bZ4X Charging rejection.

[paulzog]

Hi, first post so please excuse any mistakes.

I took delivery of Vision 4wd last Thursday 12th September but my Ohme charger is still awaiting fitting (what a useless bunch they are). However, I have a Growatt EV charger from 2019 when I had a PHEV Outlander which I have reconnected as a 'dumb charger' because their app. was appalling & still is. So my charger will charge when plugged in & the bZ will do the controlling. I have Octopus Go so 8p per KWH between 00.30 & 05.30, first night /early morning I plugged in at 00.30 & it started charging when Battery was at 60% - result. Next session I got more ambitious & set up the 5 hour slot in the car schedule system, the Battery was about 70% & next day checked - fully charged, now feeling rather pleased with myself & the car. 3rd session - fail!, car didn't charge. Lots of head scratching & thought that the Growatt had somehow got confused as it does attempt to use it's App or I had somehow damaged the unit. Plugged the 3 pin domestic charger that came with the car & after tapping 'charge now' because I was outside of the schedule it started charging. This pointed to a fault with the charger but after much surfing & thought process's I had an idea that the amount of charge in the Battery had influenced this fail as the battery was at 87%. To prove or disprove my thoughts on Monday 16th I went on an extended trip to see old friends in Oxfordshire & Northamptonshire plus a drop in to Clarkson's pub (which was shut!) & when I got back home the battery was at 25%. Plugged in Growatt & it worked, so somewhere in the bZ system is a rejection of a 7kw charger at 87% ish, but an acceptance of domestic 3kw charger. I presume this is to protect the battery & guess that when the 7kw is plugged in at a lower percentage as it gets near it starts limiting the input. I then tried to find out where the 'line' was. Tonight the battery was at 78% & the 7kw charger was again accepted. So somewhere between 87% & 78% it changes, I've surfed for this information & can not find anyone across the globe that has mentioned this issue. I will keep experimenting until I get the answer!

Other observations, on my jolly I achieved 3.5 miles per KWH according to the screen which meant I should have gone 252 miles (72 x 3.5) but I went further & had 40 miles left when I got back! Cost me £5.76 for the whole trip - fantastic!

My car doesn't seem to want to keep its trip history & replaces it each day, can't find any settings which alter this.

Early days but I can not believe how good this car is, a genuine pleasure to drive & so much quicker than its 6.9 seconds 0-60 suggest, did notice in the spec. that it has 'acceleration supressed at low speeds' so this would hinder the car off the line - again to defend battery & tyres I guess. 

Not perfect, Sat Nav average & some settings hard to find.

Brakes on its own when approaching junction, roundabouts & other cars even when cruise etc is set to off.

Noticed lots of complaints from the 'septics' regarding range & slow charging when they go on a 700 plus mile trip, can't understand why they would use this car for that considering their petrol/diesel is £2.66 per gallon & their rapid charge is about 50p per KWH which makes it more expensive than an ICE once you charge away from home. 

      

[Dezzer21]

petrol/diesel is £2.66 per gallon
where do you buy petrol at that price cheapest near me is £1.30 per litre which equates to £5.85 per gallon 

[paulzog]

U.S.A. !!!!!

[wivenhoe]

paulzog. - I think Dezzer21 queried the prices as your profile says Worcestershire !  

Our prices are far more expensive, the comparative between Ultra chargers and petrol are not too dissimilar. In the UK almost all Ultra chargers are £ 0.75+ / kw which at say 3kw / mile motorway driving = £ 0.25 / mile and petrol at £ 1.50 / litre and say 35 mpg = £ 0.19 / mile. 

[paulzog]

wivenhoe - Clearly Dezzer didn't read my comments properly as it was obvious I was quoting 'their' costs. My point was they are using the wrong vehicle, a diesel car doing 45 m.p.g. would do the 700 mile at approximately half the cost of electric when at the mercy of charging points. Together with the issue of people blocking the charge point or it not actually working. They are complaining to Toyota & threatening court action when they bought the wrong vehicle for their intended use.

Both of you drive a Yaris & wondered why you were looking at the bZ4X, much larger car & fully electric. My friend has just ordered a Yaris Cross Hybrid, really good car & more like the one you have. 

[philip42h]

On 9/18/2024 at 2:24 AM, paulzog said:

So somewhere between 87% & 78% it changes, I've surfed for this information & can not find anyone across the globe that has mentioned this issue. I will keep experimenting until I get the answer!

Which hints that it isn't really the issue ... ? 😉

You should be able to charge happily to 100% using a standard AC fast charger (up to the 11kW standard OBC).

I would not expect any significant reduction in charging rate above 80% unless / until I was using a DC rapid charger where the system will most certainly take action to protect the Battery.

As for costs ... I still run a RAV4 HEV, so comparable in size, if not weight, to the bZ4X, and it costs me around 16p per mile. If I ran a bZ4X charged on a standard variable tariff (24p / kWh) it would cost around 8p per mile so half price. ZapMap suggests that:

Quote

 

The weighted average PAYG price to charge an electric car on the public charging network in August 2024 was 56p/kWh on slow/fast chargers and 80p/kWh for rapid/ultra-rapid chargers.

Using an average efficiency EV* this equates to 17 pence per mile and 24 pence per mile respectively.

 

So, to your point, if I anticipated undertaking significant numbers of journeys taking me more than, say 100 miles from home it would be cheaper to keep the RAV4 HEV!

[wivenhoe]

paulzog- I came on the forum as my wife has a Yaris - I have a Lexus RZ which has a similar EV system as the bz so for instance I found out about the range update last year on here, whereas nobody knew about it on the Lexus forum. 

[paulzog]

philip42h -  I don't know what you mean by 'which hints that it isn't really the issue' & it 'should' charge is denying the facts. Last night the car accepted a 7KW charge at a Battery capacity of 83% so the gap is narrowing now to acceptance at 83% & rejection at 87%. As long as the charge is accepted it will go on to charge to 100% as the vehicle will regulate the charge to its own parameters. It just does not like being offered 7KW when above the mid eighties percentage, remember the charger is dumb. An intelligent charger may communicate with the car & be accepted at any Battery capacity. As I'm having an OHME charger fitted at the other end of the house on the 11th October it will be interesting to see if that is accepted.

Regarding the ICE v Electric costs please remember I was quoting the U.S.A. where the electric costs are slightly less but the fuel costs are 44% of what we pay. In a country where distances are far greater it is madness to have two electric cars, one yes for trips up to 130 miles one way & then a diesel/petrol/hybrid for the longer journeys at a cheaper cost & without the pain.

Journeys up to 130 miles one way, so you can return without being stuffed on price & inconvenience are much, much less with an electric car. I pay 7p per KWH for 6 hours which will cost me £2.94 & give me 42KWH.  I average 3.6 miles per KWH but if I use ECO I can get 4.1 miles, so I can travel 172 miles giving me a mile cost of just 1.7 pence per mile !!  My friend has a less powerful electric car & if he's careful can get 6 miles per KWH, given the same scenario he would be paying 1.2 pence per mile. If I need to push the range I'll plan ahead so the car is fully charged before the journey, assuming the car was flat it would take 11 hours or in other words two nightly charges at the cheap rate. As I  don't do that many miles my car rarely drops below 75% anyway, I also limit the Battery to 90% charge which is good for the battery & ensures you always get the full benefit from regenerative braking.  

The RAV4 is a good car but it's nowhere near as cheap to run given my figures & even using your 24 pence cost my car would be doing 5.9 pence per mile. Why would you charge at 24p instead of 7p, why would you charge anywhere but home, it's expensive & unreliable. Like most people we have two cars, this one which is ridiculously cheap to run, stunningly quick, quiet etc plus a Skoda Kodiak diesel which would be used if we go more than 300 mile round trip, that happens about twice per year visiting the outlaws! 

The shame with electric cars is the government whilst encouraging people to get them has not provided the infrastructure or subsidised the cost, I would like to run two electric cars but I can't see the situation improving anytime soon so one will always be an ICE. I do have a Honda Insight MK1 hybrid which will regularly return 100 m.p.g. & on a run 120, not bad for a 24 year old car & still on its original NMiH battery pack, I think they have gone back to this technology with the RAV4 - at least they don't do the thermal runaway! 

 

 

   

[wivenhoe]

paulzog - Apologies for not realising you were quoting figures from the US of A - it might have helped if you had said that. I used 24p / kw as an example as that was the standard capped rate. You ask why would I charge at 24p instead of 7p - do you think that if 7p was an option I would choose 24p ? I am with Eon and their very cheap EV tariff brings a more expensive day tariff. Not being the sort of person that would just take the ‘cheaper’ EV tariff, I ran the numbers and found that the higher day tariff far outweighed the savings on the EV tariff. I looked at Octopus and again the saving on the 7p tariff was outweighed by Octopus charging more for during the day than Eon - presumably you ran your numbers and found them to be ok for your consumption and charging. 
The occasional long drive isn’t a problem for me as Lexus provides a free petrol car of my choice for 42 days over 3 years - we recently went away so I got RX 500h F Sport. A bit different to the wife’s Yaris. 

[drummaster]

On 9/19/2024 at 6:57 AM, wivenhoe said:

paulzog. - I think Dezzer21 queried the prices as your profile says Worcestershire !  

Our prices are far more expensive, the comparative between Ultra chargers and petrol are not too dissimilar. In the UK almost all Ultra chargers are £ 0.75+ / kw which at say 3kw / mile motorway driving = £ 0.25 / mile and petrol at £ 1.50 / litre and say 35 mpg = £ 0.19 / mile. 

It should be 0,3 kWh / mile. Thus, 0.025 pounds / mile.

[paulzog]

I think he meant to say 3 miles per KWH not 3kw/mile which would give a range of 24 miles on a full Battery!

My usual figures are 3.6 miles per KWH (1.9 pence per mile) with a best of 4.5 (1.5 pence per mile) on a steady run using eco.