HV battery shutoff when initiating rapid charge. Vehicle control system fault.

[TonyP]

Will be interested to learn how you get on. My car been updated, but I haven't used a rapid charger yet.

 

[Lovemyev]

They performed a reset and applied the update, tommorow I'm going to the same charger that bricked the car to test the claims of a fix.

Please report back on how you fare using the very same charger, that bricked your car previously !.
There will be a LOT of us ( including myself ) who will really interested to hear how you get on tomorrow, now you have had the charging protocol update, then intend to use the very same rapid unit !.
Fingers firmly crossed that it all goes well for you ( and everybody else ) tomorrow !.
Thanks !.

 

[mitchellkunst]

So they did not fix the creaking from the steering which is annoying. However the same charger that bricked the car last time worked fine this time! When stopping the charge they screen did give the HV battery shut off message but the car just worked as it should.

Conclusion, the car is working after using the charger that bricked it last time but I honestly have no idea if the problem is really fixed. Maybe the update is causing the car to not lock up after the HV battery shut off message even though something went wrong somewhere when charging.

 

[Lovemyev]

So they did not fix the creaking from the steering which is annoying. However the same charger that bricked the car last time worked fine this time! When stopping the charge they screen did give the HV battery shut off message but the car just worked as it should.

Conclusion, the car is working after using the charger that bricked it last time but I honestly have no idea if the problem is really fixed. Maybe the update is causing the car to not lock up after the HV battery shut off message even though something went wrong somewhere when charging.

Good news that it did not “Brick” the car again at the very same charger.
Congrats and thank you for having the courage to test it !.
But it does sound a little like it did consider throwing a slight wobble though .
The “Ant Bricking” fix does sound a bit more like a software “Patch” rather than a full on rewrite to me.
I bet your stomach dropped, when you seen the warning message again !.
Did it flag up straight away but continue to charge, or did it flag up at the end of the charge ??????.
What happened, did follow the same sequence of events, or was it different in some way ?.
I truly think other facelift owners would appreciate ANY further details you can offer.
Thank you.

 

[mitchellkunst]

Good news that it did not “Brick” the car again at the very same charger.
Congrats and thank you for having the courage to test it !.
But it does sound a little like it did consider throwing a slight wobble though .
The “Ant Bricking” fix does sound a bit more like a software “Patch” rather than a full on rewrite to me.
I bet your stomach dropped, when you seen the warning message again !.
Did it flag up straight away but continue to charge, or did it flag up at the end of the charge ??????.
What happened, did follow the same sequence of events, or was it different in some way ?.
I truly think other facelift owners would appreciate ANY further details you can offer.
Thank you.

Haha yes I was really scared I was stuck at the charger again but thankfully after giving me the error it just did it's thing. So the message came up after finishing the charge and starting the car.

So the sequence of events was: Park the car, turn it off, plug the CCS, start the charge, let it charge for 5 minutes to see if it was really charging, stop the charge, unplug the CCS, start car, error message (HV Battery shut off but no battery with a stripe through it), no problems and driving home (thankfully)

Did another charge yesterday at a Tritium/Shell charger yesterday and had no problems, but to be honest they have always been good.

Thats really all i can think about, fingers crossed it keeps charging the way it should!

 

[MichaelJHunt]

Haha yes I was really scared I was stuck at the charger again but thankfully after giving me the error it just did it's thing. So the message came up after finishing the charge and starting the car.

So the sequence of events was: Park the car, turn it off, plug the CCS, start the charge, let it charge for 5 minutes to see if it was really charging, stop the charge, unplug the CCS, start car, error message (HV Battery shut off but no battery with a stripe through it), no problems and driving home (thankfully)

Did another charge yesterday at a Tritium/Shell charger yesterday and had no problems, but to be honest they have always been good.

Thats really all i can think about, fingers crossed it keeps charging the way it should!

How did you stop the charge?

 

[Lovemyev]

How did you stop the charge?

I was just about to ask the same question .

 

[mitchellkunst]

I stopped the charge on the charger itself, pressed CCS and then the stop charge button on the touchscreen.

 

[MichaelJHunt]

I stopped the charge on the charger itself, pressed CCS and then the stop charge button on the touchscreen.

My procedure has always been to stop the charge from the car when Rapid Charging. I have used a variety of Rapid Chargers and not experienced an issue when charging.

Clearly it should not be an issue to stop charging from the charger - but don’t use the eSTOP unless in an emergency. However, with a few people experiencing issues when the charger stops the process, I will stick with my method where the handshake protocol is car-to-charger rather than charger-to-car when stopping charging.

As they say..

“If ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

 

[Lovemyev]

I stopped the charge on the charger itself, pressed CCS and then the stop charge button on the touchscreen.

Just MAYBE if you reversed the process, the next time you try the charger, it may NOT throw up the warning message on the dash ???.
Just a bit of food for thought ???.
Thanks for the feed back !.

 

[mitchellkunst]

Just MAYBE if you reversed the process, the next time you try the charger, it may NOT throw up the warning message on the dash ???.
Just a bit of food for thought ???.
Thanks for the feed back !.

Yeah I can try that for sure. If I'm in the area of that charger again I will give it a go!

Just to confirm I have not pressing the E-stop button of the charger! Just hold the key fob against the charger and selecting the option stop charging, which I have been doing with the BMW i3 I had before this car for years. That never went wrong.

Personally I still feel the correct way is to stop the charge on the charger. It just feels more logical because you also start it from the charger.

Anyhow, I'm just gonna try all the options there are now, in the car, on the charger. It should just work. My old car just never had issues with charging, even though comparing a BMW to MG is not entirely fair I guess.

Let's hope it all keeps working and many safe miles for us all, I will keep you guys up to date

 

[Lovemyev]

Just to confirm I have not pressing the E-stop button of the charger! Just hold the key fob against the charger and selecting the option stop charging, which I have been doing with the BMW i3 I had before this car for years. That never went wrong.

Thank you once again !.
I had already guessed that you had not hit the emergency stop button to finish the charge.
See, I am not a big rapid charger user to be honest, so please excuse my total lack of understanding of the process, or my general knowledge for that matter.
But can you please explain the bit about :-
“Just hold the key fob against the charger and select the option to stop charging”.
Can I hazard a guess that this “fob” refers to a RFID card for the network you are using ?.
I did have a Polar Plus RFID card with monthly subscription, until the prices rocketed.
I could use this in a similar way to start and stop a charging cycle.
Likely to be the same type of thing ?????.

 

[Vince31]

I always stop the charge on a Rapid using the cars in built functionality via the infotainment screen, this requires the car to be in Ready mode first. Doing it this way ensures the car is in control of the shutdown process and not the Rapid charger.

 

[Lovemyev]

I always stop the charge on a Rapid using the cars in built functionality via the infotainment screen, this requires the car to be in Ready mode first. Doing it this way ensures the car is in control of the shutdown process and not the Rapid charger.

Question :- If you boot up the car, while it is still receiving a high charge from a rapid ( to stop the charging session ) could / would the car interpret this as your intension to drive away, with the car still connected to the charger and therefore cause the bricking effect ??.
You would imagine NOT because it would not offer the "stop the charge" facility in the head unit, because they know the car has to be booted in order for this work ??.

 

[MichaelJHunt]

Question :- If you boot up the car, while it is still receiving a high charge from a rapid ( to stop the charging session ) could / would the car interpret this as your intension to drive away, with the car still connected to the charger and therefore cause the bricking effect ??.
You would imagine NOT because it would not offer the "stop the charge" facility in the head unit, because they know the car has to be booted in order for this work ??.

The car recognises the charger is connected and will not allow you to drive away. It does not matter if the car has completed its charging process or not, if the cable is plugged in, no driving.

The cable cannot be removed if the car is charging, so you have to stop the charge first, which I always do from the car when using a Rapid Charger.

On a fast charger at home I generally set the charge level to 80% and the car then stops the charge when it gets there. If I need to use the car while it is charging at home I will again stop the charge by using the main screen in the car.

I am trying to make it clear that my car always stops the charge process, rather than the charger.

 

[Striker]

Question :- If you boot up the car, while it is still receiving a high charge from a rapid ( to stop the charging session ) could / would the car interpret this as your intension to drive away, with the car still connected to the charger and therefore cause the bricking effect ??.
You would imagine NOT because it would not offer the "stop the charge" facility in the head unit, because they know the car has to be booted in order for this work ??.

Further to the comments above, the car displays a warning message, if you put it in to ready with the charger connected, something like “Drive not available, charger connected” I can’t remember the exact wording

 

[Lovemyev]

On a fast charger at home I generally set the charge level to 80% and the car then stops the charge when it get there.

What happens if you have the car set up to charge to 80% only ( like mine ) for home charging, will only charge up to 80% when plugged into a rapid unit ?.
Also, I have the head unit set up to charge on my "Off Peak" tariff, I guess I would need to disable this for rapid charging as well, or I could be waiting a long time for it too commence charging !.
As you can see, I don't do much ( if any ) rapid charging on our Trophy LR ( as of yet ).
I did a couple of "Splash & Dash' charges on a couple of rapids when we had the Gen1 ZS EV.
They where on Polar units, because I had a Polar Plus sub at the time ( no more ).
They always worked just fine, I both started and stopped the charging sessions by using the RFID card from Polar.
Having the extra range with the Gen 2 LR makes my chances of requiring a rapid unit even less, but it's nice to understand how does and does not work !.
I really welcome any suggestions from regular users of rapid units, who own a face lift model of the ZS EV.
Nobody wants there car to "Brick" when trying to receive a charge from a rapid unit.
I don't profess to try and understand what the issue is here, but what I AM struggling to understand here is.
WHY has this has only become a massive issue on the Gen 2 face lift version of the ZS EV ???.
Although the Gen1 ZS EV did have its "strange moments" at times, I don't remember seeing a report of a Gen1 ZS EV model actually "Bricking" and rendering the car totally stranded ????.
I find it even stranger that the "Pre-Released" ZS EV facelift covered the UK before it's official release to the public, trying for its ability to charge from different public charging networks ?.
Maybe they where carrying a MG diag lap top, in order to clear out any errors codes as they popped up at the time of testing ??.
Surely, they must of experienced a few different issues at some of the chargers ???.
Maybe they just put it down to the charger and not the car ??.
Who know's !.

 

[MichaelJHunt]

The OP was in the MK1 ZS EV.

Setting the charge limit to 80% will also affect RAPID Charging - this is good because it means that the car would initiate the Charge Stop without you needing to be at the car to do it. You should always check on the app to see when it has stopped and go back to the car. Unfortunately the app doesn’t alert you when the charge has completed.

Setting the timers for charging in the car will also affect RAPID Charging and has caught a few out.

Rapid Charging and Fast Charging are different in the way they work. Fast Charging using an internal AC to DC converter, whereas RAPID Charging relies on the charger to deliver the DC.

It is quite likely that Fast Charging, which uses different software with a much less complicated handshake protocol, does not suffer so easily from bricking. I would hope that Fast Chargers don’t simply cut the supply, but do run through a disconnect protocol. I know in the early days, before Smart Chargers, it was common to fit a timer relay on the charger to start and stop charging. This would just cut the power and was not a good thing for the internal electrics in the car.

It was quite common for the early iPace EVs to brick at chargers, or not charge at all.

 

[Lovemyev]

I like the idea that leaving the setting set to charge to 80% on the LR, will terminate the charge from a D/C rapid to be honest.
Never a fan of pushing beyond this point as it take up to much valuable time on the charger, which other people could be using anyway.
80% SOC on the LR is going to provide you with a +200 miles of range anyway.
After driving that length of time, you are well past another comfort break regardless.
I tend to use the charge to 80% almost all of the time, when charging at home from our A/C wall box.
We have had the car since March and covered almost 4,500 miles.
200 plus miles covers 99% of our usage case.
I have charged to 90% for a couple of longer trips only twice.
That was only as a safety factor to be honest.
200 plus miles of range in an EV is a really nice sweet spot I think for most people usage case.
The car was charged to 100% when we collected it from the dealer.
I have no fears of any balancing issue to be honest, after owning the Gen1 ZS EV that received the BMS update, then spent WAY to much time charging and balancing every single charge, chasing the magical range figures put out after the problems.
Been there, done that !.
After two years and almost 20,000 miles covered in the Gen 1 there was battery degradation clearly evident, regardless of following all of the charging protocols.
Oh ….. 99% of the charging completed on A/C charging at home to boot !.

 

[lusitano]

I'm currently stuck waiting for the AA truck to collect my car with this issue.

AA engineer tried everything he could for 2 hours, nothing, their systems weren't able to connect, been stuck here almost 5 hours now...

Supposedly the AA truck will drop me home and then drop off the car at my closest MG dealer, just dump it in front of the dealership.

Then I got to call them tomorrow and tell them that car blocking their door is mine...

I'm so tired I just want to go to sleep.