Online Forum for the 2012 Rav4 EV

Hello all.
My 2013 Rav4 EV does not do an Extended charge. I get the same range (~65 miles) whether I use Extended or Regular charging. If I do a Regular charge, then select Extended charge, the charger clicks off after a few minutes with a additional mile of range.

It seems the charger is working, but only to 70% charge. It's been to the dealer twice. They say diagnostics show no problem and the reason the Extended charge and regular charge are the same is due to "battery degradation".


Any ideas how I can get a full charge? Thanks, Mark

You have verified that the on-board charger is working, so the dealer will not be helpful (nothing broken to fix). You should do the "Tony Test" to measure the battery capacity if you want to pursue this further. See viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1625

As the battery degrades, extended charge reduces closer and closer to being the same as regular charge. Try the Tony Test suggested above. I suspect you will find that your battery has simply degraded to the point where you have virtually no "extended" room left.

Thanks for the info...the next step seems to do the "Tony Test" for some numbers.

I don't understand the "battery degradation" explanation. My understanding is that a "regular" 70% charge is used to help reduce battery degradation. Meaning that if the battery has degraded from 42 to 21 kWh, 70% would use ~14 kWh, and using ~20 kWh for an extended charge.

One response implies that charging system has no idea of the actual (degraded) battery capacity. That as the battery degrades "regular " (30kWh) charging rises from 70% to 100% (or more)of the battery capacity (30kWh). Is the charging system that dumb and harmful to a degraded battery?

Thanks again for the input.

[quote="atzmark"I don't understand the "battery degradation" explanation. My understanding is that a "regular" 70% charge is used to help reduce battery degradation. Meaning that if the battery has degraded from 42 to 21 kWh, 70% would use ~14 kWh, and using ~20 kWh for an extended charge.

One response implies that charging system has no idea of the actual (degraded) battery capacity. That as the battery degrades "regular " (30kWh) charging rises from 70% to 100% (or more)of the battery capacity (30kWh). Is the charging system that dumb and harmful to a degraded battery?
[/quote]

That is not the situation. Other information on this site (e.g., Tony's RAV4 Range Chart) shows the nominal extended charge capacity at 41.8 kWh and the standard charge capacity at 35.0 kWh. Thus the standard charge is ~84% of the extended when new.

Driving style variations may also be causing some minor masking of standard and extended charge capacities. The Tony test eliminates this by using a constant conversion between kWh and range.