MG4 charge complete but still appears to be charging (not balancing)

[JimmyTwotimes]

Hello
I charged my MG4 Trophy extended range to 100% today, but when i got in the car it appeared as if it was still taking a charge.

• The Octopus app showed charging was complete
• The Zappi wall charger showed charging complete and no power going to the car
• the infotainment screen shows the charging as complete
• when it's balancing i've seen the word 'balancing' on the infotainment screen so i assume that has also finished

But, as you can see from the screen shots there seemed to be variable amounts of power still being sent to the car. Any ideas whats happening?
Thanks for any advice

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[T1 Terry]

That is just keeping the BMs powered up and it is also charging the 12v battery because you have the system on and 12v appliances are being powered from the 12v battery, that would be why you have a high reading of 1.4kw and now a reading of 0.5kw

T1 Terry

 

[JimmyTwotimes]

That is just keeping the BMs powered up and it is also charging the 12v battery because you have the system on and 12v appliances are being powered from the 12v battery, that would be why you have a high reading of 1.4kw and now a reading of 0.5kw

T1 Terry

Thank you
So can i still unplug the car from the charger or wait till everything is finished before unplugging?

 

[Martinonline]

Interesting situation. If the Zappi is showing no power to the car then is the car showing power from the HV battery to supply the auxiliaries? A situation that only occurs if the car is connected to the EVSE and the EVSE is ready to supply. (I assume that you specified an energy top-up greater than required to give the car 100% charge and the car supplied the stop charging command.)

I suspect that if you left the car powered up you will find the Zappi reports additional energy supplied to the car, dependent on the Octopus schedule. However, the car has charged and balanced so all is good.

 

[JimmyTwotimes]

Interesting situation. If the Zappi is showing no power to the car then is the car showing power from the HV battery to supply the auxiliaries? A situation that only occurs if the car is connected to the EVSE and the EVSE is ready to supply. (I assume that you specified an energy top-up greater than required to give the car 100% charge and the car supplied the stop charging command.)

I suspect that if you left the car powered up you will find the Zappi reports additional energy supplied to the car, dependent on the Octopus schedule. However, the car has charged and balanced so all is good.

Nope - only specified enough charge tio get it to 100% (a bit paranoid of setting the top up higher than getting that battery to 100%!)

 

[T1 Terry]

Just unplug it and the reading will go away.

T1 Terry

 

[Martinonline]

@JimmyTwotimes, I would consider that unusual. If you do not set a value higher than that required to reach 100% by a couple of percent then you may not allow sufficient charge for the car to balance because the Zappi does not know the actual charge level if the car only what it calculates is given to the car. I do not know if it allows for losses within the car.

The car will stop at 100% including balancing even if you set a higher top-up figure. However setting too high a figure may affect the low-tariff time you can have dependent on how Octopus calculates allowed charging time from the percentage you set.

As regards disconnecting from the Zappi, if the charge port lights aren't flashing green and/or the car says it's not charging (car or app) then you can disconnect. If not then you must stop the charging first.

 

[JimmyTwotimes]

Ok thanks for this - so in short:

• always add a couple of extra percent when doing a charge to 100%?
• do the same if charging to 80%?

Advice is always appreciated.

 

[Martinonline]

Sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs. My assumption is that you are on Octopus Intelligent Go. Neither the Octopus App nor the Zappi App has access to the current state of the car's HV battery and thus is reliant on you requesting a certain level of extra charge by a certain time. Octopus will schedule that extra charge as the Zappi measures it within the allowed period dependent on the grid load.

Although the Zappi may have the correct knowledge of the car's battery size and estimated losses it does not know them accurately thus to give a couple of percentages extra is erring on the confidence that set car level will be reached.

And yes, copy that for any car set battery level.

 

[T1 Terry]

Sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs. My assumption is that you are on Octopus Intelligent Go. Neither the Octopus App nor the Zappi App has access to the current state of the car's HV battery and thus is reliant on you requesting a certain level of extra charge by a certain time. Octopus will schedule that extra charge as the Zappi measures it within the allowed period dependent on the grid load.

Although the Zappi may have the correct knowledge of the car's battery size and estimated losses it does not know them accurately thus to give a couple of percentages extra is erring on the confidence that set car level will be reached.

And yes, copy that for any car set battery level.

After recent revelations on another thread, I'm not sure that is such a great idea ....

T1 Terry

 

[Martinonline]

The other thread was about specifying a large charge requirement well in excess of that required to reach the set battery level in order to get cheap electricity. Octopus have set rules to close that loophole, I believe, by limiting EV (edit: ie low cost) charging to 6 hours. Hence my comment about setting too high a level in #7.

 

[Tight Git]

The other thread was about specifying a large charge requirement well in excess of that required to reach the set battery level in order to get cheap electricity. Octopus have set rules to close that loophole, I believe, by limiting EV (edit: ie low cost) charging to 6 hours. Hence my comment about setting too high a level in #7.

The 6 hour limitation has not yet been implemented.