Volvo On Call App - Charging Timer

[goi]

I have an answer for you all. I too noticed the removal from the app and called my dealer. Spoke to the Master Tech who did a bit of digging. The feature was removed from the app in the 1st week of Nov due to the problems it caused draining the 12v battery (many posts about that problem). When charging has finished some systems of the car still run off the 12v until the car is unplugged and locked.

More software issues!! Allegedly a fix is expected 2nd quarter 2021.

Moral of the story is unplug as soon as charging complete.

This is what I wrote, but I don't share your conclusion: It drains the battery while WAITING for the SCHEDULED time. If the car will be charged normally without the internal timer (could be an external timer, look for 3rd party type 2 charging cables with wlan/bluetooth access), and the PHEV battery is full, the charging will stop and all other systems will go into normal standby and will not drain the 12V battery more than a normal parking mode.

[lfpcorreia]

I have an answer for you all. I too noticed the removal from the app and called my dealer. Spoke to the Master Tech who did a bit of digging. The feature was removed from the app in the 1st week of Nov due to the problems it caused draining the 12v battery (many posts about that problem). When charging has finished some systems of the car still run off the 12v until the car is unplugged and locked.

More software issues!! Allegedly a fix is expected 2nd quarter 2021.

Moral of the story is unplug as soon as charging complete.

This is what I wrote, but I don't share your conclusion: It drains the battery while WAITING for the SCHEDULED time. If the car will be charged normally without the internal timer (could be an external timer, look for 3rd party type 2 charging cables with wlan/bluetooth access), and the PHEV battery is full, the charging will stop and all other systems will go into normal standby and will not drain the 12V battery more than a normal parking mode.

That doesn’t make any sense. What am I missing?!

If the car only drains until it reaches the scheduled time, it can recharge the 12v afterwards. Right?!

[goi]

I have an answer for you all. I too noticed the removal from the app and called my dealer. Spoke to the Master Tech who did a bit of digging. The feature was removed from the app in the 1st week of Nov due to the problems it caused draining the 12v battery (many posts about that problem). When charging has finished some systems of the car still run off the 12v until the car is unplugged and locked.

More software issues!! Allegedly a fix is expected 2nd quarter 2021.

Moral of the story is unplug as soon as charging complete.

This is what I wrote, but I don't share your conclusion: It drains the battery while WAITING for the SCHEDULED time. If the car will be charged normally without the internal timer (could be an external timer, look for 3rd party type 2 charging cables with wlan/bluetooth access), and the PHEV battery is full, the charging will stop and all other systems will go into normal standby and will not drain the 12V battery more than a normal parking mode.

That doesn’t make any sense. What am I missing?!

If the car only drains until it reaches the scheduled time, it can recharge the 12v afterwards. Right?!

No it can't, because usually the time for waiting for the charging time is significantly longer, than the time used to charge the car and to charge the battery. This wasn't expected by the engineers. I.E. you park the car on Friday afternoon 5 pm and the scheduled charging time is 1am. It now drains the battery until 1am (8 hours) and might charge the PHEV and the 12V battery for 2 hours. After that, the timer will start again for the next days charging time. If you don't use your car for this weekend and start using the car on Monday morning 7 am , the 12V battery is drained for 8+22 (Saturday 3am to Sunday 1am)+24 (Sunday 1am to Monday 1am)+6 (Monday 1am to 7am)= 60 hours and loaded only for 2 hours.

If you don't use the timer - the battery will be used for normal standby mode (receiving periodically commands by VoC), will be charged immediately when you plugin the cable, and will fall back to normal standby mode as soon the car is fully loaded.

I hope this explains why it makes no sense to remove the plug immediately after charging when not using the timer.

Edit: Fixed calculation

[lfpcorreia]

I see.. thank you for the thorough explanation.

Let’s hope a software update fixes it.

Also I find it hard to believe this situation hasn’t happened before between all the phevs Volvo has been selling for years now.

[goi]

Also I find it hard to believe this situation hasn’t happened before between all the phevs Volvo has been selling for years now.

It's not that easy: There are several conditions which must be fullfilled before the user will run into a failure - here: car isn't starting anymore after charging.

1) It must be a situation similar to the before mentioned case - long days using the timer without driving the car
2) The user will not drive long (>1-2h) ranges with the car afterwards
3) It will take some time to drain the battery to a level where the cells are going into deep voltage.

During Corona this might happen more often but it will take some reasonable time to find out that there is something wrong. We owners could have found this earlier if we would monitor the 12V battery on a regular base.

[Peter8642]

Hi

My own experience endorses the above information about the charge timer. I’ll make this a long post for anyone who is interested in the detail.

Firstly, I was an early adopter of plug in hybrids. I bought one of the very first Toyota Prius Plug-ins imported to the UK in 2012. It has now done 120,000 miles with no problems whatsoever. On the dashboard it has a button that you can press as you exit the car if you want the vehicle to charge overnight on cheap rate electricity rather than recharging immediately. This takes a second and requires no faffing around with an app or anything.

On the strength of this positive experience we decided on a second plug in hybrid and chose my wife’s dream car – an XC 40. Our first XC 40 twin engine was delivered in June. We were immediately horrified that it is so difficult to set an overnight charge, but persevered with doing so as failing to take advantage of cheap rate electricity really messes up the economics of running an electric vehicle.

Within the six weeks that we had the car, it repeatedly flattened it’s 12 V battery. The dealer had it back for about a fortnight, and after consulting with Volvo’s Swedish technical advisers changed the entire charging unit presumably at great expense to Volvo’s warranty system. We subsequently rejected the vehicle and negotiated a replacement. The dealer kindly allocated a build slot that had been scheduled for one of their demonstrators so we only had to wait a couple of months to get a replacement vehicle at the beginning of November. By that time I had read about the 12 V battery issue and have avoided using the timer on the new vehicle. As mentioned above I no longer have the option of doing so.

The alternative I have organised is a timer for the charge socket which is actually much easier to use - opening an app and waiting for a minute for it to connect to the car is a constant Pfaff. Leaving it set was never an option as we charge immediately if we are going to use the vehicle later in the day, or if the Sun is shining to take advantage of our solar panels.

So far so good with the new vehicle, but it does grieve me that a simple solution back in June or July could have saved all of the angst of rejecting a vehicle and waiting for a replacement, not to mention the huge amount of money that Volvo have spent due to their failure to understand their own vehicles.

Pete

[lfpcorreia]

As long as the car is connected to the mains I can’t see why it shouldn’t save the 12v battery and use the mains to power whatever it needs. I know going from 110v/220v might not be “trivial” but it’s an expensive car!

I now want to charge my car, which is connected to the mains and I can’t seem to find the “Start charging” in the app. It has been connected to the mains since lunch (3 hours now). It hasn’t charge a single %!!

Why?!
(What am I missing?)

[lfpcorreia]

Also I find it hard to believe this situation hasn’t happened before between all the phevs Volvo has been selling for years now.

It's not that easy: There are several conditions which must be fullfilled before the user will run into a failure - here: car isn't starting anymore after charging.

1) It must be a situation similar to the before mentioned case - long days using the timer without driving the car
2) The user will not drive long (>1-2h) ranges with the car afterwards
3) It will take some time to drain the battery to a level where the cells are going into deep voltage.

During Corona this might happen more often but it will take some reasonable time to find out that there is something wrong. We owners could have found this earlier if we would monitor the 12V battery on a regular base.

As usual I appreciate your comment.

But I can’t easily accept the lack of a 220v/110v to 12v step down + AC to DC + regulator on a 45/50k phev.
If that’s the case, if all this exists and all this situation is a matter of poor engineering, it’s just dumb.

Now I can’t start the charging process in the app. Probably more “dumbness” trying to fix it... (see the attached picture on the previous post).

If I (and my coworkers) made mistake after mistake like this we would be under serious trouble...

[lfpcorreia]

As long as the car is connected to the mains I can’t see why it shouldn’t save the 12v battery and use the mains to power whatever it needs. I know going from 110v/220v might not be “trivial” but it’s an expensive car!

I now want to charge my car, which is connected to the mains and I can’t seem to find the “Start charging” in the app. It has been connected to the mains since lunch (3 hours now). It hasn’t charge a single %!!

Why?!
(What am I missing?)

PNG image.png

I have found the solution for the charging: delete the location!!

Car started charging as soon as I deleted it...

[goi]

I have found the solution for the charging: delete the location!!
Car started charging as soon as I deleted it...

This ^^ definitely sounds like an application issue. Would you mind opening a ticket for this with Volvo Support? This should be reported.