MY FIRST, LONG AND DISAPOINTING DRIVE

Ross congratulations on Ikea! I tried ikea Tottenham, station from ecotricity and no joy.
Did you try the tilt up advice?

I tried the AC station at Donnington, I tilted it, saw the car charging and walked off. On return it was flashing red so no charge.
I will now park the car close to the station so that most of the cable is hanging on the station hook via the grey handle, thus relieving most of the strain on the plug.

I think the best solution is to have the i3 socket moved nearer the ground, with an angle that prevents straining.

Gonville said:

There has been some dialogue on another forum about this. Ecotricity have been on to BMW and apparently the charging base plate in the car flexes with the weight of the cable resulting in the car not detecting enough voltage. So the trick is apparently to slightly hold the cable up just as the initial dialogue takes place. So that the plate is not flexed. Thereafter it appears to work ok. The big CCS cable causes this due to its weight but it sounds like the flexing may cause the pins not to quite touch at that handshake stage with the AC cables too maybe?

Hope that helps. Worth a try next time?

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Yes indeed Gonville, i stated this earlier in this thread that an ecotricity engineer rang me 3 weeks ago to let me know about BMW's flexing/hand shake problem. clearly once you let go of the plug the weight of the cable pulls it down again so as well as tilting up it could be worth supporting the cable as much as possible by parking nearer and using minimum length of cable.

So anywhere that one of these chargemaps lists a Mennekes 43kW AC charger (e.g. Fleet Services), we will get 7kW for now, until they upgrade them with CCS capability?

choddo said:

So anywhere that one of these chargemaps lists a Mennekes 43kW AC charger (e.g. Fleet Services), we will get 7kW for now, until they upgrade them with CCS capability?

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...and you have DC preparation option. Otherwise CCS is no benefit to you. Is that right folks?

Gonville said:

...and you have DC preparation option. Otherwise CCS is no benefit to you. Is that right folks?

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Correct, you must have the DC prep to get a charge from a rapid DC charging point.

Bill

So, has BMW fixed the i3's charge socket plate that suffers from 'flexing'?

Should they do a recall to repair / replace the affected part?

Does anyone else suffer charging failures when flexing problem kicks in?(whether at home or at public points)

i3MK said:

So, has BMW fixed the i3's charge socket plate that suffers from 'flexing'?

Should they do a recall to repair / replace the affected part?

Does anyone else suffer charging failures when flexing problem kicks in?(whether at home or at public points)

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Not heard anything about a recall but ideally I think the socket is in the wrong place. It should be low down with an uphill angle.

I don't yet have an i3 to play with, but would an angler's rod rest (or some similar prop) underneath the cable at the gun end prop up the cable enough to maintain contact? Could a cheap fix.

did 600km round trip to Beaune France last weekend with the Rex on a lot. no issues other than once over heating of the Rex once. charged up at home and then at the hotels (household charger in use).

worked fine. solution to Rex over heating was to turn it off a few miles before fill up to let it air cool down.

btw you can assign the "hold steady charge" to a multi function button.

bryand said:

I don't yet have an i3 to play with, but would an angler's rod rest (or some similar prop) underneath the cable at the gun end prop up the cable enough to maintain contact? Could a cheap fix.

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A rod would probably flex also, someone earlier suggested a wedge immediately below the plug. As long as you tilt the plug during charging initialisation so that the station and i3 connect you should be able to let go without it cancelling

I wonder if the issues may be a difference in the plug chosen for the Euro zone verses that used in the USA? The one in the USA has a mechanical latch at the top, and with the weight of the plug, seems to hold just fine. I'd heard that a few of the older EVSE out there may have had an issue, but I'm not sure if all of those have all of the signaling lines that the latest SAE standard as used in NA were implemented fully. FWIW, it is my understanding that the plug in the Euro zone is a Mennekes (sp?) design, that in the USA is designed to SAE J1772.