2016 not charging when cold

Hi,
my 2016 Leaf often refuses to charge at home when it's cold (even above freezing is sufficient to show this). I have a Pulsar Wallbox and it normally works fine.

Basically I connect the car, unlock the charger to start and after a few seconds the charge stops for no reason. I have OVMS installed in the Leaf and looking at logs, the session is stopped by the car with the message "Charge Stopped; Timer On". Useless to say, the timer is disabled in the car ( I even tried pressing the override button but nope...).

I can't really confirm it, but it seems to happen only when it's cold outside (but not super cold, let's say around 1/0 C). BUT! If I bring the car to a charger on the road the charge starts without problems and goes on.

I've been banging my head about this for months... I cannot understand what the issue is. I even asked the Wallbox people but all they say it's that the session is stopped by the car, so they can't do anything.

I don't really know how to troubleshooting further... car is not in warranty and even then the local dutch Nissan dealer knows less about this car than myself...  

Any ideas?

If it only happens at home then it's the L2 EVSE. Try another L2 EVSE at home as a test.

That's be a rather expensive test to run... right? Also, this is not happening 100% of the times, so even if I found someone with a different charger to let me test it would not be conclusive...

Support at Wallbox declared that since it's the car that refuses to start the session, it's not on their side.

Does anyone know (or knows how to find out) what parameters the Leaf uses to decide whether to charge or not?

andyfsimon said:

Basically I connect the car, unlock the charger to start and after a few seconds the charge stops for no reason. I have OVMS installed in the Leaf and looking at logs, the session is stopped by the car with the message "Charge Stopped; Timer On". Useless to say, the timer is disabled in the car ( I even tried pressing the override button but nope...).

I can't really confirm it, but it seems to happen only when it's cold outside (but not super cold, let's say around 1/0 C). BUT! If I bring the car to a charger on the road the charge starts without problems and goes on.

Click to expand...

First off, I think your car is basically "fine", and I get that OVMS message (about the timer)...which you can basically ignore.
I don't know your location or how long the car was "sitting" before attempting to charge, but I think the battery pack is just colder than you think...which is a problem for Lithium (and really all) battery types. I suspect the reason it works when you "drive" to another charger is the fact that merely driving the car warms the battery pack...after which it charges fine. Hint: "trickle charging" (on like 120v instead of 240v) will keep your pack warm...just like driving it. Obviously, that's not something you would need to do when it's warmer.

That's an interesting take. I also don't really know how cold the battery is, but I am not sure this qualifies: the issue happens even after a distance driven (like, 25/30 km) and the public charger we take it when the issue happens is literally the other side of the road.

As for the trickle charge, we're in the Netherlands so only 240V is available. But do you mean I should use the granny charger instead of the Wallbox in these cases?

andyfsimon said:

As for the trickle charge, we're in the Netherlands so only 240V is available. But do you mean I should use the granny charger instead of the Wallbox in these cases?

Click to expand...

I was just saying: charge at a lower C-rate (however you do that). It could be a lower voltage/current/whatever setting (and EVSE) that charges at a slower rate.
Compared to anything I experience, I'd say the Netherlands is Cold (with a capital C)!

Best I can do with the PulsarPlus is charging at 6A. Doesn't go lower than that and it's still not doing the trick.
As for the dutch climate, we're actually a temperate zone, it barely snows and we rarely have temps below -5... it's nowhere as cold as many places in the US during winter.