling power.

When plugged in, car on and heater running, Grizzle-E blinking green

Plugged in, car off, Grizzl-E solid green

 

[Mach-Lee]

Thanks for the info @Mach-Lee . I tested it again yesterday morning and it pulls as expected during preconditioning. I tried remote start about 40 min later and it also pulled from the wall.

So not sure if the condition I experienced the other night is just a fluke that happens occasionally. But it was definitely not blinking green and CarScanner showed the battery was supplying the heater not the charger. I tested again today and it does appear that remote start pulls from the battery for about 20-30 seconds at first before the charger ramps up, then I see it transition to all charger (Grizzl-E dumb).

I also pulled some dashboards like you had. Everything seems to be normal. Although, the Grizzl-E does always stay solid green when plugged in. It only turns blue if I unplugged. I checked the manual and this appears to be normal. It says solid green when plugged in and fully charged, blinking green when pulling power.

When plugged in, car on and heater running, Grizzle-E blinking green

Plugged in, car off, Grizzl-E solid green

Hmm, solid green must just be a software latch, so the first time J1772 State B/Vehicle detected/9V is encountered it blinks blue. But if it returns to State B again after previously charging, it displays solid green instead of blinking blue even though they are the same exact J1772 state. Sort of an odd design decision to make two different indications for the same state. Other EVSEs don't do that, state B is always the same color/indication.

I guess you will only see blinking blue the first time you connect the vehicle, or if the pilot signal is reset by the Mach-E. It just means no power has been drawn since the vehicle/EVSE connection was initialized.

Yeah it's working as expected in your photos, I guess you'll have to wait and see if it acts up again, and try to whip out Car Scanner to catch what's happening.

 

[DarkStang]

Going back to the losing a few percent mystery, I measured a good sample this morning. Overnight, the battery cooled down to 37.4 degrees. Morning preconditioning brought it up to 62.6 degrees and still 85% SOC. Looks like this warmth brought the battery energy up to 52.21 kw from 48.1 kw.

Just 4 minutes later, SOC drops to 83%, battery is about the same at 52.16 kw and 62.6 degrees. So maybe it’s just that the warming “expands” the battery capacity back up, which means the energy in there is comparatively less percentage. Doesn’t explain the change with 4 minutes, but maybe it’s just the sensors taking a while to recalibrate or something. Either way, battery energy looks about the same despite the displayed SOC.

Before preconditioning started

during preconditioning

when car started after preconditioning

 

[mkhuffman]

So maybe it’s just that the warming “expands” the battery capacity back up, which means the energy in there is comparatively less percentage.

Yep. That is exactly what is happening when the battery warms up.

 

[hawkeye3point1]

Either way, battery energy looks about the same despite the displayed SOC.

This is what seems odd. The BMS measured true SOC is the same when in precon. and when started but SOCD is 2% less. SOC is temperature compensated, ER HVB SOCD can be 100% at 90+ kWh energy in the summer and 100% at 84 kWh or less in winter.

My guess is that the BMS SOCD is not operating the same during precon. as it does in key-on state.

FWIW, I seldom precon. or have the car on plug overnight and have never seen SOCD vary overnight, even when range has decreased as much as 20+ mi. due to temp. drop.

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