Problems getting car to charge immediately

[BerkeleyGirl]

I was putting my car through its paces last week, entertaining an out-of-town guest and seeing lots of Bay Area sights. I was thrilled to find Level 2 parking right up front at Muir Woods (all the regular parking was full), but I never did get my car to charge while plugged in. I had the same problem later in the week at a Chargepoint station in San Rafael. Fortunately I was never stranded, but it made my nervous for the future.

In San Rafael (after spending half an hour on the phone with technical support, plugging and unplugging the cord, starting and stopping the car, etc), I finally had to wipe out all my delayed charge programming and restart the car to get it to stay in the "Charge Immediately" mode so that the charging station could deliver electricity to it. Just hitting the button on screen as I turned off the car wasn't enough.

Is this a bug anyone else has experienced? Is there a more elegant fix than erasing my programming every time I need to charge in public during the day?

 

[TonyWilliams]

This is one that I haven't seen before. Congrats on finding a new bug.

 

[Dsinned]

It's not a "new" bug, but rather a "feature". I experienced this myself recently and not until I studied the center console screen more closely did I figure it out. There is indeed a way to set "charge immediate" so that it will persist in the car's memory. It will not persist by setting "charge immediate" on the last screen usually displayed before shutdown. That setting is only temporary!

Here is what you need to do . . .

While the car is still "ON" but parked, go to the EV app's Charge Management screen (where you also set days of the week charging schedules) and poke around until you find another screen for setting charging "mode(s)". I forget where I found it, but that particular screen allows setting "charge immediate" also and once saved the setting(s) will be retained indefinitely. Just don't forget to "SAVE" the change to "charge immediate" before exiting the screen.

Sorry, I can't be more specific. I didn't drive my RAV4 to work today, so I can't check on this until later this evening. However, I believe this will be the solution to your problem.

 

[miimura]

@dsinned,

She did use the one time button "Charge Immediately" each time the car was turned off, but apparently it didn't work. Your method is a way to turn off the scheduled charging mode without wiping out the schedule that was entered.

I finally had to wipe out all my delayed charge programming and restart the car to get it to stay in the "Charge Immediately" mode so that the charging station could deliver electricity to it. Just hitting the button on screen as I turned off the car wasn't enough.

 

[Dsinned]

Is it possible in between the car's normal power up cycles, each time you unplug & re-plugin your EVSE, that the last center console's shutdown screen setting to do a "one time" Charge Immediate somehow becomes ignored?

 

[n3ckf]

I've noticed this on my car once or twice (I rarely use anything *other* than charge immediately, but i do have a schedule programmed for those times when i leave the car over the weekend and i only want it to charge on sunday (when rates are low all day).

The trick is using the (fairly bad) UI on the EV settings screen to save your choice.

Because i wanted to be specific here, i checked my pdf of the manual and how to do this is described on page 65 of the owners manual in the section called "1-3 Charging".

It specifically says:
on the center console "Touch EV"
touch "Charging and Pre-Climate Setup"
touch the Icon with the battery/plug/arrow (in the upper right) until it shows the "Charge Immediately on Plug-In" screen
(if Schedule is not set, this step is skipped)
touch "Save"
(if Save is not touched the changes will not be reflected in the charging schedule)

I made this mistake once on mine (but noticed it when i plugged the car in and the charging lights just blinked back and forth rather than engaging the charger)

 

[kiwiguy]

Have you tried the Entune app to 'Charge Immediately' which overrides the scheduled charge?

 

[BerkeleyGirl]

I knew this group would know. Thanks for the help. I fiddled around under the EV menu and figured it out. Toggles back and forth each time you hit the weird battery-arrow icon and save it. So next time I won't have to wipe all my programming to get the car to charge immediately.