Hi folks
Just PX’d a BMW I3 for a 2025 model Born VZ, new to the forum.
Schedule charging, has come up before, but my issues are specific.
I am on an Octopus tariff with half price periods during daytime and overnight. Obviously I want to charge it automatically during the cheap slots. Charging routines are programmed in the car via the app, but don’t work. A possible reason is I don’t understand the relationship between scheduled times and departure times. I tried various departure times, 10 pm, one day, every day -nothing works.
If someone knows how to do this reliably, please advise.
Charging my I3 using the scheduler in the car was 100% reliable. This is a real pain!
The car charges fine on “charge immediately” via the app (strangely the app says a routine is in progress - I don’t get it).
Others on the forum say the car’s timer scheduler is useless, avoid it, use schedules in the charger.
I tried that with my GIV charger, no joy. On plugging the cable into the car, the connection drops, the light blinks white (once it went red).
The car only stays connected when the cable is live, with the charger in “plug and go”. When plugging in the cable, you hear the breaker in the charger latch, the car starts charging.
When the charger is set with a schedule, on plugging in, the breaker doesn’t latch. The app shows “not ready”. When the scheduled time arrives, nothing happens. It’s as if the car “trips out” unless the cable is live.
So I can charge, but only manually.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks, Alan
Schedule Charging Born VZ
Hi Alan.
I had similar issues with my V2 (MY25 so has the same infotainment as your VZ) initially but got there in the end.
It appears that there is an issue with the Born and ID3 which prevents scheduled charging working properly if trying to schedule via your charger. The car goes into sleep mode and does not wake when the charger initiates the charge. If you Google this you'll find quite a bit about it.
I was also confused by the idea of departure times and initially couldn't get the in car scheduler working properly. However once I realised that you don't need to set a departure time - just the preferred charging schedule - it worked fine. I think the departure time is just related to automatic warming of the car? I may be wrong.
If you delete all existing schedules. Create a new one when the car is next to your charger (it uses location). Create it in the car via the infotainment, not the mobile app. Set the schedule for the off-peak times but leave departure time blank. Plug the car into the charger and ensure that on the infotainment screen it is set to "charge at preferred time" rather than "charge immediately" (I only had to change this once and the car now remembers). Lock the car and leave it. Fingers crossed you should wake up to a fully charged car.
Let me know if that works?
I had similar issues with my V2 (MY25 so has the same infotainment as your VZ) initially but got there in the end.
It appears that there is an issue with the Born and ID3 which prevents scheduled charging working properly if trying to schedule via your charger. The car goes into sleep mode and does not wake when the charger initiates the charge. If you Google this you'll find quite a bit about it.
I was also confused by the idea of departure times and initially couldn't get the in car scheduler working properly. However once I realised that you don't need to set a departure time - just the preferred charging schedule - it worked fine. I think the departure time is just related to automatic warming of the car? I may be wrong.
If you delete all existing schedules. Create a new one when the car is next to your charger (it uses location). Create it in the car via the infotainment, not the mobile app. Set the schedule for the off-peak times but leave departure time blank. Plug the car into the charger and ensure that on the infotainment screen it is set to "charge at preferred time" rather than "charge immediately" (I only had to change this once and the car now remembers). Lock the car and leave it. Fingers crossed you should wake up to a fully charged car.
Let me know if that works?
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chestermana
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2025 4:43 pm
Thanks, JM84, very helpful indeed!
Looks like you had the identical problem with charger scheduling, your explanation re car going to sleep makes 100% sense.
Will give the car scheduler a shot per instructions, if departure time not needed all the better - always seemed way over complicated to me!
The car is fully charged at the moment, will be a few days before I can try it out and report back.
Thx again, Alan
Looks like you had the identical problem with charger scheduling, your explanation re car going to sleep makes 100% sense.
Will give the car scheduler a shot per instructions, if departure time not needed all the better - always seemed way over complicated to me!
The car is fully charged at the moment, will be a few days before I can try it out and report back.
Thx again, Alan
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chestermana
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2025 4:43 pm
Going slightly off topic, am I alone in finding the strong advice to keep the battery between 20% and 80% when not going long distances? Having paid extra for the a 79 kWh battery & 300 odd mile summervrange, it feels absurd and a giant tip off to be scared/bullied by VAG into a narrower states of charge that limit range to 60% of that, ie 180 miles with less in winter.
The range in my old i3 was much less (c 150 miles summer), but I charged it to 100% all the time, after 3 years it had zero drop off. So advice for the Born seems OTT, for less damaging slow home charging at least (I don’t doubt that continued hammering 150 KW DC on fast chargers not a good idea). I reckon VAG is trying to avoid warranty claims through this advice, however I am pretty sure that non adherence should not void the warranty. So I intend to charge it to 100% whenever I can.
What do you think?
The range in my old i3 was much less (c 150 miles summer), but I charged it to 100% all the time, after 3 years it had zero drop off. So advice for the Born seems OTT, for less damaging slow home charging at least (I don’t doubt that continued hammering 150 KW DC on fast chargers not a good idea). I reckon VAG is trying to avoid warranty claims through this advice, however I am pretty sure that non adherence should not void the warranty. So I intend to charge it to 100% whenever I can.
What do you think?
I can't comment from a technical perspective on the battery technology, but personally speaking, mine being charged to 100% every time. I've gotten used to ignoring the notifications suggesting otherwise.
Mine is the 59kwh model and the 200ish mile range its capable of in this weather is sufficient for my use, but much less than this and it would become an irritation.
I also can't see any enforcement of the warranty based on charging behaviour being feasible. If it were that serious they wouldn't let you charge it to 100% in the first place. More likely they know that in 10+ years these cars will have battery degradation and anything they can do to mitigate it at the first owner stage will help prevent reputational damage down the line.
Plus, speaking frankly, mine is a 24 month lease via VWFS, so I've no incentive to do anything other than use it to its limits for two years and then hand it back.
Mine is the 59kwh model and the 200ish mile range its capable of in this weather is sufficient for my use, but much less than this and it would become an irritation.
I also can't see any enforcement of the warranty based on charging behaviour being feasible. If it were that serious they wouldn't let you charge it to 100% in the first place. More likely they know that in 10+ years these cars will have battery degradation and anything they can do to mitigate it at the first owner stage will help prevent reputational damage down the line.
Plus, speaking frankly, mine is a 24 month lease via VWFS, so I've no incentive to do anything other than use it to its limits for two years and then hand it back.
Loads of studies have shown the batteries to have the maximum longevity when kept inside around 50-80%. Cupra are simply trying to help you maximise the life of the car.chestermana wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 8:39 pm Going slightly off topic, am I alone in finding the strong advice to keep the battery between 20% and 80% when not going long distances? Having paid extra for the a 79 kWh battery & 300 odd mile summervrange, it feels absurd and a giant tip off to be scared/bullied by VAG into a narrower states of charge that limit range to 60% of that, ie 180 miles with less in winter.
The range in my old i3 was much less (c 150 miles summer), but I charged it to 100% all the time, after 3 years it had zero drop off. So advice for the Born seems OTT, for less damaging slow home charging at least (I don’t doubt that continued hammering 150 KW DC on fast chargers not a good idea). I reckon VAG is trying to avoid warranty claims through this advice, however I am pretty sure that non adherence should not void the warranty. So I intend to charge it to 100% whenever I can.
What do you think?
You can charge to 100% but why would you regularly want to? We go to 100% for long journeys maybe once a month but I see no reason to not keep this car for a long time so I'd like to still have good range in 10 years time. Or if I don't have the car I'd like the battery to be in good condition for environmental purposes and the next owner.
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chestermana
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2025 4:43 pm
Thanks
Both valid points of view.
On using the battery within a narrow range to avoid degradation, I think the manufacturers protect against this to an extent by providing overcapacity that users can’t access. For this reason VZ has 84 KWh, only 79 KWh is usable. My home battery is the same - 16 KWh battery, usable 13.5 KWh
At this time of the year in Scotland, the range isn’t great, even on the VZ. As charging is via manual intervention, going to 100% make sense.
If I could get timed charge to work, regular top ups would be much easier, less faff.
I did more reading up. The big battery killers are rapid charging and heat. The two tend to go together, though obviously rapid charging in summer is a worst case scenario. I charge almost all at home on cheap juice. I charged my old I3 to 100% constantly. With 16k and 4 years on the clock it showed no range degradation whatsoever. I doubt charging to 100% does much harm. I plan to keep the car for the long term, we shall see!
Cheers, Alan
Stop press - the car is charging on its own timed schedule, without intervention! Hoorah! Thanks for the advice, JM84!!!
Both valid points of view.
On using the battery within a narrow range to avoid degradation, I think the manufacturers protect against this to an extent by providing overcapacity that users can’t access. For this reason VZ has 84 KWh, only 79 KWh is usable. My home battery is the same - 16 KWh battery, usable 13.5 KWh
At this time of the year in Scotland, the range isn’t great, even on the VZ. As charging is via manual intervention, going to 100% make sense.
If I could get timed charge to work, regular top ups would be much easier, less faff.
I did more reading up. The big battery killers are rapid charging and heat. The two tend to go together, though obviously rapid charging in summer is a worst case scenario. I charge almost all at home on cheap juice. I charged my old I3 to 100% constantly. With 16k and 4 years on the clock it showed no range degradation whatsoever. I doubt charging to 100% does much harm. I plan to keep the car for the long term, we shall see!
Cheers, Alan
Stop press - the car is charging on its own timed schedule, without intervention! Hoorah! Thanks for the advice, JM84!!!
Sounds like a charger issue to me, I’m also on Octopus Go but have a Zappi. I have set a schedule in the Zappi to charge between 23:30 and 05:30 and set the Zappi to eco+ should my house battery be filled by solar the Zappi will kick in and charge the car, if not it will charge between the set times to make the most of the go tariff.chestermana wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 8:20 pm Hi folks
Just PX’d a BMW I3 for a 2025 model Born VZ, new to the forum.
Schedule charging, has come up before, but my issues are specific.
I am on an Octopus tariff with half price periods during daytime and overnight. Obviously I want to charge it automatically during the cheap slots. Charging routines are programmed in the car via the app, but don’t work. A possible reason is I don’t understand the relationship between scheduled times and departure times. I tried various departure times, 10 pm, one day, every day -nothing works.
If someone knows how to do this reliably, please advise.
Charging my I3 using the scheduler in the car was 100% reliable. This is a real pain!
The car charges fine on “charge immediately” via the app (strangely the app says a routine is in progress - I don’t get it).
Others on the forum say the car’s timer scheduler is useless, avoid it, use schedules in the charger.
I tried that with my GIV charger, no joy. On plugging the cable into the car, the connection drops, the light blinks white (once it went red).
The car only stays connected when the cable is live, with the charger in “plug and go”. When plugging in the cable, you hear the breaker in the charger latch, the car starts charging.
When the charger is set with a schedule, on plugging in, the breaker doesn’t latch. The app shows “not ready”. When the scheduled time arrives, nothing happens. It’s as if the car “trips out” unless the cable is live.
So I can charge, but only manually.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks, Alan
-
chestermana
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2025 4:43 pm
The car is charging fine now using the car’s charge scheduler.
I think J_Mitch is right, when using the timer in the wall charger, it switches off the main power to the cable. When the car detects this, it goes to sleep or kind of ‘trips out’ - when the wall charger turns on the supply on its timer, the car remains tripped out and doesn’t charge. Maybe other wall chargers work differently, but certainly you can’t use the scheduler in my GIV charger with my Born.
On the question of battery life and care, there is a Petrol Ped vid well worth watching where he discusses this with the boss of Electric Classic Cars, the outfit featured in the Vintage Voltage tv show. He talks in terms of 200,000 miles life at 90% odd deterioration for a modern, well looked after battery with on board heat management. If you ran a car 100 - 0% regularly using rapid chargers it might be a bit less but I got the sense the wheels are very unlikely to fall off. He is an engineer and should know. It makes sense to me, I think in most cases there should be nothing to worry about and a 10% drop off in 10 years or so is no big deal with a large capacity battery like mine (79 KWh).
Generally I aim to charge mine up to 100% using the wall chargers given enough charge time. In practice, I charge only at cheap rate means more often than not the car only gets to 70 or 80% by the time I next use it, because a full charge takes 8 or 10 hours!
I think J_Mitch is right, when using the timer in the wall charger, it switches off the main power to the cable. When the car detects this, it goes to sleep or kind of ‘trips out’ - when the wall charger turns on the supply on its timer, the car remains tripped out and doesn’t charge. Maybe other wall chargers work differently, but certainly you can’t use the scheduler in my GIV charger with my Born.
On the question of battery life and care, there is a Petrol Ped vid well worth watching where he discusses this with the boss of Electric Classic Cars, the outfit featured in the Vintage Voltage tv show. He talks in terms of 200,000 miles life at 90% odd deterioration for a modern, well looked after battery with on board heat management. If you ran a car 100 - 0% regularly using rapid chargers it might be a bit less but I got the sense the wheels are very unlikely to fall off. He is an engineer and should know. It makes sense to me, I think in most cases there should be nothing to worry about and a 10% drop off in 10 years or so is no big deal with a large capacity battery like mine (79 KWh).
Generally I aim to charge mine up to 100% using the wall chargers given enough charge time. In practice, I charge only at cheap rate means more often than not the car only gets to 70 or 80% by the time I next use it, because a full charge takes 8 or 10 hours!
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chestermana
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2025 4:43 pm
I should add, I am on Octopus Cosy, for heat pumps users. Cosy has three cheap rate (13 p/KWh) periods, 4-7 am 1-4 pm and 10-12 pm, 8 hours in total. With 3 periods it is impractical to charge the car for the 8 cheap rate hours manually. All 3 periods are programmed into the car’s charge scheduler. Providing the car is plugged in and set to charge, the scheduler switches the wall charger on and off at these periods automatically until it hits the set level (80 or 100%) or you unplug it. You can also turn it off and on with the Cupra app, which can be handy.
All this might be obvious to more experienced Borners, but it took me a couple of months to figure it out and charge the reliably with minimum faff.
Cheers, Alan
All this might be obvious to more experienced Borners, but it took me a couple of months to figure it out and charge the reliably with minimum faff.
Cheers, Alan
