I haven’t tested this version yet but with a previous version the charging session would start at 6.9kw (matching car max spec of 7kW) but drops down to 5.8kW within the first hour.
The graph below is a good example of what I am experiencing.
Starts charging at 6.94kW (matching car max spec of 7kW), drops to 5.8kW by 10am, and finishes at 5.66kW at 11am. That’s 1.8kW below the rating of the charger and 1.4kW below the maximum charging rate of the vehicle. The ambient temp at the time was 23deg.
I’ve seen the same behaviour charging overnight when the ambient temp was in the mid-teens.
Same observation yesterday and today. 6.8kW Initially (Electricians capped it at 30a), Across about 30mins, It’s gradually winding down. I plugged in 50mins ago and it’s gradually dropped from 6.9kw to 5.7kW (Or 5.5 according to the car)
I don’t believe it to be the car because the local supermarket has a 22kw and the car persists at 11kw, and the portable I had prior to the E2 would persist on 6.9kw for 2hrs.
I appreciate that fleet firmware management isn’t all that transparent, so here’s a summary:
Essentially we have a “current” version of firmware which gets rolled out to all chargers over time (these days about 3-4 weeks, but as the fleet grows this will increase as we cap the number rolled out each day).
Sometimes a particular issue gets resolved and drivers who have reported that issue will have their chargers updated manually so they don’t have to wait.
In addition we typically have a number of versions deployed to gather information on new issues that have been encountered. These tend to be compatibility problems reported with vehicles or newly encountered home hardware such as a new inverter brand. So sometimes chargers will have firmware which is not the current release but which provides extra logging for specific behaviour. This is why sometimes an older version of firmware will be uploaded to a charger - it will have specific behaviour or extra logging around a particular issue.
I’ve added a page to our knowledge base detailing historic releases: Firmware Updates
Would you please also request that a notification be provided on the app to inform the user that the firmware has been updated
With regards to the thermal performance issue I see mention of better Improved thermal performance at high ambient temperatures for Rev H and beyond E2 PCBs.
What does Evnex consider as high ambient temperatures. I’m seeing throttling at night when the ambient temp is below 18deg and the app makes no mention of it being throttled due to temperature?
Also how do I find out if my hardware is Rev H and beyond?
I’ll look at getting an app notification in next time we work on our firmware rollout tool - not sure when that will be at this stage.
Rev H hardware began production late last year so I think your charger will be pre-rev H. The main change was to incorporate some extra comms hardware to facilitate three-phase power monitoring, but some other componentry was moved around which means a different thermal algorithm for the pre / post rev H boards.
I would not expect throttling when the ambient is under 20 degrees. It depends quite a bit on things like air flow and whether there is sun falling on the charger. So a white charger in the shade with good airflow might see no throttling until it’s >45C, while a black one with limited airflow in the sun might experience some at <30C.
Relay performance also changes over time - the resistance will actually decrease over the first few charge cycles and then will stabilise.
Thanks, I did notice that it updated and was considering posting. It’s still dropping down very gradually. I did note that the “limited by home load” is actually as the hot water tank reheating after refilling; Turned it off at the fusebox got rid of the Homeload limit message.
I ran a charge this morning and half way through the charge I switched it to charge now. After after initially reaching 6.9kw the charger wound back to 5.8kW
My charger is grey in colour and located inside my garage, so no direct sun on the charger and the ambient temp on the case was 28.6 deg so definitely not elevated
So based on your comments I should not have experienced any thermal throttling. I didn’t see any thermal warning message in the app however the charger could not sustain the 7kW charging rate and dropped to 5.8kW.
Let me know if I can be of assistance to the team to get this issue resolved as it remains a concerning performance limitation impacting your product’s reputation.
Hi habash. We’ve been reviewing the logs and think we need to get your charger back here for further investigation / analysis. Someone from our support team will reach out to you to arrange a replacement.
My charging profile closely matches Habash’s - brief ramp to ~6.8–6.9 kW followed by consistent derating to ~5.6–5.8 kW.
My charger is also installed inside a garage with no direct sun exposure, and overnight ambient temps here in Melbourne are typically in the mid to low teens.
Given these conditions, I wouldn’t expect thermal throttling to be a factor, yet the charger is unable to sustain near its rated output.
Edit: I also measured temperatures during charging tonight (new session - pics attached) using an infrared thermometer. The charger casing was around ~21.5°C and the surrounding environment ~19°C - well within normal operating conditions.
Based on this, thermal throttling should not be occurring, yet the charger still consistently derates to ~5.6–5.8 kW.
Mine seems a bit more stable since 2.8.6. It still does gradually drop off but I haven’t seen it hit the low 5’s yet like it was. I’m just waiting for ASD to get back to me now about investigating it resetting the RCD and getting the full 7.4kw unlocked.
Hi Dan. Yes we’ve reviewed your logs and there is something abnormal there too which we’d like to investigate. Someone from support will reach out to arrange a replacement for you.
My charger is performing the same as the others above after being updated to 2.8.6.168A096.
It’s located inside my garage and we always charge at night. The garage is sitting at around 19 degrees and drops over night. When we first installed the charger it was fine and we never had these problems.
@TomRose Can you please have a look at my logs. It’s 10:30pm. a nice 11 degrees outside, and 16 inside my garage where the charger is. There’s no reason for the charger to be reporting hot and not be pumping out 6.9 - 7.0kw like it used to.
Just an update to say we’re onto something in the data - got a few of us working on a solution and will hopefully have an update tomorrow or early next week.
Looking forward to it. Electricians confirmed today that the neutral wire that it was installed on was on the wrong bar. That’s been fixed and confirmed the unit is set to 32a although I’ve only seen it hit 7kw once for about 30 seconds in the Polestar app, but it’s still throttling down to 6kw regularly even without considerable heat in the garage (It’s 23ºC in there now and it’s throttled to 6.0kw, according to the Polestar app)
