Home Chargers - Cold weather issues, or more FUD?

[QLeo]

We don't have a home charger, so have no experience of this. But two folk locally have claimed that when the weather is cold (it rarely gets very cold here on North West Scotland, but lets say less than -2 or -3°C) their home chargers refuse to charge their cars. One has a Citroen van and another an MG4.

Do the collective minds here think this could be a real issue, or is it more FUD, and there's something else going on? We asked (subtly, I hope) and the two units were installed by different people.

Cheers

S

 

[siteguru]

Mine works OK at low temperatures. No idea what overall charge rate I get as I simply plug in and forget about it until the charge point app notifies me (on my phone) that it has finished charging, but it does charge my car. So my view would be that it is FUD.

What EVSE units do they have? (Mine's listed in my signature).

 

[QLeo]

Mine works OK at low temperatures. No idea what overall charge rate I get as I simply plug in and forget about it until the charge point app notifies me (on my phone) that it has finished charging, but it does charge my car. So my view would be that it is FUD.

What EVSE units do they have? (Mine's listed in my signature).

Thanks. I've no idea what the units are. It feels like nonsense. The one person claimed that the car charged fine at the slow public chargers (the chargers are slow, not the public...) when the home charger would not function.

 

[Kenp1]

Charged mine on the 4th, it was -5 when it started at 3 in the morning, and there was no issue.

 

[Archev]

We don't have a home charger, so have no experience of this. But two folk locally have claimed that when the weather is cold (it rarely gets very cold here on North West Scotland, but lets say less than -2 or -3°C) their home chargers refuse to charge their cars. One has a Citroen van and another an MG4.

Do the collective minds here think this could be a real issue, or is it more FUD, and there's something else going on? We asked (subtly, I hope) and the two units were installed by different people.

Cheers

S

I think my Ohme charger has worked correctly with my 1974 Citroen Berlingo. The coldest it’s been is perhaps -2°C.
I tend to plug in most nights when I’m finished with the car. The Ohme app then announces that the car's connected and I tell it I need whatever to make up to around 80% generally or 100% if I’m going far next day.
I’ve occasionally needed a top up through the day and used a CPS or Arnold Clarke Charge unit and the car's usually at a higher level than I anticipated by the time I return to it.
I always head to Arnold Clarke’s showroom for a comfort stop and the coffee and biscuits on offer.
I can’t say I’ve noticed any difference in charge speed in different weather conditions.

 

[LenEV2016]

Agree, no issues with my ohme and been through several winters, -5, -6 temps.

 

[MG Clive]

I'm only going through my second winter with my Cord Zero, but I've not had any charging problems.

 

[QLeo]

Charged mine on the 4th, it was -5 when it started at 3 in the morning, and there was no issue.

Thanks. Have you heard of any such issues?

 

[siteguru]

Slow charging is known about in cold temperatures - often referred to as Cold Gating. But failure to charge, not so much.

 

[QLeo]

Many thanks all for the contributions. I will try to feed this back to the folk here allegedly having issues, as there must be something else going on.

 

[Wadda]

Cold weather affects supercharging. the cold battery wont take a fast charge till it warms up. So the charge is a trickle. People think its not charging so move off the charger. home charging is much slower so works fine.

 

[QLeo]

Cold weather affects supercharging. the cold battery wont take a fast charge till it warms up. So the charge is a trickle. People think its not charging so move off the charger. home charging is much slower so works fine.

Thanks, yes. These stories allegedly were home chargers. It just doesn't seem likely.

 

[NikLiverpool]

Just noticed this. What a load of @@. was -5 the other night. Car was charging happily all night. On top of this house batteries were also charging and the heat pump was warming up the water thus draining even more leccy than what is needed for heating. No probs whatsoever.

 

[QLeo]

Just noticed this. What a load of @@. was -5 the other night. Car was charging happily all night. On top of this house batteries were also charging and the heat pump was warming up the water thus draining even more leccy than what is needed for heating. No probs whatsoever.

If - if - there is any truth to the stories, it makes me wonder what could be at fault. The only thing I can think of is something like condensation in the charger unit, ie. a poor quality unit. But it sounds like misinformation.

 

[gary333]

Their talking out of their backsides. If this was the case, then how would much colder countries survive with EVs.

In Norway 97% of cars sold are now EVs, yet temperatures over there in the Northern areas can get as low as -30°C with the average temp in winter being -10°C.

Edit: Only thing I can think of is don't quite a lot of homes in Scotland only use electric heating, it's possible the heating is using so much power that the charger circuit has to be throttled. This isn't a charger issue, it's down to supply to house not being robust enough.

 

[MG Clive]

In Norway 97% of cars sold are now EVs, yet temperatures over there in the Northern areas can get as low as -30°C with the average temp in winter being -10°C.

Well done Norway, that's an impressive statistic.

 

[LenEV2016]

Well done Norway, that's an impressive statistic.

Just about every car I saw in Oslo, last summer, was an EV (car and van).

Fewer EVs in Tromsø and Bergen but still a lot.

 

[QLeo]

Their talking out of their backsides. If this was the case, then how would much colder countries survive with EVs.

In Norway 97% of cars sold are now EVs, yet temperatures over there in the Northern areas can get as low as -30°C with the average temp in winter being -10°C.

Edit: Only thing I can think of is don't quite a lot of homes in Scotland only use electric heating, it's possible the heating is using so much power that the charger circuit has to be throttled. This isn't a charger issue, it's down to supply to house not being robust enough.

Oh, your edit is absolutely a possibility. Will ask when next we see the one person who may have leccy heating.

 

[NLMGSAN]

The only thing I recently experienced is that the capacity of a public charger dropped from 11 to 3,6 kW (=single phase). Either the car, or the charger or the cable is not working properly. Mind you, we had a 30cm snow cover and many nights below -5 Celsius. But I haven't had full failure ... yet.

 

[Everest]

Some vehicle's BMS system will restrict charging when temps are low and SOC are high. Ours did that this week when it was -4C - as the SOC increased above 70% the charge rate dropped - though never stopped.