Car Scheduled charging software bug

[DangerousDoug]

Our MG4 Trophy appears to have a software bug in the in-car scheduled charging settings. Even when the times are set to an overnight period and scheduled charging enabled, the car starts charging as soon as power is applied (via the wall charger being enabled for continuous charging). Using the iSmart app, when I tap "abort charging" the car stops charging for a few seconds, then starts again! - anyone else seeing this behaviour and do we know whether a software update is due to fix it?

 

[shaunuk]

I was seeing a similar behaviour on my old 7 kW dumb charger which has been fine for every other EV. I couldn’t find a fix. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn’t, and the schedule wouldn’t always set the charger up at midnight Ether. Sorry I don’t have an answer for you. I’ve ended up changing my charger for a myenergi Zappy which has its own schedule built-in and then I just set the the car to always charge (no schedule).

Sometimes it’s to do with the order that you plug the cable in after returning from a drive.

Try leaving the car running, then plug the cable and then lock the car

 

[Deleted member 9692]

Our MG4 Trophy appears to have a software bug in the in-car scheduled charging settings. Even when the times are set to an overnight period and scheduled charging enabled, the car starts charging as soon as power is applied (via the wall charger being enabled for continuous charging). Using the iSmart app, when I tap "abort charging" the car stops charging for a few seconds, then starts again! - anyone else seeing this behaviour and do we know whether a software update is due to fix it?

Mine went in on Friday for this amongst other issues. Still with them, should have their answer next week.

 

[Tigger]

anyone else seeing this behaviour and do we know whether a software update is due to fix it?

Everyone seems to have this problem - see two earlier threads Scheduled charge unscheduled? and Schedule charging.

I have a Pod Point charger which allows me to schedule the input, but it relies on a rock-solid WiFi connection. which not everybody has.

I think we need to send a deputation to SAIC - as you say, this is a bug. Looking at it as a software issue, I suspect the bug relates to calendar days. So a schedule of 2-4am tomorrrow would probably work if you set it at 1am. However, setting it the previous day confuses it . . . They should try testing their software in real-life situations.

 

[sdjmchattie]

I have the same issue but have had luck with plugging in before turning off the car by locking the door. I read a theory that the car doesn’t track clock time while turned off and re-sets the clock based on an internet connection when turned back on. Plugging it in while powered off, it has no idea what the current time is. If it’s still on when you plug it in it then knows the time and starts a count down timer to when it should start before forgetting the clock time. It’s all speculation of course but the symptoms match the hypothesis in my case.

 

[Rcade]

I've had problems with this too, I've only had the car a week and twice it's been charging when it wasn't supposed too.

The sequence that so far works for me - park the car, open charge door, insert charge cable, lock car. Do not open i-smart app (it starts charging), do not unlock car (it starts charging) - if I do I have to do the whole process again, unplug the charge cable, start the car (press on the seat) and repeat above steps.

 

[DangerousDoug]

These are really helpful replies - thanks everyone who's replied so far. I like tigger's suggestion of a deputation to SAIC. This issue won't cause us to return the car (we actually love the car, despite these software teething issues), but they're still advertising scheduled charging as a feature of the car, and as it currently doesn't work (not properly, anyway), we should point out to them that publicising this feature is in fact false advertising! Hopefully this will encourage a swift software update to fix the issue.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

These are really helpful replies - thanks everyone who's replied so far. I like tigger's suggestion of a deputation to SAIC. This issue won't cause us to return the car (we actually love the car, despite these software teething issues), but they're still advertising scheduled charging as a feature of the car, and as it currently doesn't work (not properly, anyway), we should point out to them that publicising this feature is in fact false advertising! Hopefully this will encourage a swift software update to fix the issue.

Good luck with that

 

[melvinolotus]

Our MG4 Trophy appears to have a software bug in the in-car scheduled charging settings. Even when the times are set to an overnight period and scheduled charging enabled, the car starts charging as soon as power is applied (via the wall charger being enabled for continuous charging). Using the iSmart app, when I tap "abort charging" the car stops charging for a few seconds, then starts again! - anyone else seeing this behaviour and do we know whether a software update is due to fix it?

I was seeing a similar behaviour on my old 7 kW dumb charger which has been fine for every other EV. I couldn’t find a fix. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn’t, and the schedule wouldn’t always set the charger up at midnight Ether. Sorry I don’t have an answer for you. I’ve ended up changing my charger for a myenergi Zappy which has its own schedule built-in and then I just set the the car to always charge (no schedule).

Sometimes it’s to do with the order that you plug the cable in after returning from a drive.

Try leaving the car running, then plug the cable and then lock the car

Been try to solve my delayed charging problem for weeks, thanks to those who suggested leaving car fired up, door open , plug in Zappi then lock, waited few moments and it WORKED !…..thanks

 

[fnegroni]

On the plus side, even though the charge starts immediately, it will stop charging at the Scheduled Charging End Time.
in a way, think of the ‘plug in when switched off’ as a convenient () override for the start time. Otherwise if you needed to charge immediately you would need to go through the settings and disable the scheduled charging altogether.
Obviously there are better ways to design this ‘feature’ but now I know how to take advantage of it. I programme the scheduled charge for the off peak hours but I can start earlier if I need to charge for longer without messing about with the scheduled charge settings.

 

[Peterpops]

Schedule preset in app and then while car on, plug in cable lock car and look on screen for charging scheduled and hey presto. As long as you don’t open the car or look at the app all works fine 95% of the time. I have mine preset for octopus go cheap rate 12:30-4:30 and only failed me twice.

 

[Vingnut]

Make sure planned charging is activated in the app before plugging inn. If not the charging starts immediately and will probably charge to 100%

 

[fnegroni]

Make sure planned charging is activated in the app before plugging inn. If not the charging starts immediately and will probably charge to 100%

i agree. I thought the app would mirror the car but it appears there’s a bug in the app which will override the car’s times.
Best to set the scheduled charge via the app.
If not, at least enable it in the app.
The app seems to send an override to the car wrt start and end time

 

[fnegroni]

Evidence

i agree. I thought the app would mirror the car but it appears there’s a bug in the app which will override the car’s times.
Best to set the scheduled charge via the app.
If not, at least enable it in the app.
The app seems to send an override to the car wrt start and end time

So after enabling the toggle in the car, the car shows the original 11am start and 4pm end times but if I tap on those times, they reveal the actual times being 22 and 6.
The app wasn’t used to activate the toggle: after enabling the toggle in the car and then refreshing the car status in the app, the toggle did flick to enabled in the app also.
The car and the app showed two different times though, and tapping on the cars start time shows the actual stored time isn’t the one originally set but a new value.
I am investigating whether it’s changing the toggle to off in the app that does that or the one on the car. Either way there’s an obvious UI bug there.

 

[markinoz]

I just purchased an MG4 in Australia and have encountered what appears to be a similar issue, although in my case, I tested out scheduled charging in the iSmart app, and then disabled it.
The setting had not synced with the car, and the following day I plugged in the charger and discovered the car would not charge. I spent several frustrating hours trying to resolve this, and was getting the to the point where I thought I'd have to return it to the dealer to fix the problem.
I eventually realised that the setting in the car was waiting for the scheduled charging time (even though I'd turned off scheduled charging in the app.
Does anyone know if a firmware update has resolved this problem?
When I purchased the car I asked the dealer to ensure that the software was up to date but they obviously didn't do this (as evidenced by the fact that I don't have one pedal driving option).

 

[Anon70]

I did notice when playing with the charge settings that the app does not always report a success message after you have changed a setting and sent it. Do you still get the mismatch between car and app after the app says it has successfully sent the change request to the car?

 

[markinoz]

I did notice when playing with the charge settings that the app does not always report a success message after you have changed a setting and sent it. Do you still get the mismatch between car and app after the app says it has successfully sent the change request to the car?

Hi. Thanks for the response. Maybe that is the problem. I don't remember any message indicating success or failure. I haven't tried scheduling since but I'll try to test it out again over the next day or two.

 

[Geriatric Joe]

I schedule the charge times inside the MG4 Excite 51 and do not use the App, I get out of the car and lock and unlock twice using the Key Fob to stop the car charging straight away.
I have a Tesla dumb charger Installed as a wall box here in Australia.
I think there are several software bugs with the MG EV and hopefully the latest Updates will iron out some issues with time.
Good luck in the new world of EV and enjoy the ride.