Clarity PHEV stops charging before battery is full

For your incident and for others that experience similar, please always document the vehicle and environmental conditions present:
1) What was previous drive just prior to charging: long EV drive, fully draining, etc?
2) What was approx. ambient temperature?
3) What was charge rate, kw/hr?
4) Approx how long do you think it charged before stopping?

At least one Clarity charger has been electrically monitored and has some occasional erratic behavior whereby it will recognize that it is exceeding its charge rate limit and "reset" itself to a lower rate. When it does this, a 'stop-charging' signal may be sent to the EVSE or certain EVSEs may interpret the abrupt current draw change as a condition under which the EVSE circuitry decides to turn off current flow. Therefore, since it is primarily their units where this problem has manifested, it is suspected that public Chargepoint EVSE units may be more sensitive to this phenomenon.

 

(new owner here): How do you determine charge rate? I have the plugshare app and it doesn't show that. Is that a chargepoint thing? I haven't installed that app yet. Also my incident wasn't at a charge point station. It was a freebie Clipper Creek Level 2 charger.

To answer your other questions, when it happened to me a few days ago...

1) 30 miles HEV then last 5 miles EV
2) 85
4) It think it stopped almost immediately. I went to have lunch and came back and there wasn't any additional charge. I had about 65% charge when I plugged it in. I've noticed other posts say it stops around that point so maybe that's why my incident didn't charge much at all, if anything.

 

Yes, since Honda didn't sink much money into our app, we don't get features like charge rate there (or ability to adjust max rate). So for Clarity owners, it has to be a value reported by the EVSE provider (i.e. Chargepoint) or by owner addition of a current transformer device on the electrical circuit. Chargepoint stations that I have used had an LCD display that indicated the charge rate. Based on the forum posts regarding this issue, the vast majority of interrupted-charging events have been within a minute or two of initiation. I don't recall any of the Chargepoint locations I've used having any indication what their maximum charge rate could be, provided the vehicle supported it, so not sure if we'd have any chance of correlating "high output" EVSEs with this issue, but if the charge rate was always up at the Clarity's maximum capability, it would confirm that the problem only happens when the EVSE outputs current around the Clarity's limit.

The one time I've had a public EVSE problem, it was a fault of the EVSE (based on several public reports about the same device at Plugshare). That time, I believe that the Clarity stopped the charge process within 1 minute of initiation when it detected a problem with the EVSE.

 

I had 2 episodes where the car stopped charging at 70% this week. However, I charged at a different chargepoint the next day without issue and it went to 100%. See the answers to your questions below

1) What was previous drive just prior to charging: long EV drive, fully draining, etc?
I had about 13 EV miles left before plugging in both times it didn't charge to 100%

2) What was approx. ambient temperature?
Ambient temp was probably 90-95.

3) What was charge rate, kw/hr? and 4) Approx how long do you think it charged before stopping?
Per the chargepoint app:
The first time it didn't charge to 100%, the power was 5.7-5.8 kW until it abruptly stopped after 1 hour and 45 minutes (total of 9kW) . The power then went to 0 kW.

The second time the power was 5.8 kW for 1 hour, then dropped to 2.8 kW for 20 minutes and then to 0 kW (total 7.7 kW)

Thanks for all your help!

Edit: and no I didn’t get a charging fault error at the end

 

Don’t know if this will help diagnose your problem or not, but my home 32 Amp ChargePoint always charges at 7.1 to 7.2 kW/hr until the sharp drop off at the final 15 min or so. Never tried a public ChargePoint, but 5.8kW/hr seems a little low and slow compared to my home ChargePoint.

 

All the ChargePoints I have been to indicate 6Kw charging rate and may actually be 5.8.
I have been to one location where the ChargePoint charger shut off twice at around 70%.
It was a busy location and it was only twice, so I wrote it off as someone pulling the connection to get on early.
Maybe its ChargePoint, but is very infrequent and more than a month ago.

 

If they charge by the minute, doesn't surprise me that they send a lower charging rate... more minutes, more money... Just saying...

 

The Chargepoint that I use at work consistently delivers 6.7kw/h

 

I think I will be going with a SIemens Versicharge, based on this thread.

 

Yes, I have encounter the this same problem , exactly, at my office for the last 2 days!

 

Just bought a Honda Clarity and experienced the same issue of partial charge at a Schneider Electric Charging Station. Had the Charging System Problem and the check engine light. Took it in to the dealership to check it out. The dealership said the problem is a software issue that Honda is working on. Hope it is soon.

 

I use exclusively Chargepoint Level 2 chargers and have this problem with only one charge station at work. I'm wondering if it's a software patch that hasn't made it to all chargers yet. I experience the problem more than 75% of the time on one charger, but not on any other (ever). I have used about 6 different chargers of the same or similar models so far.

I experience the charge stopping after 1-30 minutes from plugging in. The conditions are dry, and generally just below room temp. I generally either am fully discharged or half discharged (20 mile commute). If there is someone from Chargepoint that is interested in knowing which station exhibits the problem and which doesn't, feel free to PM me.

 

Have you had the Service Bulletin 18-079 software update for multiple warning lights applied yet? It may help with your problem but we need more reports to know if it helps with early charging termination or just with the warning lights.

 

I do not believe I had that update applied yet. I'll bring it in tomorrow to the dealer. Thanks for the quick reply.

 

@KentuckyKen: I brought the car it to the dealer and confirmed that the update had already been done. Also it may be worth noting that I do not see warning lights.

 

I have the problem of the car stopped charging early at Chargepoint stations from time to time. I also have SB 18-079 installed so I don't think it's related.

 

I continue to have the charging problem even after ChargePoint got the provider to replace the cable and the charging head. The charging starts and then stops within about 60 seconds to 2 minutes. Since my office is a walk away from the charging station, I use the app to "Start Charging" over and over again. It always stops within 30 seconds or so. Sometimes, I do it about 20-30 times and then just give up. My chargepoint website looks like this:

10012018 Clarity Charging Problem by Rajiv Vaidyanathan posted Oct 1, 2018 at 4:15 PM

 

As I reported in another thread, my dealer did a "charging system update" last week when I took my Clarity in for the HV range and other issues. I had random charging problems on a few level two stations (including the one at my work place, ChargePoint). There was also a DTC thrown (P0D3D/P0D3D09) which I told my service advisor.

It hasn't had any random stopping yet since the update, but it's only been a few days, so I don't know for sure whether that is a real fix or not (I have had weeks without charging problems before the update, but also continuous random stopping everyday for a week...).

If you or someone else can confirm at other dealers that the charging system update is real (or even get them to spell out the SB number), then maybe we can find out more details regarding this update. If no other dealer has this update, then it's possible my dealer is just pulling it out of thin air to make me feel good.

 

I posted this in another thread. I haven't had any of the updates done -- I'm waiting until my first oil change -- so I can't attest to its effectiveness, but it appears to be real.

 

Got the charging problem fixed today. In the note, they mentioned that they applied the SB18-097 per tech line.