Overview
When the Zappi displays 'Charge Delayed' this can be for multiple reasons. Most common of which is the zappi is trying to deliver a charge to the EV but the EV is unwilling to accept it at that time.
This can be down to a few things;
- You have charge timers set in the EV and these are preventing the charge from happening right now.
- Some EVs need to have the central locking activated before they will start to charge. (MG&BYD)
To understand more about how this works we need to understand how the zappi and your vehicle communicate.
The communications between the EV charger and the car are very basic - simply measuring a voltage on one wire (the Control Pilot) in the charging cable. There are several possible states for the Control Pilot signal:
- A - EV unplugged
- B1 - EV plugged in, but Charger not ready to supply power
- B2 - EV plugged in and Charger ready to supply power
- C1 - EV plugged in and charging, EV charger wants EV to stop charging
- C2 - EV plugged in and charging
As soon as zappi is ready to charge the EV it will set the Control Pilot signal to state "B2".
At this point, it is up to the EV whether or not to start charging. If it wants to charge the EV will set the Control Pilot signal to state "C2" and zappi will immediately respond by turning on the output to the charging cable.
A change from B2 to C2 is initiated by the car
If zappi tries to charge (by going from state B1 to state B2) but the EV but does not respond then it will report "Charge Delayed".
Zappi stays in state B2 which means that the car can start charging straight away if it decides to wake up (eg, if there is a timer set in the car)
A change from C2 to B2 is also initiated by the car
If zappi detects that the Control Pilot has changed from C2 to B2, this indicates that the EV has stopped the charge - ie the battery is full.
Zappi will show this as "Charge Complete
Again, the Control Pilot is left in state B2, which means that the car can start charging again straight away if it wakes up and asks for more power. (eg if the charge is interrupted by unlocking when it was charging)
Some customers report that the EV has stopped charging, even though the battery is not yet full.
An example is one customer with a Porsche Taycan - In one reported incident the car should have continued charging - the battery was only 41% full and zappi saying Charge Complete, so zappi is still sending the signal to the car to tell it to continue charging. So the car is refusing to charge.
A similar problem occurred with the Peugeot e208 when it was first launched. The onboard charger only allowed the charge to be interrupted ten times before the onboard charger blocked any further charge. The onboard charger can usually be reset by unlocking the car, or it may be necessary to unplug the charging cable and then plug it back in again.
We've worked with the Peugeot engineers and they have now changed the logic so that the car can cope with 30 interruptions in the supply.
Warning: The problem can often be resolved by ensuring that the zappi firmware is up to date and then adjusting the ECO+ settings
Adjusting Stop / Start Delay & Minimum Green Level (MGL)
One change to the zappi settings which has helped with the VW eGolf and Peugeot e208 is to adjust the ECO+ start/stop delay so that the EV keeps charging through short interruptions in the available surplus generation. These vehicles allow the charge to be interrupted several times but then won't restart until the charger is unplugged and plugged back in again.
The starting point is to update the firmware to the latest version.
Then on the menu "Charge Settings - ECO+" a separate time can be set for the start and stop delay.
Recommended values are:
- "start" delay = 30 seconds
- "stop" delay = 240 seconds
The MGL can also be adjusted to reduce the number of interruptions in the charge.
By setting this to 1% the charge will continue until there is less than ~14W surplus power available to charge the EV. Extra power will be taken from the grid to keep the charge running