Gridserve Rapid Charging Issue

[EVsince2016]

I had exactly the same problem going up the M6 on twin CCS chargers.

Guess what the issue was?

.

.

.

CCS cable 1 was in port 2 and CCS cable 2 was in port 1, so when I activated CCS1 I accidently plugged in the CCS2 cable

It is a really daft issue but maybe one of what you encountered as I got the same message!

 

[aread2]

I tried to charge at the Gridserve dual CCS charger at M6 Stafford South services yesterday. Error message on the charger was "the car did something unexpected". To me that implies a CCS protocol error of some type. Luckily the single CCS plus single Chademo charger next to it became available and worked fine.

 

[Philekent]

I am now 22 months in to MG5EV ownership (standard range) and I have just come across a weird problem. On a recent trip to Scotland (motorway up and down) I had to use the blooming gridserve facilities (always a heart rending experience at 60+p per kWh). I encountered a consistent problem with their CCS chargers. The car would not charge at the chargers that had two CCS chargers; it was only possible at the chargers that were CCS/Chademo. Every time I plugged into either of the double CCS sockets and followed the instructions, the charger would indicate preparing to charge and after about 90seconds would come back with an error message saying that the car did something unexpected... However, when I connected to the CCS outlet on the Chademo charger, it worked perfectly. The main differences I could see was that the successful charges were accompanied by the car clamping onto the charger while it failed to do so on the double CCS output chargers. In all cases the charger head was fully engaged.

This was not an isolated instance and I replicated the fault at several different chargers. I also had no problem connecting to Chargeplace Scotland CCS or Osprey chargers.

Is this a case of Gridserve (who are thieving so and so's) trying to marginalize slower charging cars like the MG5, or do you think the problem is my car? The car, by the way has not been damaged in any way at the front and I never encountered the same issue on either of my 2 trips to Scotland earlier this summer. Thoughts, theories welcome. Thanks very much, Gavin

WE HAD exactly the same problem at Toddington Services (S).
I hit the BIG RED BUTTON.
waited a few seconds - twisted the Red Button so it stood proud again.
And low and behold - we connected and charged up for 28 minutes.

AS WE USED TO SAY WITH PC'S - TURN IT OFF AND BACK ON AGAIN.

 

[PeterB]

I am now 22 months in to MG5EV ownership (standard range) and I have just come across a weird problem. On a recent trip to Scotland (motorway up and down) I had to use the blooming gridserve facilities (always a heart rending experience at 60+p per kWh). I encountered a consistent problem with their CCS chargers. The car would not charge at the chargers that had two CCS chargers; it was only possible at the chargers that were CCS/Chademo. Every time I plugged into either of the double CCS sockets and followed the instructions, the charger would indicate preparing to charge and after about 90seconds would come back with an error message saying that the car did something unexpected... However, when I connected to the CCS outlet on the Chademo charger, it worked perfectly. The main differences I could see was that the successful charges were accompanied by the car clamping onto the charger while it failed to do so on the double CCS output chargers. In all cases the charger head was fully engaged.

This was not an isolated instance and I replicated the fault at several different chargers. I also had no problem connecting to Chargeplace Scotland CCS or Osprey chargers.

Is this a case of Gridserve (who are thieving so and so's) trying to marginalize slower charging cars like the MG5, or do you think the problem is my car? The car, by the way has not been damaged in any way at the front and I never encountered the same issue on either of my 2 trips to Scotland earlier this summer. Thoughts, theories welcome. Thanks very much, Gavin

Hi, Yesterday I had exactly the same problem. "error" message when preparing to charge at Trowell northbound services, Nottingham. Two side by side charging places. Both were in use when I arrived. When one became free, I connected, but it kicked out and refused to charge. Just by was a Gridserve engineer with a small white van. He got onto the phone and arranged for the charger to be re-booted. Still no charge.

He said that the problem was my MG5 software, you need to call the AA. My car is 22 reg, 5000 miles.

Meanwhile an Etron arrived and started to charge on the left hand unit. Then another on the other unit. Both charged perfectly normally.

I made it to home and tested my car on the local motorway services, again with Gridserve. My car charged normally. I usually charge at home, and have experienced occasional drop-outs when charging on my 7 KWH wall charger.

I'm wondering what the experience has been with other MG5 users.

 

[Rogersons]

Hi, Yesterday I had exactly the same problem. "error" message when preparing to charge at Trowell northbound services, Nottingham. Two side by side charging places. Both were in use when I arrived. When one became free, I connected, but it kicked out and refused to charge. Just by was a Gridserve engineer with a small white van. He got onto the phone and arranged for the charger to be re-booted. Still no charge.

He said that the problem was my MG5 software, you need to call the AA. My car is 22 reg, 5000 miles.

Meanwhile an Etron arrived and started to charge on the left hand unit. Then another on the other unit. Both charged perfectly normally.

I made it to home and tested my car on the local motorway services, again with Gridserve. My car charged normally. I usually charge at home, and have experienced occasional drop-outs when charging on my 7 KWH wall charger.

I'm wondering what the experience has been with other MG5 users.

Yeah it’s nothing to do with your MG, Gridserve chargers can’t charge two at the same time (I imagine one of the previous two cars wasn’t getting any charge). Worrying that the engineer didn’t know this.

More than once when asking for an unlock signal to be sent down their agents have looked at their guide for the MG asking me to do things like hold the unlock down, which are just incorrect.

 

[smokie]

Yeah it’s nothing to do with your MG, Gridserve chargers can’t charge two at the same time

I thought they'd started to upgrade them to overcome this? Which of course depends on the cabling and site supply etc not just the unit.

 

[Rogersons]

I thought they'd started to upgrade them to overcome this? Which of course depends on the cabling and site supply etc not just the unit.

Hope this is a fast roll out for them….. but I do a lot of motorway driving and haven’t found one yet

 

[Gomev]

I notice a recurring theme that the newer members with the presumably newer cars are the one's having problems.
So to eliminate the possibility of it being user error, make sure you ram the plug into car very firmly.

 

[Rogersons]

I notice a recurring theme that the newer members with the presumably newer cars are the one's having problems.
So to eliminate the possibility of it being user error, make sure you ram the plug into car very firmly.

I can assure you the problems mentioned above are not due to the plug not being ‘firmly plugged in’. Could you be any more patronising?

 

[smokie]

Don't people take offence easily these days?

That seemed a reasonable thing to say, especially as it was qualified, and there have been others who have benefited from and appreciated that level of advice.

If you bite like that you might find people are less willing to help when you really need it!

 

[Rogersons]

Don't people take offence easily these days?

That seemed a reasonable thing to say, especially as it was qualified, and there have been others who have benefited from and appreciated that level of advice.

If you bite like that you might find people are less willing to help when you really need it!

No offence taken. Just pointing and calling out your idea that people aren’t plugging the charger in properly (considering it actually has to lock in place) is both farcical and patronising.

I would suggest that if you continue to behave like that then people will be less willing to both listen to you or help you when you need help.

 

[GavinJ]

Gavin yes! I had this EXACT same issue this weekend and reported it to Gridserve who said "oh that's new"

If you haven't please report this to them. I suspect it's to do with how the CCS standard is implemented as it's always a Comms issue it seems.

Hi all, just thought I would update you;. One week in and still nor reply from Gridserve - other than "our engineers are looking into it"...

 

[jackois]

Had to use the Gridserve chargers at Moto Rugby today. 2 out of service awaiting an engineer, 8 working and 1 showing ok but impossible to use.

I tried it an couldn't get it to accept payment and , as luck had it, the one next door came free, so I pulled on and all was fine and dandy. meanwhile a ZS user pulled on to the one I'd vacated and couldn't charge, but being a hardier soul than me went for customer service and spent ten minutes trying things with no joy. He moved onto a freshly vacated one and was fine.

Sadly, HQ didn't switch the faulty on to out of service, so there was a steam of people pulling on, trying to charge, failing, moving charger and doing Gridserve's reputation no favours whatsoever.

 

[NCR]

I had the "Car did something unexpected" error on both Gridserve chargers at Hilton Park Southbound on Friday night. 45 wasted minutes on the phone to Gridserve with reboots on both chargers got me nowhere. To add insult, as we were leaving a Jaguar I-Pace pulled up and charged without issue. I managed to get a charge on the Gridserve at IKEA down the road. I'm finding that on public chargers my 5 LR has failed to charge more times than has been successful over the past few weeks. Five fails to three success, not just on Gridserve. Either the network is getting worse, or something happened during my recent 15k service.

 

[Gomev]

I can assure you the problems mentioned above are not due to the plug not being ‘firmly plugged in’. Could you be any more patronising?

Since you ask.
If you care to search back through the forums you will discover that this has been a problem in the past whereby the weight of the cable on CCS has caused the communication problems due to the pins not connecting properly even thought the cable is locked in.

EB and Geniepoint Siemens rapid chargers

I've tried a total of three (two EB and a single Geniepoint) of these design of chargers now on my SE LR. They are the ones with a CCS, a Chademo and a Type 2 socket. Every one of them fails to charge. More accurately, they start the process, begin charge and then stop, saying "charge complete"...

www.mgevs.com

Charging to 100 % on 7 kW home charger.

I wonder whether VW subsidise the running costs?

www.mgevs.com

 

[EVsince2016]

You MUST turn off your car and shut all the doors & windows before starting a charge. Some chargers don't care about doors, windows, power on etc but many do.

You 'may' also have to lock the car to start the charge connection process too after plugging in.

Final one, the MG5 is a bit slow to respond and certain chargers time out before the MG5 starts to charge hence 'charge stopped by car' error warning.

Once charging starts you can unlock, power up etc.

Why so complicated!!

 

[Petriix]

There are definitely some software issues with the MG5 which cause problems when rapid charging. There are some steps which tend to help avoid error situations. Some charging providers have more robust error handling than others. Gridserve seem to be running different software on the dual CCS units to the CCS/ChaDeMo ones.

It's worth being open minded with how you approach rapid charging and sticking to what you know works if in doubt. Don't assume user error.

 

[SQU]

Hi all
I had a major issue last Thursday trying to rapid charge my MG5 LR. At chargeplace Scotland CCS 50kw DCcharger, had unfortunately had to run down to 12% on battery the night before ( dont have charger at home yet)
Tried 3 different chargers in same location , other EVs successful meanwhile.
Also tried AC charging at same location with no success;
Phoned AA as was not going to be able to go anywhere
and they came , connected tablet to my MG; couldnt”read” the diagnostics but reset something
Mead able to the charge AC ( 7kw/hr) but even after up to 30% and then 70 % ( after charging to 100-% and driving down to 75%) was still unable to Rapid charge using DC 50KW charger

Was able to accept charge from a commercial charger ( swarco) but am a bit stuck as most DC chargers available in Glasgow are the similar chargeplace Scotland ones. Am thinking the low battery status at 12% may have caused an issue with the MG software
Am taking to Arnold Clark tomorrow

It’s relatively new 6000 miles 22 plate
Any ideas/ suggestions very welcome.

Otherwise have loved driving this, no issues to date
And plug was definitely plugged in, havent always needed to lock doors etc when charging previously

 

[greentangerine]

There's definitely an issue with the new Gridserve software which permits both cables to be used at the same time. I travelled from Dorset to Manchester and back at the weekend. Both charger units / three CCS cables at Strensham were stuck in 'Preparing to charge' both with my MG and another car (can't remember make). However similar Gridserve chargers worked fine at Stafford later that day.

On the way back, all three CCS at Hilton were the same - 'Preparing to charge' but the ones at Michael Wood did work (albeit extremely slowly - 29kW).

I've used both Strensham and Hilton many times without a problem but the software has definitely changed and is presumably the cause.

For comparison, I used MFG chargers several times over the weekend as alternatives and they worked first time every time.

 

[jpvdheijn]

Well in the end I think MG needs to step up their game and roll out a SW update for MG ZS and MG 5 because these issues are observed across the board. But this also happened to the polestar 2 vehicles when they came out.
But I think this is always going to be a chicken and egg problem, who solves what and when. I see that some chargers are less prone to error than others. And there are multiple charger manufacturers out there.

Anyhow getting in this situation really ruins the otherwise pleasant driving experience of an EV.