Got my Honda e fixed because of this issue today at Honda Service in Turku Finland. Heard that there was couple of other Honda e's in service today as well because of the same problem.
It was interesting to read from previous post that Kempower told somebody has already investigated and replicated the issue. Guy from Honda service told that somebody will pick up Honda e from Keskusautohalli Raisio to investigate this. Would be nice to know who told the truth.
I was at the service today and I asked him about a possible battery charging update. He said that there was no such as far as they know. He knew the problem beforehand and was very nice.
The fault code that was active was "dc positive side contactor not releasing", so basically when the car measures the voltage from the both sides of the contactor, it should not see a voltage in the chargers end when the charging is stopped. Of course if the contactor is not releasing, the car will see the battery voltage also on the other side of the contactor, which is indicating a fault in the power system.
It seems that for some reason the kempowers wont't physically disconnect the power quickly enough before they already tell the car that the charging has stopped. The car assumes the charging session has ended, opens the contactor normally, but because the chargers own contactors are still pulled in, the car sees a high voltage on both of the sides of the contactor and therefore it assumes that the contactor itself is stuck.
However, this does not explaing why only Honda e:s are experiencing this. Maybe all the other cars wait a bit in case of just this situation. However, because the problem happens clearly after charging at Kempower chargers, I would suggest there is a slight coding difference in the Kempowers which simply does not work well with Hondas. Can't really blame anyone here, but at least we know the reason for the fault code now: the misleading voltage measurement, which by itself is an important test for the car to do. Great that it functions correctly.
Any updates on this? I need to take a longer drive on the weekend and all the best (cheapest) charger locations on my route are all Kempower's.
Weirdly enough, I charged 20+ times on Kempower's over the summer and have had no errors yet. Didn't even know there's a incompatibility until I read about here.
Benji wrote: ↑Tue Sep 06, 2022 7:43 pm
I was at the service today and I asked him about a possible battery charging update. He said that there was no such as far as they know. He knew the problem beforehand and was very nice.
The fault code that was active was "dc positive side contactor not releasing", so basically when the car measures the voltage from the both sides of the contactor, it should not see a voltage in the chargers end when the charging is stopped. Of course if the contactor is not releasing, the car will see the battery voltage also on the other side of the contactor, which is indicating a fault in the power system.
It seems that for some reason the kempowers wont't physically disconnect the power quickly enough before they already tell the car that the charging has stopped. The car assumes the charging session has ended, opens the contactor normally, but because the chargers own contactors are still pulled in, the car sees a high voltage on both of the sides of the contactor and therefore it assumes that the contactor itself is stuck.
However, this does not explaing why only Honda e:s are experiencing this. Maybe all the other cars wait a bit in case of just this situation. However, because the problem happens clearly after charging at Kempower chargers, I would suggest there is a slight coding difference in the Kempowers which simply does not work well with Hondas. Can't really blame anyone here, but at least we know the reason for the fault code now: the misleading voltage measurement, which by itself is an important test for the car to do. Great that it functions correctly.
WOW. I missed this post and that is an excellent explanation by the Honda technician. I guess it could be caused by the chargers poor software stack or mechanical issue with delays in the contactor releasing on the chargers end. Perhaps the car is too quick in releasing it's contactor and then performing the check. I suspect that perhaps it is not in the charging spec how quickly some of these events should occur, but clearly should be.
I wonder whether there is an actual physical test that takes place to certify a charger to the specification, and whether this test is performed after each software update or change to components. Without certification, we could find ourselves in the 'it mostly works because it supports the spec' but we run the risk of devices/chargers being out of spec, leading to false errors reported in cars like this...
I got call from Honda Service today related to this issue. They told that there is software update for Honda e and I scheduled installation with them for next week Monday. They also told that Kempower will have software update as well.
tiitsu wrote: ↑Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:51 pm
I got call from Honda Service today related to this issue. They told that there is software update for Honda e and I scheduled installation with them for next week Monday. They also told that Kempower will have software update as well.
That would be the first Honda e software update ever, right? The Firmware Version on all current cars is still the same as on release.
tiitsu wrote: ↑Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:51 pm
I got call from Honda Service today related to this issue. They told that there is software update for Honda e and I scheduled installation with them for next week Monday. They also told that Kempower will have software update as well.
That would be the first Honda e software update ever, right? The Firmware Version on all current cars is still the same as on release.
I doubt that the over the air updates can update the firmware of various modules. I suspect that the firmware of critical components is not available to the software stack of the infotainment to update.
I could be wrong, but given how poor the integration is between the infotainment and the hardware of the car, it seems a big stretch to expect module updates to be delivered over this mechanism. It would be nice to be proved wrong. Gotta keep people coming into the dealers somehow. Otherwise no one would have needed the seatbelt update or the other 12v charging update?
Oh great, some good news in this topic! I have not yet received a call from Honda service. I called them about a week ago, and asked do they have any news about a possible fix. They asked the importer of Honda, but they didn't have anything at that time. Maybe they will call me soon? If not, I will.
And some new bits of information: my car had the "Power system problem. Power may be reduced." error again, after a fast DC charge from a K-Lataus unit (not Kempower). That error went away by itself after a full power off and restart.
I talked with a fellow Honda e owner, and they said that they have had this exact same problem many times, and the errors have been reseted at the service center already three times. The first issue was with a Kempower unit, but after that it has happened also with other brand DC fast chargers.
I hope the software update fixes these. I also think that the update is for a specific component, like the charging or battery controller unit. And the version number will not be visible anywhere for the user.
I was also in a charging module update in Keskusautohalli a couple days ago, but the guy there told me, that this is for a completely different issue, namely for the 12 volt system. Sometimes when the charging session in a DC charger is stopped, he said that the charging module will remain active even after shutdown, which in some cases could have drained the 12 volt battery in the car.
The software update at least distributed in Finland is only promising to fix that issue. However, the Kempower problem is a fault in Kempowers chargers, not in Honda's software.
