ALL POSTS about Charge Timer Failure

I've set charging timer to leave at 7am every day of the week.
I drove about 40 miles today, 80 miles left on the display, so 1/3 emptied of normal charge.
Am charging with 240 volt/20 amps.

Just got this email:

10/20/2014 09:50:51 PM Our systems indicate that your RAV4 EV has successfully begun charging.

That would mean it would be done about 3 hours (standard charge) so around 1am it would be finished instead of 7 am.

Why does it start that early ?
At the moment I don't have TOU but opted for a juicebox with the test of TOU.
I just don't get my head around why the charger would engage this early .

Anyone seen this behavior before ?

Yes, everything you're experiencing has been discussed many times over. Check out the "Charge Timer Failure" thread. Your first problem is you have a 20 amp EVSE. The Rav doesn't know the voltage of your EVSE when you plug in, only the amperage, and it assumes that any EVSE that's 20 amps or less is a 120v EVSE. For this reason 20 amp (or less) EVSEs are completely unworkable with the car's timer.

Next, even if you had a >20 amp EVSE, the car would still grossly overestimate the time required to charge. For most people charging from 240V EVSEs, the car's estimate is generally about 70% longer than the actual charging time.

Aside from these problems, the car is also known to just completely skip charges sometimes, although this part at least has gotten better since the first rollout of the Rav. This complete failure on the part of Toyota to include a useful charge timer is the reason I developed RavCharge.

fooljoe said:

Yes, everything you're experiencing has been discussed many times over.

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Sorry for that

Check out the "Charge Timer Failure" thread. Your first problem is you have a 20 amp EVSE. The Rav doesn't know the voltage of your EVSE when you plug in, only the amperage, and it assumes that any EVSE that's 20 amps or less is a 120v EVSE. For this reason 20 amp (or less) EVSEs are completely unworkable with the car's timer.

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If that were true, my car would always start way to early, which it doesn't
It only misses once every 14-20 days it seems.
The reason I am using 20 is because my landlord has a 20 amp out let, with 30 amp fuses
but illegally added 2x 120 outlets on the split phases for a dryer/washing machine.
I am fine pulling 20 amps and a washing machine/dryer of about 4 amps together .
Normally the car will charge in the middle of the night so they will never be on together.
But at 9pm, sometimes we do still run a dryer. Might get funky if I set it to 24 amps, even though the dryer uses gas.

Next, even if you had a >20 amp EVSE, the car would still grossly overestimate the time required to charge. For most people charging from 240V EVSEs, the car's estimate is generally about 70% longer than the actual charging time.

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Is this the same in a tesla ? since they have the same charger installed.
Or is this the implementation of Toyota of the charger ? is this known ?

Aside from these problems, the car is also known to just completely skip charges sometimes, although this part at least has gotten better since the first rollout of the Rav.

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Yeah, that is why at 5K I asked the dealer to upgrade my firmware, which they did.

This complete failure on the part of Toyota to include a useful charge timer is the reason I developed RavCharge.

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It doesn't say on the website what you have to pay after the 2 weeks trial.
Why is that ?

The charge timer was done by Toyota, not Tesla.

RavCharge is $39 per year

The latest firmware is 1.3.83

TonyWilliams said:

The charge timer was done by Toyota, not Tesla.

RavCharge is $39 per year

The latest firmware is 1.3.83

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1)okay
2)let me think about that, maybe put that on your website ?
3)they upgraded my car to 1.3.83 ;-)

fromport said:

If that were true, my car would always start way to early, which it doesn't

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I've tested the charge timer enough to the point where I can assure you that this is the case, but if you'd like I can log your charging via RavCharge to determine if your car is somehow exceptional. I suppose it's also possible that your EVSE's pilot is somehow "in between" 20 and 21 amps in some way, but I've never heard of anything like that before.

fromport said:

The reason I am using 20 is because my landlord has a 20 amp out let, with 30 amp fuses
but illegally added 2x 120 outlets on the split phases for a dryer/washing machine.
I am fine pulling 20 amps and a washing machine/dryer of about 4 amps together.

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If you have an EVSE that you can adjust (open EVSE?) I'd just set it to 21 amps. A 1 amp increase is hopefully not enough to increase your fire risk, but it will make a huge difference in how your charging timer functions. Of course I'm obligated to say that you really should only charge at 16 amps with a 20 amp outlet, and you shouldn't use a shared circuit, but you've got to do what you've got to do. Just make sure you check for any heat buildup after ~30 minutes of charging to make sure your setup can handle the draw, and of course you should be diligent about not running the washer/dryer at the same time (you could install an interlock to be absolutely certain - or maybe just run extension cords to other 120V outlets for the washer/dryer.)

fromport said:

It doesn't say on the website what you have to pay after the 2 weeks trial.
Why is that ?

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If you click on the 'about' link, it'll take you to the RavCharge thread here in the forum, which contains all the information about the app, including usage and pricing. You get a 14 day free trial of RavCharge, after which you can choose to purchase a year of service for $39, as Tony mentioned (by the way Tony and I are not affiliated beyond being mutual customers, although as you can see in the thread RavCharge was built with the support and input of many here in the forum.) You don't have to enter your credit card or any information beyond your Entune credentials to start your free trial.

fooljoe said:

fromport said:

If that were true, my car would always start way to early, which it doesn't

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I've tested the charge timer enough to the point where I can assure you that this is the case, but if you'd like I can log your charging via RavCharge to determine if your car is somehow exceptional.

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I have the emails from entune as logging:
Charge Notification - Charge Start Notification (10/09/2014 05:44:08 AM)
time changes every day, based upon state of charge. But normally it is after midnight. ;-)

Yesterday I interrupted the charging by unplugging the J1772.
I deleted the 7am ready entry, made a new 7am ready entry.
Plugged back in and car didn't charge:
This morning in the email:
Charge Notification - Charge Start Notification (10/21/2014 12:00:06 AM)

it is weird (TM)

I suppose it's also possible that your EVSE's pilot is somehow "in between" 20 and 21 amps in some way, but I've never heard of anything like that before.

fromport said:

The reason I am using 20 is because my landlord has a 20 amp out let, with 30 amp fuses but illegally added 2x 120 outlets on the split phases for a dryer/washing machine.
I am fine pulling 20 amps and a washing machine/dryer of about 4 amps together.

Click to expand...

If you have an EVSE that you can adjust (open EVSE?) I'd just set it to 21 amps. A 1 amp increase is hopefully not enough to increase your fire risk, but it will make a huge difference in how your charging timer functions. Of course I'm obligated to say that you really should only charge at 16 amps with a 20 amp outlet, and you shouldn't use a shared circuit, but you've got to do what you've got to do.

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Yeah, I forgot to mention i replaced the outlet with a L6-30 plug in the wall, with a converter to 14-50 to my openevse. So pulling up to 24 amps shouldn't be problem unless we have a washer/dryer running simultaneously, which hardly ever happens if the car would start after midnight with charging.

Just make sure you check for any heat buildup after ~30 minutes of charging to make sure your setup can handle the draw, and of course you should be diligent about not running the washer/dryer at the same time (you could install an interlock to be absolutely certain - or maybe just run extension cords to other 120V outlets for the washer/dryer.)

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Everything in this home is crummy somehow. Busy buying a home, a fixer upper (I can't afford more) but it has good bones. And a 600sq ft shop in the back to get some serious work done ;-)

If you click on the 'about' link, it'll take you to the RavCharge thread here in the forum, which contains all the information about the app, including usage and pricing. You get a 14 day free trial of RavCharge, after which you can choose to purchase a year of service for $39, as Tony mentioned (by the way Tony and I are not affiliated beyond being mutual customers, although as you can see in the thread RavCharge was built with the support and input of many here in the forum.) You don't have to enter your credit card or any information beyond your Entune credentials to start your free trial.

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I will reconsider doing that. thanks

miimura said:

]Why do you want the start time to change based on charge needed? I would prefer the car to always start charging at a fixed time - that is what Ravcharge does. Ravcharge also has a new feature called "Early Charge Protection" that will check to see when it thinks the car will start charging. If it finds that it will likely start before your allowed start time, it will push out the departure time in the car timer through Entune. I have not tried this feature because I have a 40A station in my garage.

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I want to schedule charge completion as close as practical to my departure time. I am not concerned with the hours when charging occurs, don't even have TOU service. If I started at a particular time, the completion time would vary depending on the charge required.

My reason is to be as easy as possible on the battery, to minimize the time it spends at a high level of charge.

fromport said:

I've set charging timer to leave at 7am every day of the week.
I drove about 40 miles today, 80 miles left on the display, so 1/3 emptied of normal charge.
Am charging with 240 volt/20 amps.

Just got this email:

10/20/2014 09:50:51 PM Our systems indicate that your RAV4 EV has successfully begun charging.

That would mean it would be done about 3 hours (standard charge) so around 1am it would be finished instead of 7 am.

Why does it start that early ?
At the moment I don't have TOU but opted for a juicebox with the test of TOU.
I just don't get my head around why the charger would engage this early .

Anyone seen this behavior before ?

Click to expand...

I understand with just 20a charging the RAV assumes the supply is L1 at 120 volts and must start way early. Does not sample voltage as you plug in. Besides that, RAV does tend to overestimate the charge time.

Only way around is to extend the departure time or rent the RavCharge app.

To extend the charge time... Turn the car off, quickly plug in and get back inside to read the recalculated start time. If it says 9:50pm then use the menu to extend the departure time by 2 hours 10 minutes and you will start at midnight. Adjust as appropriate for your overnight TOU.

Or get 30+ amp EVSE and the times will start to make sense. Although RAV still starts a bit early and will still need to adjust some when the battery is closer to the bottom.

If you reset the timer everyday when you are ready to plug in, you won't miss a charge. that has been my experience for the last 1 year and 8 months. It's a PITA, but it works. Either do that or join RAV Charge.

I was always hopeful during the last three years this car was in production, Toyota, currently the largest and most financially successful car company in the world and with all its resources, would have found a way to resolve any and all charge timer failures with the RAV4 EV. No such luck, and now that the car is out of production, Toyota will NEVER resolve ANY such issues. This is probably one of the absolute worst SNAFUs in the history of automobiles. For the past several decades the Japanese automotive industry has been touted as "the best" in terms of total quality assurance and customer satisfaction. As far as I'm concerned, based on this horrendous experience, that is now blatantly untruth. I can't think of ANY other car company in the world that could get away with blatant disrespect to so many of its customers by completely disregarding such a glaringly obvious, yet seemingly trivial problem to FIX! :x

Dsinned said:

I was always hopeful during the last three years this car was in production, Toyota, currently the largest and most financially successful car company in the world and with all its resources, would have found a way to resolve any and all charge timer failures with the RAV4 EV. No such luck, and now that the car is out of production, Toyota will NEVER resolve ANY such issues. This is probably one of the absolute worst SNAFUs in the history of automobiles. For the past several decades the Japanese automotive industry has been touted as "the best" in terms of total quality assurance and customer satisfaction. As far as I'm concerned, based on this horrendous experience, that is now blatantly untruth. I can't think of ANY other car company in the world that could get away with blatant disrespect to so many of its customers by completely disregarding such a glaringly obvious, yet seemingly trivial problem to FIX! :x

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When they released the customer advice document, basically saying that the early charging was a feature and not a bug, I knew no fix would be forthcoming. If anybody wants a copy, I think I have it somewhere.

I remember that . . . I should have said, "UNBELIEVABLY DISRESPECTFUL" to so many of Toyota's customers!

Dsinned said:

This is probably one of the absolute worst SNAFUs in the history of automobiles.

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No, I think the runaway Lexus was worse.


Oh...wait...that was Toyota too.

With a 30a EVSE and end time set an hour past TOU cut off I only adjust the departure time when the battery is at 25% or less on charge. Not all that often for me.

smkettner said:

With a 30a EVSE and end time set an hour past TOU cut off I only adjust the departure time when the battery is at 25% or less on charge. Not all that often for me.

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I assume you mean you set your departure time to 7AM, targeting SCE's 12AM-6AM super off peak window. In that case you've got to make sure the car doesn't think the charge will take longer than 6:40, since it actually shoots for 20 minutes before your departure time.

The car assumes L2 = 140 volts, and it assumes 80% charging efficiency, so that means you need to push your departure time back anytime your charge is less than about 36% for a normal charge, or 55% with an extended charge.

Of course, if you used RavCharge, you could just use the Early Charge Protection feature to automatically push back your car's departure timer when needed. Also, without RavCharge you don't even know what your level of charge is as a percentage, so I guess I should say set your departure time back whenever you have less than 6 bars for normal or 9 bars for extended.

In 8 months I have made an adjustment maybe 5 times. If it was a weekly issue I would probably have the RavCharge.

Aside from Ravcharger, my ultimate solution that works very well was to set the car's timer to "Charge Immediate" as the default and use the built-in timer in my Juicebox instead. Although a fully optioned JB with LCD and remote (thus, timer ready) is not that cheap (~$700), it is still comparatively less expensive compared to most other commercially available EVSEs that generally don't include a built-in timer function. Ravcharger was a good solution as well at only $39/year! Still, Toyota's failure to come up with a viable solution after three years and 2600 customers later, is really a slap in the face! :roll:

Dsinned said:

Still, Toyota's failure to come up with a viable solution after three years and 2600 customers later, is really a slap in the face! :roll:

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Would be nice if they were to opensource their software.
They way people with enough knowledge could find/fix the bug(s) and reprogram.

But no car manufacturer ever did that :-(

I re-adjusted my timer settings in my rav4 yesterday.
Instead of ready at 7am , i changed all to ready at 6am.
Just because I hope to be getting a juicebox "soonish" at will be allowed into the SCE tou experiment. Meaning cheaper charging power between midnight and 5am.
With the 7am ready setting, my car was ready around just after 6am mostly. So wanted to move the window forward.

Yesterday (drove 80 miles, 51 miles left according to dash) it started charging at 10pm !!!!
http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=7071&sid=6390&dt=20141110&gs=0&m=0
and was done at 2:45am !
http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=7071&sid=6390&dt=20141109&gs=0&m=1

charging at 24 amp, so timer should know it is 240volt.
entune did sent me a charging start email at the right time:

Subject: Charge Notification - Charge Start Notification
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 06:07:23 +0000 (UTC) (11/09/2014 10:07:23 PM)

Never received the charging complete email from entunes.

:-( so disappointing
and Toyota really doesn't care.