Macan 4 suddenly charging at 3.9 kW on 48 amp charger

[dgkhn]

I know I've seen this somewhere, but a search only turned up one post about this happening to someone else.

I've been charging typically at 9.4 kW on my ChargePoint EVSE for a year. Usually I charge to 75% or 80%. I was going on a longer trip this morning, so I decided to charge to 85%. I have battery preservation mode on. The car was actually showing 81%, and when I raised the limit to 85% (besides getting the charge preservation warning) it started charging only at 3.9 kW and stayed there all the way to 85%.

I unplugged, took my trip, and came home at about 35%. I shut off charge preservation (just in case), set the limit to 75%, and now it's still charging at 3.9 kW. I don't have easy access to an alternative EVSE to check that out. The car was closed and locked for a few minutes twice during this trip.

The one post I found with this problem, the response, among other things, was to disconnect the 12-volt for a few minutes. I did not find a post saying whether this works or not.

So, 3 questions:
1. For anyone who has had this problem, if they tried disconnecting the 12-volt, did that work?
2. If you do disconnect the 12-volt, what settings, if any, do you lose?
3. Does anyone have an alternate solution besides traveling to my dealer an hour and a half away?

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[W1NGE]

I know I've seen this somewhere, but a search only turned up one post about this happening to someone else.

I've been charging typically at 9.4 kW on my ChargePoint EVSE for a year. Usually I charge to 75% or 80%. I was going on a longer trip this morning, so I decided to charge to 85%. I have battery preservation mode on. The car was actually showing 81%, and when I raised the limit to 85% (besides getting the charge preservation warning) it started charging only at 3.9 kW and stayed there all the way to 85%.

I unplugged, took my trip, and came home at about 35%. I shut off charge preservation (just in case), set the limit to 75%, and now it's still charging at 3.9 kW. I don't have easy access to an alternative EVSE to check that out. The car was closed and locked for a few minutes twice during this trip.

The one post I found with this problem, the response, among other things, was to disconnect the 12-volt for a few minutes. I did not find a post saying whether this works or not.

So, 3 questions:
1. For anyone who has had this problem, if they tried disconnecting the 12-volt, did that work?
2. If you do disconnect the 12-volt, what settings, if any, do you lose?
3. Does anyone have an alternate solution besides traveling to my dealer an hour and a half away?

Battery preservation / protection is only relevant for DC charging.

Disconnecting 12v won't help anything I think and you won't lose anything if you limit the disconnection time to 5 mins or so.

Check you don't have a route in NAV active as this can interfere with charging.

Get an electrician to check your setup just in case that is awry.

 

[daveo4EV]

have you tried charing at any other L2 AC charger?

 

[JohnnyRoaster]

You could also reset the breaker in the panel.

 

[craz8]

The ChargePoint EVSE allows you to select the amps served. Their app has a place to configure it.

it might have got confused, or maybe reset to defaults, and now is only serving 15-16 amps?

I have mine configured for 20 amps (and timed limited) to mostly charge from my solar panels when it’s sunny

 

[seabird]

3.9kW means something in your line of charging is limiting you to 16amps instead of 40.

Could be an overheating cable, a bad temperature sensor, a blown fuse, or a fault in the circuit.

 

[Dragon Tourniquet]

If it cut in half from what you normally see, I'd guess that one of the 2 lines to the EVSE is cut off. That can happen if a double pole breaker half-trips (only 1 of the 2 sides of it trip). It isn't supposed to happen, but it occasionally can. Reset the breaker to make sure if isn't that.

 

[seabird]

If it cut in half from what you normally see, I'd guess that one of the 2 lines to the EVSE is cut off. That can happen if a double pole breaker half-trips (only 1 of the 2 sides of it trip). It isn't supposed to happen, but it occasionally can. Reset the breaker to make sure if isn't that.

A half-tripped 60A breaker would still be 30A of current on the circuit and 7.2kW of charging. Almost certainly isn't that.

 

[ColdCase]

I'm pretty sure when one leg of the 220V is disconnected, you get nothing. You need both legs, there should be no current on the ground. I don't think the EVSE would even make a connection with one leg broken.

I'm pretty sure the car controls the amount of amps. The EVSE tells the car how much is available and the car will restrict itself to that limit. The EVSE will disconnect when the limit is exceeded.

Some EVSEs will tell the car a lower rate when a ground fault or a problem in the line voltage is detected (should also get a warning) . Smarter EVSEs can tell the car different max rates depending on time, conditions... etc.

So you don't know if the Macan is just using 3.9 or the EVSE is telling the Macan only 3.9 is available.

But the portable Porsche charger that comes with the car can be plugged into a 220V outlet, if you have one. It can do 9.6 if set to high amps. Use it and you get ~9.6 then you know it is probably the ChargePoint, if all you get is ~3.9 then it probably the car. If your outlet is not a good quality or the house circuit is not rated for 32 amps (or is that 40), things can get hot.

Beyond that I don't know if disconnecting the 12 battery will reset the Macan charger or if there is a simpler way.

 

[dgkhn]

Thank everyone for your thoughts: if I had easy access to another EVSE (I actually also have a 16 amp one, which I use for my Volvo PHEV, but neither that PHEV (max 3.6 kW), its outlet, nor the EVSE will help figure this out), OR another EV to try on my EVSE, believe me, I would have tested that. I may still figure out a way--I do have a neighbor with a Rivian but he's not around right now. I do not have a 240v outlet to try, either (well, not an accessible one except for the 16 amp one.)

Yes, of course I checked and my ChargePoint is set for 48 amps (or at least it says it is).

 

[ColdCase]

There may be a public Level 2 charger nearby that can supply at least 9.6kW. Loon has them, for example.

 

[dgkhn]

So now for the sake of anyone who my have this problem and encounter this thread in the future, hopefully I can close this out.

The good news: my Macan is once again charging at ~9.4 Kw. The bad news: I can't be certain why.

So update and remaining facts.

After reviewing my ChargePoint app, I realized that the charging session prior to the one where I went to 85% also was at 3.9 kW. I just hadn't noticed. So this was not related to raising the ceiling to 85 %.

When I returned home yesterday at 45%, before I plugged in, knowing that my previous session was at 3.9kW, I shut off the ChargePoint HomeFlex (which is hardwired through a knife switch) figuring doing so would reset it, if that was the problem. I left it off for about a minute, turned it back on, and waited for it to reconnect to wifi (HomeFlex's have no controls; they are controlled through the app. I didn't bother looking at the app at that point). I plugged it in, and the Macan grindingly went along charging at 3.9kW up to 80% (so taking almost 12 hours to do so).

This morning I was looking through the ChargePoint app (which is when I realized that the earlier charging session than the one I thought was also at 3.9kW.) The app has an option under settings to Reboot the charger, and I figured, why not? I did that, and then waited a few minutes. Then I went into the Porsche app and raised the celing to 85% so the car would start charging again. And guess what? It was now charging at 9.4kW!

When I came home this evening, I set the ceiling back down to 75%, plugged in (I was at 73%) and the car charged again at 9.4kW.

So, you tell me what happened? Did the EVSE reboot do the job (that turning it off and back on again did not do)? Did the EVSE fix itself? Was there some issue with the ChargePoint cloud? Did the Macan reset itself?

I dunno.

 

[W1NGE]

So now for the sake of anyone who my have this problem and encounter this thread in the future, hopefully I can close this out.

The good news: my Macan is once again charging at ~9.4 Kw. The bad news: I can't be certain why.

So update and remaining facts.

After reviewing my ChargePoint app, I realized that the charging session prior to the one where I went to 85% also was at 3.9 kW. I just hadn't noticed. So this was not related to raising the ceiling to 85 %.

When I returned home yesterday at 45%, before I plugged in, knowing that my previous session was at 3.9kW, I shut off the ChargePoint HomeFlex (which is hardwired through a knife switch) figuring doing so would reset it, if that was the problem. I left it off for about a minute, turned it back on, and waited for it to reconnect to wifi (HomeFlex's have no controls; they are controlled through the app. I didn't bother looking at the app at that point). I plugged it in, and the Macan grindingly went along charging at 3.9kW up to 80% (so taking almost 12 hours to do so).

This morning I was looking through the ChargePoint app (which is when I realized that the earlier charging session than the one I thought was also at 3.9kW.) The app has an option under settings to Reboot the charger, and I figured, why not? I did that, and then waited a few minutes. Then I went into the Porsche app and raised the celing to 85% so the car would start charging again. And guess what? It was now charging at 9.4kW!

When I came home this evening, I set the ceiling back down to 75%, plugged in (I was at 73%) and the car charged again at 9.4kW.

So, you tell me what happened? Did the EVSE reboot do the job (that turning it off and back on again did not do)? Did the EVSE fix itself? Was there some issue with the ChargePoint cloud? Did the Macan reset itself?

I dunno.

Don't think it's the car but rather your EVSE at the time.

 

[dgkhn]

Don't think it's the car but rather your EVSE at the time.

If I had to bet with even odds, I'd bet on the EVSE having been the problem. It's not clear to me why cutting power to it, waiting, and reconnecting would have a different effect than a software reboot, but who knows. Since this doesn't seem to be a common problem on this forum, I'll blame the EVSE for now.

 

[daveo4EV]

the chargepoint EVSE is basically a computer - it saves settings into memory that would not be wiped/changed by a stored setting - rebooting the OS may have changes a corrupted value that would not be reset by a power cycle - which certain settings are preserved across power outages (by design)…

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