S/W update 3882 broke my charging

[joej]

This seems to be a familiar story but I wanted to capture the specific details of the current situation.

I have a Taycan C4 MY23 and I charged very successfully using a timer (departure time: 8:00, charge target 80%) and a profile set to my chargers nightly rate (23:00-8:00).

While having my battery checked in the Porsche dealer recently, they said the battery was fine but they updated the software to version 3882.
Since that update my car has failed to charge according to any timer and/or profile combination.
I deleted all timers and profiles after the 3882 update and reconfigured them to ensure a fresh setup.

I tried all of the possible timer/profile permutations over several nights using a preferred charging period of 23:00-8:00.

• departure time equal to profile end time (8:00)
• departure time after profile end time (9:00)
• departure time before profile end time (7:00)
• the timer in all cases was set to an 80% charge

After plugging the car in the indicator flashed blue and remained in the 'paused' state but never woke up to actually charged. I'd wake in the morning to find it still paused. Bear in mind that this all worked perfectly before the 3882 update.

I then read in a different thread where someone suggested just using a timer without a profile at all.
I knew I had 9 hours of off-peak time to play with so it seemed like a good option.

I tested it last night using only a timer set with a departure time of 8:00am and a target charge of 85%.
I'm using a Zappi charger which, again, has worked perfectly for years to charge both our electric Mini and recently the Porsche until 3882.
Here in Ireland our Zappi is limited to delivering 7kw.

It actually started charging at 6:25am this morning (yay!) but immediately displayed a warning that the target wouldn't be reached by the departure time.
This begs the question: Why didn't it start earlier then??
Surely it performs a handshake with the charger when plugged in to see how much power it will receive. Then it's supposed to calculate the charging time so it's ready at the departure time, which it clearly failed to do.

I left it plugged in to see what would happen and it continued charging past the 8:00am departure time.
It eventually stopped at 9:00am leaving me with an 80% charge - not the requested target of 85%.

So it neither finished on time or provide the requested target charge level.
I wouldn't have minded too much if it at least continued charging to the requested target of 85%. Then I could simply compensate by setting my departure time to 6:00am and give myself a 2 hour buffer for it to finish within the off-peak time. Still a hack/work-around but it would do.

But whatever they've done in version 3882 clearly isn't working and, at least in my situation, seems to be a major bug.
There is no obvious work-around that I can see apart from wait for a fix in a future release.

Is there something I'm missing or can anyone else see a way to get charging to reliably work?

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[chun]

More timers / profile issues.

here’s a way to rule out that there is a problem from the update / charger is broken. When you activate direct charge, does it charge right away?

if yes, then the charger is ok and the car is ok; and it’s just your profile / timer.

You can check on the forum for correct profile / timers

otherwise here are mine, made to charge only during the night from 00:00 with a departure time at 7:30 from 25% to 80%; and from 0% to 25% right away no matter the time; for all days of the week

You should also make sure the profile / timers from the app actually were uploaded to the car and match.

 

[joej]

Yes, if I activate direct charging it charges straight away, so, yes, I agree with you that the charger and car (charging ports, etc.) all seem ok.

My settings for timers and profiles are/were very similar to yours but they simply don't work.

Can you confirm what software version you have? Is it 3882 or an earlier release. My earlier release worked fine so I suspect you have an earlier release too.

Thanks..

 

[chun]

Yes, if I activate direct charging it charges straight away, so, yes, I agree with you that the charger and car (charging ports, etc.) all seem ok.

My settings for timers and profiles are/were very similar to yours but they simply don't work.

Can you confirm what software version you have? Is it 3882 or an earlier release. My earlier release worked fine so I suspect you have an earlier release too.

Thanks..

Yes, 3882 is the latest. All cars have it. It’s not a new update, it’s been out for quite a while.

Please replicate my settings and it should work

 

[joej]

Thanks for confirming the software version of 3882.

I have tried the settings you use (not identical but I see no substantive difference between your profile times of 23:45-07:00 and mine of 23:00-08:00).
My timer has been set to 8:00 instead of your 7:30 - again no real difference.

Everything else is the same, and, as I said in my first post, I tried lots of other permutations as well.

The only thing that partially worked was just using a timer. But as I detailed above, the results were not at all what they should have been.

I desperately want to get this working but I'm at a complete loss. I'd be much more suspicious of the Zappi if it hadn't worked flawlessly for a long time before I got the 3882 update.

Maybe not all 3882 updates are the same? Are you in the US? It could well be that the IE/UK version deviate slightly. I'm clutching at straws obviously..
(update, just noticed your profile and you seem to be in Switzerland..)

 

[chun]

Thanks for confirming the software version of 3882.

I have tried the settings you use (not identical but I see no substantive difference between your profile times of 23:45-07:00 and mine of 23:00-08:00).
My timer has been set to 8:00 instead of your 7:30 - again no real difference.

Everything else is the same, and, as I said in my first post, I tried lots of other permutations as well.

The only thing that partially worked was just using a timer. But as I detailed above, the results were not at all what they should have been.

I desperately want to get this working but I'm at a complete loss. I'd be much more suspicious of the Zappi if it hadn't worked flawlessly for a long time before I got the 3882 update.

Maybe not all 3882 updates are the same? Are you in the US? It could well be that the IE/UK version deviate slightly. I'm clutching at straws obviously..
(update, just noticed your profile and you seem to be in Switzerland..)

Clearly something is not the same.

Is repeat option turned on, so the timer refreshes each day? Did you select that the timer is for all 7 days of the week?

is charging turned on in the timer?

do you have multiple profiles or just the general profile?

Do the settings you see in the app match those in the car?

 

[joej]

Yes, I agree that something is not the same apart from the fact that yours works and mine doesn't. But what?

Yes, my timer is set to every day and to repeat.
Yes, charging is turned on in the timer (no climate control)

I have 2 profiles: General and a location-specific profile for Home charging.

These settings exactly match what I see in the car.

The General profile is switched off (I didn't want to confuse the issue by having 2 active profiles). But it's still there.

I'm happy to delete the location based profile completely if you think that's worth a shot. I had it switched off for the timer-only test last night, but, again, it was still in the system. In fact, I had no active profile last night at all - both General and location-based were switched off.

 

[chun]

Preatty sure the general profile must be on at all times.

I would avoid any location specific profiles; as the car loses signal very often, more often than not, which means no location, which means the profile will not work.

 

[joej]

Excellent point. I hadn't thought of the dependency on GPS in order to use the profile.

I'll try just using the General profile tonight and we'll see what happens.
Even if it does though, I still think the location-based profile should work given that it did so well before the update..

 

[Emm]

joej, some external wall chargers use their own timers as well; I have the same Porsche app settings as chun, albeit with slightly different times (25-80% at 22.00-06.00 throughout the week plus the general setting 0-25% at any time/day), but there is also an option to set a timer schedule within the wall charger app (in my case a ChargeAmps Dawn). I used to have the same time schedule set in the charger app, but I have now removed this so I can have the charger available at all times (in case I park the car at home with below 25% in the middle of the day, so that I don't have to wait until nighttime for it to commence charging). Have you checked so that you don't have an additional wall charger timer schedule that might interfere or overrun the Porsche app timer schedule?

 

[joej]

Thanks @Emm for that update. I have a Zappi charger and, although it does have scheduling capability built in, I don’t use it. I also have an electric Mini which I charge using the same charger so it gets a bit messy. And in summer when the sun shines (remember those days..) I use PV power to top up one of the cars.

In general though, I think things are actually pretty stable now. I only use the General profile and reasonable Timer times. The one thing that I hadn’t realised was that even though a profile might run from 23:00 to 08:00 the timer controls when to use that ‘window’ to achieve the target charge. So it may not start charging until 3:00am for example.

I think Porsche have made their charging functionality overly complicated compared to other vendors though. And the way the 12v battery charges isn’t ideal either. It just doesn’t make sense that it can die while the drive battery is fully charged.
I don’t want to sound negative because it’s an amazing car and I have no intention of moving it on But could it be improved? Absolutely..

 

[Emm]

Glad to hear you seem to have it under control now.

I agree, the 12V management appears to be not very well handled. I've had my car parked for several weeks in a row since November, but suddenly in early February, after having only having had the car parked for around a week since my last maintenance drive, it was suddenly dead—I couldn't even get the frunk to open with a battery booster (following the tips on a youtube video about this). I had to call a salvor who came with an extra powerful battery charger that was able to get the car started, and after having driven it over to my nearest Porsche Center where they did some software updates and charged the 12V battery again, everything is now back to normal.

I was told that it was probably some software glitch that caused one of the many control modules in the car to run rampant and drain the 12V battery. To me that sounds weird, given that I had followed the instructions properly when parking for longer periods: I had the HV cable connected, the battery setting at 80%, and I never used the app so as to not "wake" the car up (which allegedly draws power from the 12V battery). Why can't Porsche configure the car so that the 12V *always* draws power from the HV battery as long as that is above say 10% or 25%—instead of just dying while the HV battery remains at 80% capacity!

Another annoying thing is that the frunk can only be opened electrically, so if the 12V battery has died, one cannot access the 12V battery under the frunk without that cumbersome intervention down in the footwell as an intermediary step—why couldn't Porsche just put a manual lever down below the steering wheel so that the frunk could be opened by simply pulling that??

Apart from this (+ the high weight and the low range...), I think this is an amazing car—the best I've ever had (even putting my older and now second car, an RS6 Avant 2014, down to second place... and my previous Porsche, a Cayman GTS 4.0 2021, down to third... .

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