RAV4 EV LOOSES TRACK OF TIME

[sobayimage]

I noticed something different about my online charge report from last night. The email said the charge started at 12:30 AM and finished at 3:38 AM. The car’s computer is set to finish charging by 6:30 AM everyday of the week. Normally it starts charging about 3:30 AM and finishes a little before 6:00 AM. What happened to start charging early? Did the car loose track of time or what?

 

[fooljoe]

I noticed something different about my online charge report from last night. The email said the charge started at 12:30 AM and finished at 3:38 AM. The car’s computer is set to finish charging by 6:30 AM everyday of the week. Normally it starts charging about 3:30 AM and finishes a little before 6:00 AM. What happened to start charging early? Did the car loose track of time or what?

The times you report seem precisely as expected for how the car's timer operates, so it's much less likely that the car's doing anything differently than it is that your impression of what normally happens is a bit off. The algorithm that the car uses to decide when to start charging always starts charges early (by about 70%) when plugged into a 240v EVSE. This is the reason why I developed RavCharge, along with the car's annoying habit of also inexplicably just skipping charges altogether sometimes.

 

[Dsinned]

This is why there have been countless complaints on this forum about the "onboard timer" in the RAV4 EV. Toyota claims its "normal" to operate as you experienced last night, which of course, it a bunch of malarky. With respect to a "scheduled charge", it is much more logical to expect tthe car to start charging at a time derived from working backwards from the scheduled departure time so as to guarantee the charge takes place sometime after midnight when electric rates are lowest on week days.

Unfortunately, this is definitely NOT how the RAV4 EV scheduled charger timer works! I have observed scheduled charges that start even BEFORE midnight with lots of "idle time" leftover by the actual departure time. I've complained about this many, MANY times here on the forum and to my dealer, but the only relavant TSB says, this is essentially a "feature" to ensure sufficient time for charging before departure to complete a charge.

As Fooljoe implies, can this be because Toyota (and/or Tesla) must think that all RAV4 EVs are only being charged at 120V??? :mrgreen:

 

[fooljoe]

As Fooljoe implies, can this be because Toyota (and/or Tesla) must think that all RAV4 EVs are only being charged at 120V??? :mrgreen:

Actually the assumed voltage is about 140. That's how you get estimated times-to-charge being about 70% too long: 240/140 = 171%

I can't help but wonder if some programmer at Toyota accidentally typed in a '1' instead of a '2' when he meant to type 240 for the assumed L2 voltage. :roll:

Of course even if they had typed in 240 correctly that still wouldn't be a complete solution: Actual L2 voltage can range anywhere from about 190 to 270. The bigger flaw is that they didn't encode a procedure to sample the supply voltage when plugging in, which is how other EVs like the Leaf get this right.

 

[Blastphemy]

Can some please correct the spelling of "loses" in the thread title?

 

[Dsinned]

Whatever the reason, something like this should be ridiculously simple to "get right". It is obvious that NONE of Toyota's top brass owns a RAV4 EV, which just goes to prove that "voice of the CUSTOMER" can be simply ignored.

 

[sobayimage]

I've had my RAV4 EV more than a year and a half and this is the second time in a row that it started charging 3 hours early. Last night it started charging at 1:01 AM and finished at 3:38 AM. This doesn't bother me other than the car has instituted this change on its own and have admonished the car to stop this habit once again this morning.

 

[fooljoe]

:lol: I can guarantee you that the car's not doing anything differently than it's done in the past (I even checked the RavCharge logs from when you had a trial account to make sure.) How early it starts charging will of course vary based upon how low of a charge you have when you plug in. If you usually start charging from a pretty high SOC then I suppose it could be a bit of a shock how early it starts when you need a more substantial charge.

If your starting charge is low enough, or if you're doing an extended charge, your car will start so early as to have some of your charging miss the super-off-peak window. The only way around this is to set your departure timer a couple hours later and use RavCharge to start your charges, or else have to manually monitor whether your charges will start too early each time you plug in. If you leave the car on until after you plug in, the car will display exactly when it'll start charging.

 

[miimura]

I've had my RAV4 EV more than a year and a half and this is the second time in a row that it started charging 3 hours early. Last night it started charging at 1:01 AM and finished at 3:38 AM. This doesn't bother me other than the car has instituted this change on its own and have admonished the car to stop this habit once again this morning.

What was your departure time set for? If it was set for between 5:45am and 6:00am, the car is doing exactly what we expect it will.

The math:
3:38am-1:01am = 2:37 h:m = 2.6166hr
2.6166 * 235 * 40 = 24597 Wh estimated from the wall
24597 / (140 * 40) = 4.392hr = 4:24 h:m (car forecast charging time assuming the EVSE in your signature)
4:24 + 0:20 + 1:01am = 5:45am (est. departure time based on "Toyota math")