Category: ZOE

A lot has been written, assumed, wrongly (and rightly) measured and interpreted about the efficiency of the charger. The biggest problem has always been that the big capacitors in the the charger filter section create a fairly large phase shift (phi) so real power is not the same as RMS voltage times current. This is not inefficiency. It’s, at most, ineffectiveness.

I have been in contact with an Italian professor in Power Electronics and he has put an R110 on some serious lab equipment. The results are as follows

Set point current (A)	Power battery (W) *)	Power AC (W)	Current AC (A)	Power efficiency (%)
32	6043	7070	31.6	85.5
28	5325	6300	28.1	84.5
24	4366	5230	23.4	83.5
20	3543	4270	19.6	81.1
16	2840	3560	16.2	80.7
13	1881	2540	11.8	74.1
10	1341	1940	9.3	69.0

*) Battery power (DC) was derived from CanZE, voltage times current

Conclusion: If charging at a 16A setpoint (single phase), the efficiency is only a few percents lower than the highest measured. 85.5% is nothing to write home about but not bad. 80.7% at 16A is surely not as bad as some people would like you to believe.

I hope to get my hands on some 3 phase measurement. There is reason to believe the efficiency could be better, as there is a lot less curve following to do.

Note: I drafted this post in February and somehow never published it.

Github user SMCinc posted his research on ZOE’s TPMS system in CanZE’s issue tracker.

The proper TPMS sensors can be coaxed to transmit their ID using 125 kHz activation tool. Those tools are cheaper than a decent dongle. Search for “EL 50448”.

The transmission of the sensor can be received by a cheap DVB-T USB Stick with RTL2832 chipset and the rtl_433 software from Github and a Zadig driver (latter only if on Windows). It runs fine on a Raspberry Pi.

rtl_433 -f 434000000 -R 123

Here is example output

The ID of the the sensor here is A3FFDAD which should be entered in CanZE as

Fantastic. Thank you @mikeselectricstuff

Billiant video of a deep teardown of the PEB (Q model only, made by mikeselectricstuff.

I had my hands on a ZE50, but unfortunately no CLIP tool was available to “tap”. Things have definitely changed.

• The SAE1962 (“OBD2”) connector has moved to the A pillar just in front of the handle to open the bonnet;
• The MM CANbus has been removed from the connector;
• The V CANbus has been replaced with what seems to be a diagnostic bus.
• The exposed CANbus is completely silent. At this moment my conclusion is that the connector is now connected to a separate gateway (port). It does not relay the free frame chatter and needs to be “coaxed” into delving deeper into the car. To make that happen I need to have a session with a real, updated CLIP tool.

It seems we’re right on time finishing up the “Use ISOTP mode” setting, because I doubt free frames will be made available at all.

Thanks to SpeakEV user B9er we can present you even more pictures of a gutted Q model BCB and Filter. Contrary to my earlier thoughts, the neutral current sensor is in the black box. BTW, this part failed and he is looking for a second hand BCB or black box. Leave a comment here if you have one for sale for him please. And now for the eye candy…..

The next two are from the filter module. One relay is the L3-N relay, the other bridges a pre-charge set of resistors. Remember this post? Yep, that’s it!

I’ve been busy recoding the interface between my home automation and ZE services as Renault changed their entire apps and API to “MY Renault”. That worked out with the kind help provided by James. All back on track again in Node-RED.

While doing some research I ran into a post from one of the developers on the French forum. This was one of the things he mentioned that has always been “somewhat known”, but more precisely formulated now.

• Start of charge
• During charging, every 30 minutes (every 15min for Z.E. 40)
• End of charge
• Beginning of a journey
• During the trip, every 30 minutes (every 15min for Z.E. 40) or every 5% of SOC (state of charge of the battery)
• End of a trip
• Before sleep (3 min after lockout) if the battery value has changed since the last message
• Before sleep (3 min after lockout) if the car is not connected, a charge is programmed and the charge level is less than 100%
• Low battery alert
• Instant pre-conditioning set point.

Dutch Q210 driver “OlafH” just had his August 2014 ZOE pass 200.000 kilometers (about 125.000 miles). SOH 91%. Who would have thought.

Two very interesting videos about the inner workings. Even disassembly of a PEB.

Many thanks Dutch forum user “Riesbak”