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Charging light green but not charging

Discussion in 'Prime Plug-in Charging' started by Bryce, Jun 8, 2021.

  1. Bryce

    Bryce New Member

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    2020 Prius Prime
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    XLE
    I use charge point stations at work to charge. Randomly, I will go in to charge and my connection will be green, but the prius will not be drawing any power (so no blue lights). I try multiple charge points and then finally give up. Last time this happened it went for a day or 2, and then I plugged in at home and it worked there, and then the problem was solved. I just tried plugging into a station today and the same issue happened. I am positive it is on "charge now" as I don't have a charging schedule and it works every other time. Maybe it's an issue with the computer? I know my prime restarted the display randomly so maybe there's a programming bug?
     
  2. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    Did you stop somewhere prior to stopping at work to charge?

    If you select the "charge now" function, it doesn't remember that if a stop where it wasn't connected happens.

    Something to investigate(y).
     
  3. Old Bear

    Old Bear Senior Member

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    That's interesting. I've had a couple of occasions over the four years I've owned my 2017 Prime when I plugged it in and it did not start charging. The power meter attached to my Level2 EVSE showed no current being drawn. I thought this might have something to do with the battery being too warm, but it's happened also in cool weather when the car had only been driven a few miles. And it has happened when the battery was nearly fully charged and also when it was at 50%.

    I was able to start the charging from the Toyota Entune app on my cellphone by checking the charging status and selecting the "charge now" function. If you don't have the telematics, then I'm not sure if you can issue the same command manually from the interior controls.

    As with Bryce, I don't have a charging schedule set up. Never have.

    My assumption is that this is a transient computer issue involving some unusual combination of events and possibly some bug which escaped the watchful eye of the Toyota quality control debugging process. It's happened so rarely that I've never taken the car to the dealer. And, if I did, I doubt that I could reproduce the problem.
     
  4. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    How long did you leave it plugged in before giving up and moving on? Did you try opening a door to see what message pops up on the car's display? Normally, it would show how long till it expects to be finished charging. But if there's an error, it should tell you the error. According to the manual, the illuminated charging indicator can mean one of four things:
    • Charging is in progress.
    • Charging is possible.
    • Traction battery heater
    • Traction battery cooler
    Just because the weather isn't hot doesn't necessarily mean the battery isn't hot.
     
    #4 jerrymildred, Jun 9, 2021
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2021
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  5. BiomedO1

    BiomedO1 Senior Member

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    IMHO: If it works every-time you plug-in at home; and misbehaving at the public charging station - its probably the charging stations. If your able to, check with other Toyota Prime owners - are they experiencing the same issues on your work chargers.
    According to "old bear", this issue may be related to L2 charging. I do L1 charging at home 90% of the time, the few times I,ve plugged into L2 public chargers, they have a defective sign hanging on them 30% of the time. It seems that large area employers maintain their chargers better than our area shopping malls. Just my observations.
     
    #5 BiomedO1, Jun 12, 2021
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2021
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  6. Old Bear

    Old Bear Senior Member

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    Good point. I learned that dual ChargePoint chargers share the available current between cars that are plugged in. This is an issue when an property owner has installed the EVSE charger to a smaller circuit (which may be all that the building has available) and the EVSE has been programmed not to exceed some current level. That will lengthen the time to full charge, but I doubt that it would cause no charging at all.

    As BiomedO1 says, it's most likely a defective EVSE charging station at your workplace.
     
  7. Bryce

    Bryce New Member

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    XLE
    I was eventually able to get it to work. The first time it happened, I plugged in at home and it worked then on. This last time, I kept turning the car off/on and making/deleting charging schedules. Eventually, it must have reset the bug because it started working. My thought is it has to do with the charging station, but also the computer code for recognizing level 2 chargers? Anyways, there is a 'fix' if others have this problem.