"Go times" ignored: Charge begins as soon as plugged in.

[studio460]

I got my Bosch Level 2 EVSE installed yesterday and decided to set-up my Value Charge schedule. I programmed seven days of Value Charge "go times" in myfordmobile. I saved the schedule, and a moment later, myfordmobile indicated that it had synced the information with the car. I walked outside to plug the Level 2 EVSE into my FFE, and the car began charging the moment I plugged in, even though it wasn't scheduled to start charging until several hours later.

So, I unplugged, re-booted the car, then checked to verify that the in-car charging display showed "Value Charge" as the default, and not "Charge Now," where it had been previously set. The sync from myfordmobile must have "worked" since the in-car charging display does in fact show "Value Charge" as the selected (default) charging option. Even after this re-boot sequence, still, no time-delayed charging. The car just starts charging the moment I plug in.

 

[michael]

Are you sure it's actually charging? There is a normal sequence in which it charges for a few minutes in order to determine the available charging current (which affects the required charging time). And then it shuts down until time to go.

What schedule have you set? What is shown on the dash as the start and finish time?

 

[studio460]

Yes, all indications were that it was charging, and the car did in fact complete its charging cycle to 100%, according to both myfordmobile, and the charging status LEDs on the car, hours ahead of its scheduled go time. Also, myfordmobile had indicated a time-to-charge which coincided with a non-delayed charge.

 

[studio460]

What schedule have you set? What is shown on the dash as the start and finish time?

It was set to Value Charge. The schedule for today (Sunday) was supposed to start charging at 10AM (it started at 3AM when I plugged it in). I didn't note the start/finish time on the dash, but I did confirm that its default charging option was set to "Value Charge" and not "Charge Now." Did I forget to "set" something else? I'll try this again tonight. Thanks!

 

[EVA]

You might have the schedule set up opposite of what you think. Try flipping the times around in the Value Charge table.

 

[michael]

I understand you are using the default value charge, right? The ones you can set from the dash, not using the web site or app?

The times shown on the dash should be correct, provided you set the thing to 240 V. If the window you have given it is less than required to fully charge, it will go sooner. People using 110 V have seen the value charge not working because the window doesn't allow charging to finish, so it goes right away.

Can you provide a pic showing the times it says it will charge?

I have had almost no problem with value charging, do it every day. I have not tried "go" times however.

If you go to the myfordmobile web site (or the app) you should see you car "plugged in waiting to charge" with the expected charging times.
I have my window from 6 AM til 11 AM On the web site, it says I will charge from 6 AM to 826 AM

If you set the car to start at 10 AM and finish at 4 PM, for example, you will have given it plenty of time to fully charge at 6 kW. It should definitely start at 10 Am and finish as soon as it does.

 

[studio460]

Thanks for your reply, Michael. I only set go times from the myfordmobile website from a laptop (which told me it synced to the car). Neither the myfordmobile app nor the site showed the correct charging time once plugged in, even though the go times displayed in the Value Charge set-up screen were correct. I never manually set anything on the dash in the car. I did just switch from 120V charging to 240V charging. Do I need to tell myfordmobile or the car this? Hopefully, it's just a temporary glitch or mistake on my part. Thanks for your help!

 

[studio460]

Anything's possible, EVA, since it's my first time using Value Charge. Will have to try this tomorrow night (Monday night) since it's too late to try again tonight. Thanks again for your help!

 

[studio460]

I just came home, and when I turned the car off, I noticed the dash display the expected charge completion time--it was 10 hours later, so it obviously still thinks I'm charging with the 120V EVSE.

 

[jmueller065]

You can pretty much ignore the displayed time to charge. That value is just informational. The car determines the "real" time to charge when you plug in the EVSE because its only then does it know if its a Level 1 or a Level 2.

Did you only setup a value charge time for the weekend? It is possible that your car was a day off. MFT has an issue where sometimes it thinks the day is ahead or behind by a day. Thus you setup your value charge time for the weekend but the car was incorrectly using the weekday schedule.

I avoid this by setting up the weekday and weekend schedules the same.

 

[studio460]

Did you only setup a value charge time for the weekend? It is possible that your car was a day off. MFT has an issue where sometimes it thinks the day is ahead or behind by a day. Thus you setup your value charge time for the weekend but the car was incorrectly using the weekday schedule.

Thanks for your reply. I did set up different go times for weekend- (10AM), and week-days (6AM), and programmed a full seven days. However, if the car thought it was Monday, that may explain the charging anomaly (I began the trial around 4:00AM Sunday morning). I'll try again on Monday night.

I avoid this by setting up the weekday and weekend schedules the same.

Hopefully this works out since I would save a lot of money by charging from 12AM to 6AM when my SCE rate plan is switched. The other objective is to better condition my battery by keeping it at 50% charge for longer periods. Unfortunately, I'll inevitably have to choose between a 75% discounted rate, and preserving a 50%-charge, since I typically go to work in the afternoon. I am a bit leery of depending on Value Charge regardless, since if it misses a particular window for whatever reason, I could end up without enough charge to go to work.

 

[studio460]

Thanks for your help. Yes, I don't see anywhere to specify the charging level (Level 1 vs. Level 2) on the website's Value Charge Profile set-up screens either. I assume they've eliminated this "selection" and have somehow "automated" it based on user history. I think my problem is that I didn't set-up any profiles (duh!). I simply input times into the "go times" screen. Of course, I didn't RTFM before attempting this!

 

[hybridbear]

Go-times work in conjunction with the profile to ensure that you charge at the cheapest rates possible and still have a full charge when you want to leave.

I set the 12:00-1:00AM time to $$$$ because people have reported problems with charge windows that span across midnight. People have also reported anomalies with the weekday and weekend schedules being different and although my plans are not identical, they are functionally identical based on the go times I set.

We have done the same thing. Based on the idea of just-in-time charging we set our charging to start at 3:00 am. I decided that this was the best balance of less hours at 100% and still charging while the load on the grid is at its lowest for the least incremental pollution. It would have been preferable to set it to start at 4:00 or 5:00 based on our typical use, but I know that from 5:00-7:00 the grid is going to have a higher load than from 3:00 to 5:00 and thus it's better for me to charge earlier.

I tried to set our Value Charge Profiles to be equal for the Fusion & Focus, and now see a few discrepancies, but overall the profiles are working as intended.



Since we can only plug in one EV at a time we sometimes need to charge one of them during the day. Often times we stagger our driving so that the cars alternate days of being plugged in. That's why the Fusion has more hours of the day at a lower $ for charging. When we need it to plug in and charge right away we can set a Go Time with no HVAC and then the car will charge at the best option we have programmed. I've tried to make the times mirror the pricing typically offered by utilities so that we are never charging during peak load times. Quite often one car will charge from about 8:00-9:00 am. My wife typically takes the car that is fully charged to work and then plugs the other one in when leaving. Since the Value Charge window is set to $ until 10:00 the car that she plugs in will usually begin charging immediately. It will stop charging once 10:00 comes and will wait to finish until 3:00 the following morning. Since I walk to work there's almost always one car home during the day on weekdays. It's mostly in the evenings and on weekends that we're using both cars at the same time.

studio460 - did you save your charge location with a name before setting up a Value Charge Profile? We have left our "Default" to charge now because that is the behavior we want when using a public EVSE in most circumstances. If you have modified your Default profile and haven't saved your charge locations this could be the issue. When I went to the airport a few weeks ago I tried to setup a Value Charge profile under Default so that the car wouldn't charge immediately, but would at least wait ~20 hours to charge. It didn't work. The car still charged immediately. Once I saw that it did this changed the Default Value Charge Profile back to "Charge Now".

 

[michael]

This is probably stuff you know, but just in case it is the issue...

Your "charge profiles" relate to specific locations where the car might be charged. These you can only define using the web interface (or app). If all goes correctly, each time you are at one of these locations, that particular profile is invoked. On the dash, it shows you are using that profile, and it gives you the option to value charge or charge now, but not to edit the times.

At all other locations, the default profile is used. You can edit this on the dash. I actually use the default at my home so that I can edit the charge start times from the dash. if I used a profile, I would need to use the web or app.

The start and stop times shown on the dash should be observed by the car. I haven't seen this fail to work.

However, it is possible you have defined a profile for your home, but the car doesn't realize it's there and observes the default profile. The dash display will tell you if it's going to observe a profile or default.

Hope this helps

 

[jmueller065]

However, it is possible you have defined a profile for your home, but the car doesn't realize it's there and observes the default profile. The dash display will tell you if it's going to observe a profile or default.

Furthering michael's discussion: There is some "slack" in the GPS locations (WattsUp figured out that the MFT system forces the GPS readings into a grid). This means that at any given location the car could have you in one of 4 spots (the four corners of the nearest grid square).

In my case I have 3 profiles setup for my home charge (unimaginatively called "Home", "Home 2", and "Home 3"). About 90% of the time the car charges at "Home", 7% of the time at "Home 2" and the remaining 3% of the time at "Home 3" (figures are rough guesstimates ).

 

[michael]

Post deleted

 

[michael]

Did you only setup a value charge time for the weekend? It is possible that your car was a day off. MFT has an issue where sometimes it thinks the day is ahead or behind by a day. Thus you setup your value charge time for the weekend but the car was incorrectly using the weekday schedule.

Thanks for your reply. I did set up different go times for weekend- (10AM), and week-days (6AM), and programmed a full seven days. However, if the car thought it was Monday, that may explain the charging anomaly (I began the trial around 4:00AM Sunday morning). I'll try again on Monday night.

I avoid this by setting up the weekday and weekend schedules the same.

Hopefully this works out since I would save a lot of money by charging from 12AM to 6AM when my SCE rate plan is switched. The other objective is to better condition my battery by keeping it at 50% charge for longer periods. Unfortunately, I'll inevitably have to choose between a 75% discounted rate, and preserving a 50%-charge, since I typically go to work in the afternoon. I am a bit leery of depending on Value Charge regardless, since if it misses a particular window for whatever reason, I could end up without enough charge to go to work.

Studio....Am I reading this correctly? You have a 6 AM go time? Based on what I understand the thing to do, that would explain starting up at 3 AM. It thinks it needs to be ready to "go" by 6 AM so it starts charging as early as necessary to get you charged up by then.

"Go time" refers to being ready to drive, not beginning charging. Would this explain? Kill the go times, or move them to the afternoon when you really expect to depart and see if this fixes things.

 

[WattsUp]

(WattsUp figured out that the MFT system forces the GPS readings into a grid). This means that at any given location the car could have you in one of 4 spots (the four corners of the nearest grid square).

For anyone interested, here is my original thread:
MFM charge locations seem grid-aligned... causing problems

As far as I can tell, this is still the current behavior. I wish Ford would replace it with something better. Irony is, I think the behavior was better before the big site migration last October. That's when the location algorithm seemed to change for the worse (to grid-aligned).

 

[studio460]

Studio....Am I reading this correctly? You have a 6 AM go time? Based on what I understand the thing to do, that would explain starting up at 3 AM.

No, I had set it for a 10AM go time for Sunday morning (plugged it in about 7 hours prior at about 3AM), but when I plugged it in, it started immediately with the myfordmobile site displaying an estimated finish time of 5:30AM. I'm assuming the go times didn't "take" because I never set up a "home" profile (though MFM did display that it had "synced" the go times).

Oddly, when I came home and parked last night, the car's dash displayed a Level 1 finish time (before plugging in), indicating a completed charge time many hours later (go times were set to "off," and the default set to "charge now"), even though I've been charging at home with a Level 2 EVSE for two days now. Again, probably because I didn't set up a home profile, I guess. That's when I tried to see if you can manually assign the charge level (i.e., 240V vs. 120V), but couldn't.

Thanks for everyone's help--it's probably just me not doing it right.

 

[studio460]

studio460 - did you save your charge location with a name before setting up a Value Charge Profile? We have left our "Default" to charge now because that is the behavior we want when using a public EVSE in most circumstances. If you have modified your Default profile and haven't saved your charge locations this could be the issue. When I went to the airport a few weeks ago I tried to setup a Value Charge profile under Default so that the car wouldn't charge immediately, but would at least wait ~20 hours to charge. It didn't work. The car still charged immediately. Once I saw that it did this changed the Default Value Charge Profile back to "Charge Now".

Yes, I did, but I neglected to create a home profile for it, and that's likely the source of my "problem." Thanks for your reply. Sorry for making everyone attempt to solve my "operator error" (however, I have been using "charge now" as the default for just that reason as well).