Update on KLE replacement problem

I believe 14-11-504 is the latest version available - but 14-11-502 should be cable of driving a new updated KLE to its full potential.

Thanks I will attempt to check it in the weekend and post back on charging rate for the 14-11-502 software.

Lykke said:

Thanks I will attempt to check it in the weekend and post back on charging rate for the 14-11-502 software.

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This version does support the full charging rate - that's what my car currently has, as it had the KLE replaced prior to the official bulletin (and 504 software) being out in the US.

Lykke said:

Unfortunately I can not get numbers out of my EVESE at the moment, but I do suspect I have reduced charging rate. The car was produced in November and hence with the new KLE, but I am not sure the software supports 32amp charging.

My SW is I001-14-11-502. Does this SW version support 32amp charging? Thx.

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Yes it does.

Just got my i3 back after KLE change. I had been calling the dealer every 3 days, or so; to inquire if recall for KLE had appeared. When it did, I made a service appt for the first available one with a loaner. After waiting a week, car went in to dealer. Had asked earlier if part could be pre-ordered. Service rep said no. Delivered car on Tue morn at 9:30am. 4 recalls outstanding: KLE, tighten door bolts, tank pressure sensor and software update. BMW loaner not available--got Hertz base Yaris from Hertz that reeked of cigarette smoke. Hertz asked what kind of BMW I was having serviced, when I said i3, all they heard was "3", so I expect that was why I got a Yaris--Hint, if this happens to you, say "760". Called on Friday about 3pm--"car is ready, parts were in stock".

I charged it for 1/2 hr at the dealership public charger (service dept had not charged it) and charger showed 6.6 kW charge rate. Charged overnight at my home 30 amp EVSE and range in the morning was almost 80 miles. This was much more than had occured before (derated charging software installed before I took delivery), which was usually in the high 60's. From this, I infer that the software patch to lower charge rate also lowered max charge. Is this possible?

ted99 said:

I charged it for 1/2 hr at the dealership public charger (service dept had not charged it) and charger showed 6.6 kW charge rate. Charged overnight at my home 30 amp EVSE and range in the morning was almost 80 miles. This was much more than had occured before (derated charging software installed before I took delivery), which was usually in the high 60's. From this, I infer that the software patch to lower charge rate also lowered max charge. Is this possible?

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No, there's no change in the actual range of the car. They may have tweaked the GoM to be (hopefully) more accurate, but most likely it's just showing a higher number due to the way it was driven over the last 18 miles.

Got mine back from the dealer last week, only kept her 1.5 days. Charged last night at level 2 chargepoint and showed rate at 6.0. Definitely faster than before but not what some are getting.

ATXMARC said:

Got mine back from the dealer last week, only kept her 1.5 days. Charged last night at level 2 chargepoint and showed rate at 6.0. Definitely faster than before but not what some are getting.

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You need to test elsewhere that's known to have 240V 30/32A service. Many of the public locations are being fed by 208V which at 30A will top out at 6.2kW.

ted99 said:

I charged it for 1/2 hr at the dealership public charger (service dept had not charged it) and charger showed 6.6 kW charge rate. Charged overnight at my home 30 amp EVSE and range in the morning was almost 80 miles.

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Did you time the charge and work out the charge rate out of your juicebox?

I've had old KLE with 502 and now have new KLE with 504. Both are/were supporting full rate charging:



I have OpenEVSE set to 32A charge on 50A circuit.

No. Since the level 2 charging current varies with time, it's tough to get an average charging current. I have the basic juicebox, so no readout of charging current. A number of times, I've deliberately run the battery down so that I arrive on the Rex motor and then go for a full charge. Prior to the KLE change, the charging time prediction has consistently been 4 hours. I'll be trying this again to see if there is a decrease. The juicebox has a pot that can be adjusted for max charge rate and the default position of fully counterclockwise is supposed to be 30 amps. That's where I have the pot and at my line voltage of a true 240v, I should be getting the full output of the KLE's. One of these days, I'll borrow a clamp-on ammeter to measure the current at the breaker and, if necessary, to set the pot for a full 32 amps, or so; just to be sure I get the full output of the KLE's.

The magic number here is 7400W maximum. It will depend on your input voltage, how many amps are required to reach that maximum. And, I'm not sure if the input to the i3 is actually power or current limited. FWIW, the standard as defined in the USA verses Europe is the USA 30A EVSE is 30A continuous, while the same thing in Europe would be rated as 32A, as they rate theirs via a peak rating. IOW, they are the same. With my typical ac supply voltage, 7400W can be achieved with about 30.2A. I do not know how granular the internal sensor on the i3 is, but it probably can't discriminate a difference in the PWM signal to achieve that. I typically see about 7100W going into my i3 near the beginning before it starts to taper off at the end based on the inline meter I installed to the feed of my EVSE, and, I saw that both before and after the KLE was replaced with my typical driving (not far, cooler temperatures).

ted99 said:

No. Since the level 2 charging current varies with time, it's tough to get an average charging current. I have the basic juicebox, so no readout of charging current. A number of times, I've deliberately run the battery down so that I arrive on the Rex motor and then go for a full charge. Prior to the KLE change, the charging time prediction has consistently been 4 hours. I'll be trying this again to see if there is a decrease. The juicebox has a pot that can be adjusted for max charge rate and the default position of fully counterclockwise is supposed to be 30 amps. That's where I have the pot and at my line voltage of a true 240v, I should be getting the full output of the KLE's. One of these days, I'll borrow a clamp-on ammeter to measure the current at the breaker and, if necessary, to set the pot for a full 32 amps, or so; just to be sure I get the full output of the KLE's.

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Here is graph of my i3 Rex charging from zero (well ~6%, REx was on when I got back home) to 100%



As you can see it draws 7.4kW for about 2.5h then starts to taper the current down and it takes another 1.5h to fully charge it. Considering that [email protected] is 18.5kWh and how fast the current is tapered down I'd say that it starts tampering current around 95%. So it gives pretty steady speed of charge of 2% every 3 minutes.

I also got my on board charger replaced several weeks ago because I found the charge rate was cut in half after a recent software update. I had brought the vehicle in for the check engine light (AGAIN!) after it had been fixed back in the summer (I got my car on 5/28 and in August 2014 it had the CEL issue)... They wound up updating the software, a 4 day ordeal. That totally screwed my charge rate time as per BMW trying to save the on board chargers from burning up. Brought the car to OC BMW (in NY) and they did a great job of replacing the on board charger and updating the software (and informed me another update is coming in the weeks ahead). This solved my charge rate issue. From 6% to full it took just under 4 hours. I installed the Leviton 9.6kWh charger before I bought the car, which of course is more than I need for the i3. Thanks to this article: http://insideevs.com/bmw-to-finally-replace-i3-onboard-charger-to-restore-promised-7-4-kw-charging-rate/ which led me to show the dealer the article, which they quickly acted upon.

I had my KLE replaced last week and overall it was pretty uneventful. The car went in on Thursday morning and I got it back on Friday mid-day with an 320 ICE loaner in between. The SA did tell me that BMW would not let them stock the parts and they had to order it, but she was optimistic that they could get it the same day which apparently was the case because she called on Thursday night to tell me the work was finished, but the software was still updating so they'd be keeping it overnight.

I only have L1 at home so it's hard to do a definitive test, but I tried two L2 public chargers which had previously never been above 5.5Kw and both charged at 6.1Kw. Not a huge improvement, but with a 30a charger and 208v (my guess), that's all I can expect. Later this year I'll have a 40a L2 charger at home and can give it a real test.

The software update reset all the vehicle settings which was annoying. I had saved personal profiles, but it looked like they were untouched, though I restored both from a USB anyway. I had to manually reset various vehicle settings (door locks, trip meter auto reset, etc.).

The GOM seems to be more optimistic than during the previous s/w (updated to fix the A/C failure). With the prior version I could drive 20mi, be down one bar and it would tell me the remaining range was 52mi. I got into the car at the dealer, not fully charged and it predicted 80 right off the bat. When I had again used one bar after 20mi it was reporting 59-61 which seemed pretty reasonable. However, it also reset the "lifetime" average mi/kWh (which was previously reporting 4.0 - 4.1) so maybe that's also a factor.

I took the opportunity to update the tele/audio software to the latest version off the BMW web site. The only noticeable change was that when playing audio from my iPhone it now correctly updates as each track changes where previously it would show the first track information no matter how many tracks it played.

I never received a recall notice from BMW, this was all initiated by me. That said, it went smoothly and the previous 5.5kW limit appears to have been removed.

Boatguy said:

I never received a recall notice from BMW, this was all initiated by me. That said, it went smoothly and the previous 5.5kW limit appears to have been removed.

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It's not technically a recall, it's a service program, and BMW is staging them so that they don't run out and people have to wait if one actually died. Eventually, my guess before later spring when it gets warmer, everyone would have been notified. I don't know why, but with the software they did late summer, and the way I drive, I did not see a slowdown in charging on mine. Those in places like maybe Florida or California where it may still be warm are likely getting called first verses the rest of the country where right now, it's in the teens outside and there's no heat related slowdown needed.

jadnashuanh said:

Boatguy said:

I never received a recall notice from BMW, this was all initiated by me. That said, it went smoothly and the previous 5.5kW limit appears to have been removed.

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It's not technically a recall, it's a service program, and BMW is staging them so that they don't run out and people have to wait if one actually died. Eventually, my guess before later spring when it gets warmer, everyone would have been notified. I don't know why, but with the software they did late summer, and the way I drive, I did not see a slowdown in charging on mine. Those in places like maybe Florida or California where it may still be warm are likely getting called first verses the rest of the country where right now, it's in the teens outside and there's no heat related slowdown needed.

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I am in NY and I got mine replaced because I told them they had to fix the fact that my vehicle was charging at half the rate it was before they did a software update in early December. That involved them removing the back end of the vehicle and installing a new on-board charger. After that, and a software update, all done in a day, it works like it used to, charging at the rate it was for the first 6 months I had the vehicle. BMW Orange County NY did a great job getting this done in early January.

I'm not saying you can't get yours replaced 'early', I did, but that BMW may not call you immediately so that they can stage them and not create a backup. They WILL call you to schedule the replacement eventually, though, if it has not already been done. My guess, their goal is to get them all changed out before summer arrives. This will also leave some time for the techs to be able to service other i3's as they may need it, and not constantly be tied up replacing KLE modules on cars that are working.

jadnashuanh said:

I'm not saying you can't get yours replaced 'early', I did, but that BMW may not call you immediately so that they can stage them and not create a backup. They WILL call you to schedule the replacement eventually, though, if it has not already been done. My guess, their goal is to get them all changed out before summer arrives. This will also leave some time for the techs to be able to service other i3's as they may need it, and not constantly be tied up replacing KLE modules on cars that are working.

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I agree and it would be bad PR to do a recall on the on-board chargers of their first mass produced EV. I wonder how much this would cost if I had to pay for it out of pocket. A whole lot I am thinking. Of course anyone having an issue like this (see the vehicle charging at half the rate it used to) is entitled to the KLE replacement upon request. I only noticed mine though after I read the article on the blog. It just irks me that BMW did not tell me they were installing a software update that would cut my charge time in have, in order to protect a faulty on-board charger. My software update was for fixing the CEL issue (again). I am sure it's not something they want to make widely known either, but it seems sneaky to me.

In the industry, a recall (at least in the USA) is done for safety reasons and monitored and sometimes initiated by the government. A service campaign is a voluntary thing done at the discretion of the car manufacturer. The KLE is a service campaign, and is totally at the discretion of the car manufacturer. FWIW, and I've said this before, not everyone saw slower recharging...in my case, since it's been cold (it is winter here after all), I was getting the full capacity of my EVSE, a bit over 7Kw even with the original limiting software - IOW, mine may only be very slightly marginally higher (a few hundred watts) now. It may be how I drive my car...literally short distances and the internals don't get hot enough for the software to limit the recharge rate in combination with the chilly ambient temps here. I was seeing 29A on my EVSE to the i3 before, and slightly more, maybe 29.3A peak now. Now, I have not monitored it long-term - only spot checked, and I've not had the new KLE more than a few weeks. Plus, I don't drive all that much to need to recharge it! Only have about 1800 miles on it since late June 2014. I bought it to save my ICE from all of the short trips.