Slower charging in hot weather?
Discussion
Have a Volvo XC90 T8, PHEV. Great car so far. It charges overnight on a 3 pin charger, scheduled to run from 2330 to 0530 to coincide with cheap Octopus tariff timings. 18 Kw/h battery, so across the 6 hrs it charges for, generally have seen it getting to around 70% charged from 0%, overnight. Makes sense I think based on 3 pin charging.
Over the hot weather last week though, it was only going up to around 50% and last night (in cooler weather) went up to around 60% from zero. Any thoughts? It doesn't really make sense to me since I'd imagine these cars should be able to charge at 2.2 kw/h all day every day without throttling the rate, and I can't imagine that the house supply was throttling either since that must not be possible?
Any thoughts much appreciated.
Over the hot weather last week though, it was only going up to around 50% and last night (in cooler weather) went up to around 60% from zero. Any thoughts? It doesn't really make sense to me since I'd imagine these cars should be able to charge at 2.2 kw/h all day every day without throttling the rate, and I can't imagine that the house supply was throttling either since that must not be possible?
Any thoughts much appreciated.
I have only used my 7kW charger with my Renault 5, but noticed when it was at its hottest last week charging slowed a small amount from 7kW bang on to 6.9kW. Charger efficiency also dropped slightly from it's average of 98% to 96%. I believe that a 3 pin has much greater charging losses (hence all the excess heat) and can only assume that would increase further in the the hot weather. Although yours is quite a drop.
The cars can also moderate their battery temperature during charging which uses energy. There is a chance that the car was using excess energy to cool down the battery rather than charge it.
The only other thing I can think is did the charge start bang on schedule? My Pod Point is set between midnight and 6am and can start anywhere between 00:01 and 00:15. I believe they alter this due to grid load to even out the spike of so many tariffs starting at midnight.
The cars can also moderate their battery temperature during charging which uses energy. There is a chance that the car was using excess energy to cool down the battery rather than charge it.
The only other thing I can think is did the charge start bang on schedule? My Pod Point is set between midnight and 6am and can start anywhere between 00:01 and 00:15. I believe they alter this due to grid load to even out the spike of so many tariffs starting at midnight.
Edited by Goatwidcoat on Monday 29th June 16:25
b14 said:
Have a Volvo XC90 T8, PHEV. Great car so far. It charges overnight on a 3 pin charger, scheduled to run from 2330 to 0530 to coincide with cheap Octopus tariff timings. 18 Kw/h battery, so across the 6 hrs it charges for, generally have seen it getting to around 70% charged from 0%, overnight. Makes sense I think based on 3 pin charging.
Over the hot weather last week though, it was only going up to around 50% and last night (in cooler weather) went up to around 60% from zero. Any thoughts? It doesn't really make sense to me since I'd imagine these cars should be able to charge at 2.2 kw/h all day every day without throttling the rate, and I can't imagine that the house supply was throttling either since that must not be possible?
Any thoughts much appreciated.
I agree that I wouldn't expect 2.2 kW charging to be affected by temperature.Over the hot weather last week though, it was only going up to around 50% and last night (in cooler weather) went up to around 60% from zero. Any thoughts? It doesn't really make sense to me since I'd imagine these cars should be able to charge at 2.2 kw/h all day every day without throttling the rate, and I can't imagine that the house supply was throttling either since that must not be possible?
Any thoughts much appreciated.
Another possibility would be that the car is still drawing the exact same amount of energy each night, however in warmer weather the actual useable capacity of the battery is greater, and so the same amount of energy is a lower % of the larger total.
Does not right to me. You are managing to charge 9kw in 6hrs. That is 1.5kw per hours, if the over night temperature last night was around 20c then that is optimal temperature., maybe the car is retaining heat from earlier in the day. You could do a test and run the air conditioning late in the evening and cool the car as best as possible. See if that makes a difference.
Edited by ashenfie on Monday 29th June 19:47
Edited by ashenfie on Monday 29th June 19:49
A hot garage and the car was cooling the battery?
On a recent road trip, our Ioniq 5 started drawing about 0.5kW for battery cooling when the temperature (as displayed by the car) reached 38 or 39 degrees. This was probably the lowest setting for the battery cooling system. After a fast charge, the energy use remains over 1kW for quite a while.
As an aside, is there a way to avoid letting the battery run down to 0%? Assuming the usual NMC chemistry, doing the deep discharge routinely accelerates battery wear quite a bit (perhaps enough for it to matter even to the first owner of the car).
On a recent road trip, our Ioniq 5 started drawing about 0.5kW for battery cooling when the temperature (as displayed by the car) reached 38 or 39 degrees. This was probably the lowest setting for the battery cooling system. After a fast charge, the energy use remains over 1kW for quite a while.
As an aside, is there a way to avoid letting the battery run down to 0%? Assuming the usual NMC chemistry, doing the deep discharge routinely accelerates battery wear quite a bit (perhaps enough for it to matter even to the first owner of the car).
Edited by PetrolHeadInRecovery on Tuesday 30th June 09:17
b14 said:
Have a Volvo XC90 T8, PHEV. Great car so far. It charges overnight on a 3 pin charger, scheduled to run from 2330 to 0530 to coincide with cheap Octopus tariff timings. 18 Kw/h battery, so across the 6 hrs it charges for, generally have seen it getting to around 70% charged from 0%, overnight. Makes sense I think based on 3 pin charging.
Over the hot weather last week though, it was only going up to around 50% and last night (in cooler weather) went up to around 60% from zero. Any thoughts? It doesn't really make sense to me since I'd imagine these cars should be able to charge at 2.2 kw/h all day every day without throttling the rate, and I can't imagine that the house supply was throttling either since that must not be possible?
Any thoughts much appreciated.
Most 3 pin chargers have a 'brick' somewhere on the wire, I know my Tesla and Porsche ones do, is that getting really hot by any chance and throttling the speed?Over the hot weather last week though, it was only going up to around 50% and last night (in cooler weather) went up to around 60% from zero. Any thoughts? It doesn't really make sense to me since I'd imagine these cars should be able to charge at 2.2 kw/h all day every day without throttling the rate, and I can't imagine that the house supply was throttling either since that must not be possible?
Any thoughts much appreciated.
Thanks all - not yet had the need to charge it but based on what everyone has said, I'm guessing it must have been some form of cooling of the battery that caused the car to be using some of the energy being put into it.
The question above re zero % charge - I presume the car actually has a buffer whereby the battery isn't going to zero. Being a PHEV it must have some protections from this since it actively seeks to use the full battery when on a run, to maximise MPG.
Thanks all, will update when I've charged it again
The question above re zero % charge - I presume the car actually has a buffer whereby the battery isn't going to zero. Being a PHEV it must have some protections from this since it actively seeks to use the full battery when on a run, to maximise MPG.
Thanks all, will update when I've charged it again
I've been getting faster charging in summer temperatures for over 2 yrs, only using a 3 pin plug.
In the winter, I sometimes only get 12% over 5 hours into a Honda eNy1. Last night, it put in 17%. It also receives less when the car is nearly 'full.' To translate it into power losses, it draws 2.2kW gross and the car actually receives only 70% on deep sub-zero nights,
but over 90% if its over 20C. I only charge at night (usually) so haven't tried in the extremes of 30C +.
In the winter, I sometimes only get 12% over 5 hours into a Honda eNy1. Last night, it put in 17%. It also receives less when the car is nearly 'full.' To translate it into power losses, it draws 2.2kW gross and the car actually receives only 70% on deep sub-zero nights,
but over 90% if its over 20C. I only charge at night (usually) so haven't tried in the extremes of 30C +.b14 said:
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The question above re zero % charge - I presume the car actually has a buffer whereby the battery isn't going to zero. Being a PHEV it must have some protections from this since it actively seeks to use the full battery when on a run, to maximise MPG.
If that's the car's default behaviour, it is probably OK. Based on the usable capacity of 15kWh (mentioned here, https://evsearch.ca/product/volvo-xc90-plug-in-hyb... "0%" is actually a bit over 20% SoC for the physical battery. So you should get at least 1000 cycles (25-40 miles each), i.e. 25,000 - 40,000 miles of battery-only range before any meaningful degradation. The question above re zero % charge - I presume the car actually has a buffer whereby the battery isn't going to zero. Being a PHEV it must have some protections from this since it actively seeks to use the full battery when on a run, to maximise MPG.
I've seen sources mentioning 300 cycles for batteries that go from 100% to (real) 0%. You might use that up in a year's commutes, which wouldn't be ideal.
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