Winter Charging

[DJFern94]

At home I have a PodPoint Solo 3 that is on the Octopus Go tariff charging my 5EV, I usually have it set to charge for 4 hours overnight and constantly see around 26 kwhs added.

Last night the temperature hit -4 and found that only 13.6 kwhs had been added in the 4 hour timeframe.

I’m 99% sure it is the car battery being cold that causes this. Are anyone else seeing the same effects?

 

[Alb]

Did the charge point give you any useful info?

 

[Jomarkh]

That seems a lot lost due to the cold. The EVSE will deliver 26kWh if the car is connected but the car may not use it all on board charger.
Where is is showing only 13.6kWh added?

 

[DJFern94]

Did the charge point give you any useful info?

Podpoint have taken a look at it, the charger was flicking between 7 and 3.6kwh they’re getting a technician to have a look at what is going on.

 

[DJFern94]

That seems a lot lost due to the cold. The EVSE will deliver 26kWh if the car is connected but the car may not use it all on board charger.
Where is is showing only 13.6kWh added?

Was showing in the app. It seems like charger has been flicking between 7 and 3.6kwh

 

[Avro]

I have a Zappi and Octopus Go. Put the full 4 hours in the car (5 LR) last night and the recorded total charge supplied was lower than usual. Not by a massive amount but enough to make me check the recorded data. Charge started at approx 7kW as usual but after 3 hours throttled back to 5kW. Looks a bit high to have entered an early balancing cycle so I suspect it's an effect of the low temperature -8 here. Final charge state was 92% Can't say I like charging at sub zero temps because my experience with lithium cells is they don't like it ....needs must though.

 

[cgwhite]

It is a well known fact that Lithium batteries are not good at charging at full rate when cold. Anything in the minuses and they are really slow. I suspect this is your issue. They charge best at around 25 degrees C. Same goes for Solar installation charged Batteries. They work best if they are in the house rather than in the roof space.

 

[Cocijo]

Small reductions can be down to the bms doing its job, but such a large reduction is not normal.
I have a podpoint. Try rebooting the wall charger, I find mine needs a reboot every now and then. As you said podpoint remotely monitor the charger and can provide info on performance as well.