Very frustrated with software limited charging

[dhanson865]

Some of the time lower amperage charging is OK. That's not what this is about though. Like I told Jason, this current reduction is going to happen when you least want it to. It's NOT ok for Tesla to all of a sudden up RV park stays by hours after they have your money.

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If you had bothered to read my posts, only 3 UMC's had some melting, and I'm far from the only one with that many UMC problems. Like stated up thread, a different charging connector won't fix the charge dial back issue.

We also must have different definitions of something that being taken away.

I don't understand why so many here are focussed on your work wiring when you also use the UMC for mobile charging at RV parks. If I were the moderator I'd have moved some of the posts in this thread to snippiness or to another thread all their own.

I hope the next firmware update helps, or at the least you get a more durable UMC so you aren't dealing with an average of 3 failures a year.

 

[PlanB]

This is a long thread so sorry if I missed it. 'Bothered to read' really isn't necessary.

What's not necessary is for your personal attacks, so how about you just go away and let the OP continue with this thread. You are the only one that is making pointless, needless comments and accusations.

 

[qwk]

I am sorry you're having all of these issues and hope Tesla addresses them. Service always seems to go above and beyond. Has an electrician ruled out the building wiring or the outlet? Do you unplug your UMC from work every single day or do you leave it there?

I understand Tesla's position on this though. I've had my car for over 2 years. If I never updated and came in with an issue on software version 3.1 or whatever it was back then and this was known to be fixed 2 years ago with a newer version (but I refused to update) what should Tesla do? Should they continue to support know buggy versions 2, 3, 5 years after the fact?

I do unplug every day. Not a problem though, as RV's plug and unplug continuously also.

You brought up a good point though. If you passed the warranty while on the FW that the car came with, Tesla doesn't update out of warranty cars(info straight from the SC), so yes you would have that firmware technically forever.

 

[dsm363]

What's not necessary is for your personal attacks, so how about you just go away and let the OP continue with this thread. You are the only one that is making pointless, needless comments and accusations.

Please report the personal attacks so other mods can address it then. I must have missed them.

 

[qwk]

Can't change the charging situation at home. House has an FPE panel, and I don't own it.

 

[dsm363]

I do unplug every day. Not a problem though, as RV's plug and unplug continuously also.

You brought up a good point though. If you passed the warranty while on the FW that the car came with, Tesla doesn't update out of warranty cars(info straight from the SC), so yes you would have that firmware technically forever.

You shouldn't have to (the UMC should just work at 40A) but is a more permanent EVSE (ClipperCreek or HPWC) install at work not an option? Have you run into this charging bug at any other locations at 40A? That would help the engineers narrow down the issue maybe if you are running into this bug at RV parks, other people's houses...etc.

 

[TexasEV]

The OP said his car stops charging every 5 minutes now. Not that the current drops back to 30A, which was a previous issue, but that charging stops. Am I understanding this correctly? If this is what's happening, I still don't see how anyone can assume it's caused by the new firmware because this problem seems unique to this one car.

 

[qwk]

You shouldn't have to (the UMC should just work at 40A) but is a more permanent EVSE (ClipperCreek or HPWC) install at work not an option? Have you run into this charging bug at any other locations at 40A? That would help the engineers narrow down the issue maybe if you are running into this bug at RV parks, other people's houses...etc.

Like I stated up thread, This is a new phenomenon, and yes, if it happens on a known good outlet, it will happen elsewhere. There really isn't much to narrow down. There is no software on this planet that can check for faulty wiring, and only catch faulty wiring. That's why so many have been caught in this mess.

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The OP said his car stops charging every 5 minutes now. Not that the current drops back to 30A, which was a previous issue, but that charging stops. Am I understanding this correctly? If this is what's happening, I still don't see how anyone can assume it's caused by the new firmware because this problem seems unique to this one car.

It did both, alternating a bit. I wish I could pull the logs and post them here. It was a mess.

 

[dsm363]

Like I stated up thread, This is a new phenomenon, and yes, if it happens on a known good outlet, it will happen elsewhere. There really isn't much to narrow down. There is no software on this planet that can check for faulty wiring, and only catch faulty wiring. That's why so many have been caught in this mess.

The only way to know for sure is to try a different outlet. Find an RV park or some other 14-50 and see if you get the same error. I know this is going above and beyond what you should have to do but it might help narrow down the issue. Hope Tesla figures this out soon for you.

 

[NigelM]

I feel like some cars may be more sensitive than others, but I've no empirical evidence for that. At least one friend here locally has had this problem over about a two year period (if I recall the timeframe correctly) so I understand it must be very frustrating.

In any case here's a link to the general discussion on this subject: Anyone-Still-Experiencing-Charge-Current-Limiting. As a general comment I don't think we need to grill the OP as this problem clearly isn't unique to him.

 

[NigelM]

BTW, OP isn't alone in having gone though multiple UMCs: UMC-Connection-Problems

 

[qwk]

BTW, OP isn't alone in having gone though multiple UMCs: UMC-Connection-Problems

Thanks for the support, Nigel. What some here fail to realize is the fact that there are different use cases for the Model S, and other cars for that matter. What works for some, doesn't work for others.

I should probably clarify that in each UMC melting case, the UMC didn't exactly melt into a glob of plastic. All that happened was a little 1/8 inch melting around one of the conductor pins. The UMC never stopped working, it was just wise to replace them. This also took a long time to manifest. The UMC worked as it should for a long period of time, and got gradually hotter, and hotter at the adapter junction....

Anyway, I sent an email to Jerome. I hope he can take care of this issue for everyone affected.

 

[spaceballs]

... It did both, alternating a bit. I wish I could pull the logs and post them here. It was a mess.

Interesting I miss the part where it actually would disconnect itself from charging. From all your issues you had I would ask the service center to at least to swap out the ac-dc charger in the car. Like the Mod says some units might be more sensitive than others.

I do unplug every day. Not a problem though, as RV's plug and unplug continuously also. ...

I would keep in mind that a 99.9% of the time RVs will only pull max amps for only small brief moment, while you might be doing it continuously.

... I would never think of purging and unplugging the UMC daily. The wear and tear on the socket and connecter would be quite high. ....

Yep I would have the same exact worries if I used an UMC and unplugged/replugged it in daily, all connectors like these have a useful life of x number of times.

 

[FlasherZ]

The thing is, I paid for 10kw charging, and received it. Now they are taking it back. Not cool.

I'll reiterate what I said before with regard to the backing off. The car is sensing fluctuations that are indicative of a voltage/resistance problem. There is something creating that problem -- the car is trying to protect your property. It could be anything from a failing appliance (see my post from the other thread about a simple failing ballast creating the same failure signature).

This is not Tesla saying "let's screw over qwk". Expansion/contraction of screws on the outlet or a breaker can cause this, as can a transformer or an added load, or even an appliance that went bad.

 

[deonb]

Can't change the charging situation at home. House has an FPE panel, and I don't own it.

Actually you can.

Use a Quick 220 and plug it into 2 opposite leg outlets.

 

[FlasherZ]

Edit: I feel that it is worth pointing out that once the car is up to full amperage, the voltage drops it sees will likely have nothing whatsoever to do with the charging demand. I fail to see how having this algorithm active once the car is up to full power makes much sense. There isn't magically going to be more resistance in the line from car->EVSE->breaker just because the voltage drops from some load elsewhere. If the voltage sags too much an upstream breaker will trip if there is too much load. This.... really isn't the car's problem and it should stay out of it.

It's an AFCI-like detection algorithm. Once you get to full power, you could be burning the wires through. I could probably agree with tweaking the algorithm such that it "trusts" the circuit and has a reduced response after the car has been charging at full power for several minutes, but you don't want to do that until you have faith that wire or terminals aren't burning or melting through.

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Actually you can.

Use a Quick 220 and plug it into 2 opposite leg outlets.

You DEFINITELY don't want to do stuff that's against code in a place with an FPE panel. If I were in a long-term lease, I'd even volunteer some money to help the landlord replace that FPE crap, as dangerous as it is. (My rental home in California nearly burned due to an FPE breaker failure.)

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If somebody's garage burns down because of jerry-rigged wiring, its not Tesla's problem. The real problem is blame. Since UMC's melt like marshmallows, they are going to be blamed everytime. To me the solution is simple, too bad that ship sailed a long time ago. Tesla is simply not going to replace 70k UMC's with a more reliable, robust unit.

...and I'm on the other side of the spectrum. As one who nearly had his house burn due to electrical problems, I'm very happy that Tesla is looking out for my property. If the car backs off, there's something wrong with it, or your infrastructure, or an appliance. Find it and fix it, is my suggestion.

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Edit: Worth noting a bad connection on the outlet would cause more resistance in the plug itself, and thus a higher heat dissipation there under load. Still, this would fry the outlet... not the UMC/14-50 adapter connection.

It would burn both the outlet (unless, of course, you're using a high-temp 14-50 Hubbell outlet rather than your run-of-the-mill Leviton). A very high-quality (read: high-temp) outlet would melt the UMC plugs without doing much damage to the receptacle. There's definitely something wrong, though. Your 6 UMC melting adapters are likely due to the bad contact in the previous design along with summer, but perhaps there's some loose wiring too.

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There is no other fault detection equipment that I'm aware of that reacts to voltage dips like the Model S does with recent firmware.

Large arc-fault detectors will do this occasionally, depending upon the disturbance.

 

[andrewket]

As explained to me by Tesla when this first happened to me, the car is trying to detect substandard premises wiring, or the use of undersized or ridiculously long extension cords. A large voltage drop on the current ramp up when starting a charge is able to determine, generally, if the wiring is sufficient for the current draw based on NEC and other guidance on voltage drop. If the car feels too much power will be released as heat in the wiring, it slows the charge and pops up with the message saying this, "Charge speed reduced, Extension cord or bad wiring" (or similar message). This makes perfect sense and should definitely be included in the firmware. The goal would be to help people who have bad premises wiring realize this and hopefully get it repaired/replaced since the car will be a continuous load that requires good wiring.

However, the problem is they've expanded this detection beyond the initial voltage drop calculation (the one that actually provides useful data) and monitor the voltage drop throughout the entire charge. When something unrelated happens on your power connection, not even on the same circuit or even in the same building, that causes a voltage drop, the car flips out and reduces charge current... even though there was no reason to so do.

In the case of the OP, it is obviously this expanded algorithm, combined with a business's normal power demands, that are causing the car to not want to charge at a normal speed.

AND the car won't increase the amperage during the same charging session once this occurs. Reacting to a dip wouldn't be as annoying if after a few minutes of consistent voltage the car adjusted the amperage back to the user's preference.

 

[FlasherZ]

As explained to me by Tesla when this first happened to me, the car is trying to detect substandard premises wiring, or the use of undersized or ridiculously long extension cords.

When they introduced it, it was (and still is) intended to detect two things:

1. What you speak of, which is a significant voltage drop that would indicate a high-resistance - either some hot, loose terminals or wiring that is improperly sized. This is easy - and you've pointed out how Tesla can detect this on the ramp-up and then dampen its effects.

2. Arc-faults -- this is what they're really concerned about... contacts too loose, that then begin to arc, which then leads to melting terminals and wires and fires and stuff.

It's that last one that keeps the detection algorithm running, and causes situations like a bad ballast in a fluorescent fixture to trigger the car's algorithms. As I said, I'd rather it be protected.

(Now, I've seen reports that the latest firmware will try to restore the charging current back to its original value over time... THAT is a good thing. I want the car to back off at a sign of trouble, but I want it also to re-try in case it was transient.)

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AND the car won't increase the amperage during the same charging session once this occurs. Reacting to a dip wouldn't be as annoying if after a few minutes of consistent voltage the car adjusted the amperage back to the user's preference.

Someone had mentioned on the other thread that the latest version does this attempt at correcting the downshift.

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Can't change the charging situation at home. House has an FPE panel, and I don't own it.

Ugh, I'm sorry. I would never charge a Tesla on an FPE or Zinsco panel. I'd even volunteer to pay if I had to.

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I feel like some cars may be more sensitive than others, but I've no empirical evidence for that. At least one friend here locally has had this problem over about a two year period (if I recall the timeframe correctly) so I understand it must be very frustrating.

In any case here's a link to the general discussion on this subject: Anyone-Still-Experiencing-Charge-Current-Limiting. As a general comment I don't think we need to grill the OP as this problem clearly isn't unique to him.

Some people have had bad chargers in their car - and the problem went away after the charger electronics were changed. It's certainly a possibility he has a bad charger in the car. It's hard to troubleshoot the reduction problem. I'd probably ask Jason for an action plan and ask him to consider swapping the charger at the next service, just to eliminate that from being a problem.

 

[qwk]

I'll reiterate what I said before with regard to the backing off. The car is sensing fluctuations that are indicative of a voltage/resistance problem. There is something creating that problem -- the car is trying to protect your property. It could be anything from a failing appliance (see my post from the other thread about a simple failing ballast creating the same failure signature).

This is not Tesla saying "let's screw over qwk". Expansion/contraction of screws on the outlet or a breaker can cause this, as can a transformer or an added load, or even an appliance that went bad.

I'm definately not saying Tesla is trying to screw me. In a nutshell, I predicted this would happen after seeing all of the problems with 5.8.4. I tried to keep away by refusing a FW update. I'm really surprised it took this long for problems to show up.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you on the car protecting your wiring. For every case that it helps, there are probably dozens of cases of "crying wolf". I'm smart enough to determine whether it's a good idea to charge or not. What's next? Tesla limiting the speed limit on every car to 80mph like the loaners? After all, that a the legal limit in the US.

What if someone lives really close to a generation plant? They won't be able to charge at 40A because of the constant fluctuations. Your unsafe scenario theory is really weak. No other common appliance stops working when there are small voltage surges.

I love the way how some posts here "cherry pick" stuff to fit their reply. Like I stated up thread. Only 3 of the UMC's had melting. They ALWAYS took a fair amount of time failing. When the UMC joint gets hotter and hotter over time, thus causing melting, it's pretty easy to rule out other possibilities.

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Some people have had bad chargers in their car - and the problem went away after the charger electronics were changed. It's certainly a possibility he has a bad charger in the car. It's hard to troubleshoot the reduction problem. I'd probably ask Jason for an action plan and ask him to consider swapping the charger at the next service, just to eliminate that from being a problem.

Tesla had issues with the 2nd gen chargers. My car has a first gen. This is definately not a hardware problem. It always has and is strictly a software nanny issue after a myriad of UMC problems.

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Some people have had bad chargers in their car - and the problem went away after the charger electronics were changed. It's certainly a possibility he has a bad charger in the car. It's hard to troubleshoot the reduction problem. I'd probably ask Jason for an action plan and ask him to consider swapping the charger at the next service, just to eliminate that from being a problem.

Tesla had issues with the 2nd gen chargers. My car has a first gen. This is definately not a hardware problem. It always has and is strictly a software nanny issue after a myriad of UMC problems.

 

[TexasEV]

My question is still unanswered-- why do you insist this is a firmware issue and it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't updated the firmware? If this is a firmware issue, don't you think there would be a significant number of reports of this happening all of the sudden after the update? Until Tesla finds the source of your problem, I think it would be best to keep an open mind about other possible causes. What if they found the charging port was bad and a new one solved your problems?