help! charging question

bigger battery, no active cooling? strange decision.

 

tell that to Nissan lol

 

I have observed that if I tap the timer button before I get home , the timer light will stay on after I turn off the car, and be in timer mode when I then plug in. I don't know if this is the case for multiple on/off cycles,

 

You have to hit the button each time to set the timer before you shut the car down.

 

The main reason for the timer is so you can charge the car during off-peak hours.

 

From the Manual, page 93:

By observing the following precautions, battery charge
decline can be suppressed.

●Avoid parking the vehicle in areas with a high temperature under direct
sunlight when the hybrid battery (traction battery) is fully charged.
●Do not accelerate or decelerate frequently and suddenly when driving in
EV mode.
●Avoid driving near the top speed for EV driving. (→
P. 40)
●Leave a low level of charge in the hybrid battery (traction battery) when
leaving the vehicle undriven for a long period of time.
After confirming that EV mode has switched to HV mode, turn the
“POWER” switch off.
●Use the charging timer function as much as possible in order to fully
charge the hybrid battery (traction battery) immediately before starting
off.

 

the benefit of the timer is if you cannot charge just before leaving. if you pug in when you get home, and it sits charged for 8-12 hours or so, it will have a small long term negative effect on the battery. if you can plug in 3-6 hours before leaving, that's fine. also, if the battery is warm from charging when you drive off in cooler weather, that is a benfit to efficiency.

 

About :50 into the video.

 

i've noticed when i set the timer to start past midnight it finishes quicker than during the day (~2:20 total?).

 

Is the EVSE on a dedicated circuit? If not, could be because of slightly higher voltage due to less draws from other devices.

 

yes, the latter explains it

 

After a short trip (3-4 miles) last night, I set the timer to finish at 7:20am. The battery was mostly charged already so I was just topping up for the 3-4 miles.

The charging started at 3:14am (and finished at 4:09).
So is this normal? Does the finish at timer mode assume you need a full charge?

 

yup, normal. the charger automatically shuts off when battery is at "full" charge

 

Oh, that's not what I meant. I did expect the charge to take about an hour, so I was not surprised that it shut off at 4:09am. What I expected from the timer though, is that the charging should start about an hour before the finish time (because my battery level only needed about an hour to be topped up to full again).

In other words, I set it to finish at to finish at 7:20 am and therefor it should have started charging around 6:20 am. Instead it did not take the current charge level into account when deciding when to begin charging. It actually started at 3:14am, almost 3 hours too early. This makes the finish mode of the timer a lot less useful -- I can subtract ~3 hours all by myself and just use the start time if that is all it is doing.

 

That's why many here like to use the "start timer"... just subtract 3hrs from when you'd like to use the car and you're set....

 

The charging system in the PIP monitors the battery level (SOC) eight times during the charging session to determine how long the charger will charge. The timer therefore has no way to know when to finish.

 

Well it could certainly get a closer estimate - but now I understand how it works & I can do my own estimate.
Either way it's approximately (3 hours * percentage of battery charge used).

Thanks!
Marina