16kWh battery 8 ampere charger: no ampere decrease at 80% charge?

[EX204]

Hi,

October 2014 Peugeot ION with a 16kWh battery and 26k kilometer mileage (16k miles). I managed to get 113 kilometers (70 miles) on my very first trial (bought the car a week ago): 100 kilometers actually driven, 13 km RR. RR display seems incredibly accurate, due to my mismanagement I later went down to 11 km RR and drove 4.5km more, and the RR was displayed at 7 km.

In that state I started charging with an 8 ampere charger (OEM charger). My smart plug shows me the voltage (a bit over 220v), the ampere (between 7.2 and 7.4 A) and calculates the resulting Wattage/Power (about 1.6 kw).

I allowed it to charge over night, at a quite cool outdoor temperature (way less than room temperature).

Even after 8.5h the power consumed by the charger would remain the same as in the beginning. By then the battery gauge showed all bars and the RR indicator showed 111km (69 miles).

I left the charger on, for testing purposes (I know about the 20%/80% "rule"). About 30 min later (after 9h charging) I checked again, and the ampere had decreased to 2.8 Ampere (and 230v). The RR however was unchanged at 111km. It seemed that by then the battery was almost 100% charged, so I stopped the experiment.

What seems odd:
Usually a LiPo accumulator cell is charging at roughly the same amount of Amperes until the highest Voltage is being applied (as I understand 4.2, some variants up to 4.35). As I understand at 80% of the nominal capacity. Thereafter the Voltage can't be increased anymore, so naturally the Ampere decrease and with that the power delivered (or used). Which is why the charging time from 80% to 100% is so disproportionately high.

But my car (or rather the original Peugeot 8 Ampere charger) drew all the time, almost till the end, the same Ampere.

I have only two possible explanations:
1) the battery management system (BMS) of the ION (i-MiEV) somehow manages to draw the same power all the time. Even when it then provides maybe less power to the battery (accumulator modules). Which would be odd: it uses maybe extra energy when the cooling system is engaged, but the identical Ampere over the entire charging time?

2) the car has seemingly 16kWh nominal capacity. But I read somewhere only 14.5 kWh are "useable". That would be 90%. I read in other sources that allegedly Mitsubishi made available ALL of the capacity, without any "reserve" (for the protection of the battery, battery life longevity).

Maybe Peugeot reprogrammed the BMS so it keeps a reserve? Maybe in the 80% to 90% range the meekly 8 Ampere (at 220V) are still low enough to NOT trigger a decrease in charging power?

Anybody any idea?

 

[MickeyS70]

First of all congratulations and welcome to the triplets club…

A few remarks on what you have observed:

- the RR aka ‘guess o’meter’ is calculated taking a rolling average of the past 15 mile’s consumption and remaining battery capacity, the faster you drive the lower the RR

- we know from other owners that only about 80% of what the ‘granny charger’ draws is actually going into the main battery, the rest are conversion losses, keeping the electronics going and charging the 12v aux battery

- the BMU stops charging at certain levels and balances the cells (from memory @ 30% & 70%)
[Edit: it does interrupt charging, not to balance cells but to measure true SoC without load]

- once the BMU senses some cells coming close to 4.1 volt it starts reducing the charge current

- once a cell reaches approx 4.1V charging stops and cell balancing begins again

- full 16 bars doesn’t necessarily mean 100% charge

- the max capacity of 16KWh is pure theoretically as cells will not be allowed to discharge fully

- as the car gets older the useable voltage range is increased to compensate for battery degradation

Easiest way to observe the workings of your new car is to get yourself an OBDII dongle and use one of the free apps to access CAN data.

Mickey

 

[KelvinColon]

Hi,

October 2014 Peugeot ION with a 16kWh battery and 26k kilometer mileage (16k miles). I managed to get 113 kilometers (70 miles) on my very first trial (bought the car a week ago): 100 kilometers actually driven, 13 km RR. RR display seems incredibly accurate, due to my mismanagement I later went down to 11 km RR and drove 4.5km more, and the RR was displayed at 7 km.

In that state I started charging with an 8 ampere charger (OEM charger). My smart plug shows me the voltage (a bit over 220v), the ampere (between 7.2 and 7.4 A) and calculates the resulting Wattage/Power (about 1.6 kw).

I allowed it to charge over night, at a quite cool outdoor temperature (way less than room temperature).

Even after 8.5h the power consumed by the charger would remain the same as in the beginning. By then the battery gauge showed all bars and the RR indicator showed 111km (69 miles).

I left the charger on, for testing purposes (I know about the 20%/80% "rule"). About 30 min later (after 9h charging) I checked again, and the ampere had decreased to 2.8 Ampere (and 230v). The RR however was unchanged at 111km. It seemed that by then the battery was almost 100% charged, so I stopped the experiment.

What seems odd:
Usually a LiPo accumulator cell is charging at roughly the same amount of Amperes until the highest Voltage is being applied (as I understand 4.2, some variants up to 4.35). As I understand at 80% of the nominal capacity. Thereafter the Voltage can't be increased anymore, so naturally the Ampere decrease and with that the power delivered (or used). Which is why the charging time from 80% to 100% is so disproportionately high.

But my car (or rather the original Peugeot 8 Ampere charger) drew all the time, almost till the end, the same Ampere.

I have only two possible explanations:
1) the battery management system (BMS) of the ION (i-MiEV) somehow manages to draw the same power all the time. Even when it then provides maybe less power to the battery (accumulator modules). Which would be odd: it uses maybe extra energy when the cooling system is engaged, but the identical Ampere over the entire charging time?

2) the car has seemingly 16kWh nominal capacity. But I read somewhere only 14.5 kWh are "useable". That would be 90%. I read in other sources that allegedly Mitsubishi made available ALL of the capacity, without any "reserve" (for the protection of the battery, battery life longevity).
3) Pocket City 2 Android Free Download game on the website https://getmodnow.com/pocket-city-2.html is completely free and safe
Maybe Peugeot reprogrammed the BMS so it keeps a reserve? Maybe in the 80% to 90% range the meekly 8 Ampere (at 220V) are still low enough to NOT trigger a decrease in charging power?

Anybody any idea?

there are a few possible explanations for the observations you made while charging your Peugeot ION:

Battery Management System (BMS): The BMS of the vehicle could be designed to maintain a consistent charging current throughout the charging process, even when the battery is close to reaching its maximum capacity. This approach ensures a more controlled and gradual charging process, which can be beneficial for battery health and longevity. The BMS might limit the charging power rather than reducing the charging current abruptly.

Usable capacity: It's common for electric vehicle manufacturers to reserve a small portion of the battery's capacity for various purposes such as extending battery life, improving performance, or protecting against degradation. This reserve capacity may not be accessible to the user for regular driving. In your case, if the usable capacity is 14.5 kWh out of the nominal 16 kWh, it would explain why the charging current remained constant even when the battery was nearing its full capacity. The BMS could be programmed to utilize this reserve capacity before reducing the charging power.

 

[kiev]

hey kelvin, what year, make and model is your EV, and how long have you had it?