Car failing to start charge in the cold

[CaptFish2003]

Just wondering, could it be that the charger connection was wet when you plugged in it in and then the port froze overnight which might have 'disconnected' the plug enough for it to register as not properly connected and thus not charging.

 

[Cardo]

Just wondering, could it be that the charger connection was wet when you plugged in it in and then the port froze overnight which might have 'disconnected' the plug enough for it to register as not properly connected and thus not charging.

It hasn’t been raining and the plug lives in a holster, but it’s possible the contacts could be damp. My current theory is between this and a faulty wire in the cable.

 

[CaptFish2003]

Come to think, the charger should be locked into place which should prevent ice build up from dislodging it. Probably more likely it's another reason.

 

[Neilio]

That was DC charging at about -30 centigrade ( -20f) I think. That is not really the same as AC charging at -2c. Whole different situation. If the car struggled to AC charge at -2 they would never have sold a single vehicle in Norway

That's why I said extreme version. There must still be some battery heating before you can dump 7kW into the battery

 

[Adopado]

That's why I said extreme version. There must still be some battery heating before you can dump 7kW into the battery

Yes, though it looks like a really small amount. It was well below freezing overnight here and the graph of the charge on the Myenergi graph shows full speed from start to finish (not a huge charge just 12kWh). Also the Tessie app shows an "efficiency" percentage for each charge ... it shows how many kWh the charge point delivered and how much actually went into the battery ... in this case it reported 100% efficiency, i.e. all the electricity delivered registered as going into the battery pack without losses. (I do see lower efficiency if the car just nudges 1kWh into the battery (65%) so presumably there are some small losses at the start which could be the heating effect but percentagewise these aren't enough to show up on a medium to large charge.)