Light around the plug in door, goes completly dark

[i3sadie]

BEV i3 owner for 1 month & love it? Occasionally the light in the plug-in door goes completely off while charging. Don't believe it is in the household current because it happens at a neighbor's house the same way. Any ideas?

 

[MikeS]

According to p156 of the manual that is normal.

 

[Boxbrownie]

According to p156 of the manual that is normal.

I wonder what the thinking is behind this?

 

[KurtEndress]

I wonder what the thinking is behind this?

No need to pulse a light on the car for hours. It's not a tiny little light after all.

I was kind of concerned my i3 would have a large colored light pulsing on it all night in the driveway. Ir would be annoying and might cause unwanted attention. I was glad to find out it didn't say on all that long.

 

[kevinb61]

I wonder what the thinking is behind this?

No need to pulse a light on the car for hours. It's not a tiny little light after all.

I was kind of concerned my i3 would have a large colored light pulsing on it all night in the driveway. Ir would be annoying and might cause unwanted attention. I was glad to find out it didn't say on all that long.

+1 to this. If I want to check that it is charging, I open the door (or with fob in pocket just touch door handle), or just look at the charger itself.

 

[i3atl]

I wonder what the thinking is behind this?

No need to pulse a light on the car for hours. It's not a tiny little light after all.

I was kind of concerned my i3 would have a large colored light pulsing on it all night in the driveway. Ir would be annoying and might cause unwanted attention. I was glad to find out it didn't say on all that long.

+1 to this. If I want to check that it is charging, I open the door (or with fob in pocket just touch door handle), or just look at the charger itself.

It would be nice if someone other than the owner could determine if the car was finished charging, though. Specifically in office situations, where a number of cars share a charging cable, it's nice to know when each car is "done". Other EVs have external indicators that allow for this. In most cases you could look at the EVSE to determine if the car is still charging, but there are probably some scenarios where the EVSE is locked away or otherwise not visible, with only the cable exposed.

This goes along with the "issue" of the locked charging connector when the car is locked, even after the car is finished charging. The i3 isn't really set up for one of the common scenarios at many offices in the US, but a software fix for this issue has been mentioned several times already.

Locking issue: http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=767

 

[jadnashuanh]

If you want to precondition the vehicle before leaving, even though it had finished earlier, it still needs to be plugged in for max range (and the person may need it)! Maybe the courteous thing to do would be to leave your contact number visible, and by using the remote app, the person involved can check if it's charged. In the USA, you can only lock the car from remote, not unlock it, so you can't remotely release the plug from the car unless you call the hotline, but you'd probably not want to do that from remote.

 

[Boatguy]

One solution would be to unlock the plug at an owner designated charge level, with some external indication. Owner could also elect never. It's just software.

 

[i3atl]

One solution would be to unlock the plug at an owner designated charge level, with some external indication. Owner could also elect never. It's just software.

Yep, that would work well, and would provide similar (slightly more) functionality compared to the 3-way switch in the Leaf.

 

[MikeS]

I wonder what the thinking is behind this?

No need to pulse a light on the car for hours. It's not a tiny little light after all.

I was kind of concerned my i3 would have a large colored light pulsing on it all night in the driveway. Ir would be annoying and might cause unwanted attention. I was glad to find out it didn't say on all that long.

+1 to this. If I want to check that it is charging, I open the door (or with fob in pocket just touch door handle), or just look at the charger itself.

Or press the Bmw roundel to ‘lock’ the car and it will reactivate.

 

[Pio]

If you want to check if your car is charging you can also just use the app on your mobile device. you dont even have to be able to seen the car.. and yeah, a light staying on all night would attract some unwanted attention.

Concerning unlocking the charger when finished charging. this would indeed compromise the option of pre-conditioning the vehicle before departure. It would be a useful function for multiple users with one charger. But for people in one office building it isn't that hard to have an agreement that if you know your car is done you remove it from the charger.. anyone else can then use it. Us E-car drivers want to help each other out right?

I do still believe an option to abort charging on an other car in public charging areas should be an option, to be able to plug in yours.. Don't get me wrong i want a fair use of chargers for everyone. but... those stupid PHEVs and other plug-in hydride cars steal away my charging locations. They will be able to get home, with or without charging anyways. they just plug the car in to use the free-parking. I wont be able to get home without charging at the location (BEV not the REX). This has frustrated me ever since using the i3!

 

[DeafSoundGuy]

Man, mine is in the garage all night, but I'm pretty sure that my pulsating blue light stays on the entire time it's charging and doesn't turn off until it's done. For me, that's great because the second I step into my garage, I can see if it's done or not, but I can sure understand that it would draw unnecessary attention to it if it was outside! One should be able to alter that under settings in the real world.

 

[jadnashuanh]

If the light is flashing throughout, something is wrong! Now, sending it a preconditioning command might re-enable it as might unlocking it, but it seems to turn off, at least on mine, fairly quickly after a few minutes.

 

[WoodlandHills]

My EVSE installation has not yet been approved and connected so I am charging with the OU cord and the light flashes for the full charge on 110v.

 

[Stevei3]

Man, mine is in the garage all night, but I'm pretty sure that my pulsating blue light stays on the entire time it's charging and doesn't turn off until it's done.

There's nothing wrong. If you don't lock your car (understandable when parked inside) the charge indicator will keep blinking away in the night.

Regards, Steven

 

[jadnashuanh]

Aha! That's the difference. My car is parked outside, and almost always locked - the light turns off fairly quickly after connecting. IOW, it lets you know everything is working, then after a short delay, shuts off.