Car stops charging as soon as the door is locked.

I just got my i3 few days ago and I was having few errors when I was charging the first time. And last night, I realized that my car stops charging when I lock the car. It stops as soon as the main screen goes off. Does anybody have the similar problem? I can charge in my garage but if I go out I have to stay with my car. I will call the service after the holiday but it's frustrating.

What indication are you using to say that it stops charging? Some of the indicators do turn off. The only way to tell for sure is to look at the EVSE's indicator light...if the charging indicator is out, then, yes, it has stopped charging. My guess is, though, that it is still on, and you're fine.

There's a label on the charging door indicates the different color so you know if its charging or not....blue is charging, green is charged.

barrychan said:

There's a label on the charging door indicates the different color so you know if its charging or not....blue is charging, green is charged.

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Those do NOT stay on forever...look at the EVSE...if the charging indicator is lit, the car is charging.

jadnashuanh said:

Those do NOT stay on forever...look at the EVSE...if the charging indicator is lit, the car is charging.

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I'm afraid even that is not infallible. Our charger does not have a "charging" indication. AFAIK, the only infallible method is some form of clip on ammeter. I use my "Wattson" meter.

Why don't you use rhe app to see if it is charging?

DeJay58 said:

Why don't you use rhe app to see if it is charging?

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Well - for me, because it's easier to glance at my Wattson meter

Interesting...every EVSE I've seen has some indication that it is actually charging! Anyways, to save power, BMW assumes once you've plugged in the EVSE and verified things are working, that when you lock the car, there's no reason to leave the indicator lamp around the charge port on, and shuts it off. That is NOT an indication that the car stopped charging. If you look at the display, it will show when the car should be recharged, but that also goes out after a delay, again, to not waste energy.

When it's charging the blue light blinking, right? When I lock the car the light goes off. I know it's not charging because I checked the how much charge I have and lock the car and walk away for a long time. No charge.

I tried both at home and a charge station. At the charge station, I locked the car and walked away and when I came back, my car charge's light was off and the station display showed "error". It happened few times and I thought the connection was bad but when I was trying to charge at home the next day, I realized the locking made the charging stop.

It seems like some simple setting would clear the problem but I could not figure out.
I'm waiting for a call from the dealer.

Overhead said:

When it's charging the blue light blinking, right? When I lock the car the light goes off. I know it's not charging because I checked the how much charge I have and lock the car and walk away for a long time. No charge.

I tried both at home and a charge station. At the charge station, I locked the car and walked away and when I came back, my car charge's light was off and the station display showed "error". It happened few times and I thought the connection was bad but when I was trying to charge at home the next day, I realized the locking made the charging stop.

It seems like some simple setting would clear the problem but I could not figure out.
I'm waiting for a call from the dealer.

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The light only continues to blink if you leave the doors unlocked. Once you lock the doors, the light goes off after a very short period and there is really no indication the car is still charging unless you unlock the door and you then see the light blinking and the drivers display shows the state of charge and the time the car will complete charging, along with a line that moves from left to right which is showing you the car is charging.

What do you consider a long time? Not all EVSE's are created equal, and especially if you're using the L1 EVSE supplied with the NA i3's, it could take up to 20-hours to fully recharge the car from nearly empty.

The latest software will display the SOC when running, and you can see that slowly increasing, but having the car in READY mode will slow things down considerably (well, it won't go to READY state with the EVSE connected, but it will turn on the displays).

As has been said more than once...the indicator lights go OFF when you lock the car and is NOT an indication that it stopped charging. Look at the display before you lock the car and note the time (assuming the clock is set), and it will show you the time it thinks that it will finish recharging. That should give you a timeline you can work with. It typically is a bit faster than that, but it's not bad.

And, most EVSE's have an indicator light telling you if the car is charging. Does yours? Did you look? Sometimes, it's just an icon, but mine is labeled "CHARGING"...pretty simple.

Make sure you're charge rate is set to "maximum".

I had a similar issue when I first brought my i3 home, and I had convinced myself it was when the doors locked, but it turn out to just be something with the charging system shutting off. I convinced myself there was something either in the car or OUC disabling itself because the current flow was set to minimum. This probably is correct, but after I adjusted the settings on the car to charge at the maximum rate, I've never had this issue again.

If you have low-cost charging time window enabled, it might turn off, but it is not related to locking the doors!

My husband also has 2015 i3 and when he was charging (locked), after an hour or so when we come back it was still blinking blue.

Anyway, I know mine was not charing because after few hours it still shows exactly the same miles as I left.

I'm still experimenting few things and still waiting for the call back from the dealer.

Overhead said:

My husband also has 2015 i3 and when he was charging (locked), after an hour or so when we come back it was still blinking blue.

Anyway, I know mine was not charing because after few hours it still shows exactly the same miles as I left.

I'm still experimenting few things and still waiting for the call back from the dealer.

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The charging indicator should not continue to blink after an hour - as mentioned in previous posts it shuts off a few minutes after locking the car.

Depending on the SOC you have when you started, and the EVSE you are using, it could take as much as 20-hours to recharge the batteries (well, maybe even longer if you have the charging rate set to something other than max). If you're doing this in the evening as things are cooling off, the temperature affects how far you can go, so it is possible that you might not see that max range indication rising, depending on timing and temperature, at least until the charge builds up some more.

You've never answered the question: Does your EVSE have any indicator that says it is charging? If it does, and that lamp goes out when you lock the car, you have a real issue. If it does, and the light does NOT go out, you're tilting at windmills. Note also that, at least with most of them, once it DOES start to charge, you can hear a fairly loud clunk in the EVSE as the power contactor closes. It's normally very easy to hear over any noises the car can make when you lock it. You can also hear when it opens up with a clunk. So, you should have both visual and auditory signals something's going on. You cannot rely on the lights around the plug once you've locked the car...they intentionally go out.

Someone earlier mentioned that simply looking at the iRemote app will tell you if the car is charging. On the Status screen, if the car is plugged in, a small plug icon will show on the left side of the screen. If the plug is blinking (I think, mine is not plugged in currently), it means the car is charging. If the plug is solid, then its not charging. It might also have text to that effect.

Did anyone find a solution to this problem? As I have just got a new i3 and have the same problem. I've left it at a public charge master port for the first time today on the AC rapid charger, plugged in etc all fine. Locked my car, the blue charging light turned off but I thought nothing of it, and took my little boy to the cinema. We were gone for about 4 hours and when I've come back it hasn't charged at all, still on the same % before I left it. Not sure what I'm doing wrong..

Have you checked that the car is set to "Charge Immediately" in the settings menu? As someone else has already said, there are low cost time settings for charging that will cause the car not to charge immediately.

Interesting:

Kmichelle7 said:

Did anyone find a solution to this problem? As I have just got a new i3 and have the same problem. I've left it at a public charge master port for the first time today on the AC rapid charger, plugged in etc all fine. Locked my car, the blue charging light turned off but I thought nothing of it, and took my little boy to the cinema. We were gone for about 4 hours and when I've come back it hasn't charged at all, still on the same % before I left it. Not sure what I'm doing wrong..

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I have not seen this problem. Could you provide some details with photos of the charger and car showing the effect of "lock" and "unlock" of the car?

I'm especially interested in knowing:

• Show it charging initially unlocked.
• Show it stops using fob to lock car.
• Show if it restarts using fob to unlock car.

This could be a problem with the commercial charger so we really need to know details about it. See if you can post a photo of the equipment plate that show the manufacturer and version. It would also help to know the software version of your car. We don't want to leave anything to guess about the configuration.

Bob Wilson