Charging Problems

[bicycler1951]

Today (2022-01-08) I went to plug my FUV in to charge it. It has been sitting in my driveway for about a month with not being plugged in. There was 35% charge on the battery. When I plugged it in there was no indication of a charge happening. The charger said it was charging and the relay in the FUV that "picks up" when the plug is inserted into the FUV. To test to see if my charger was working or not I drove to the nearest commercial charging station. This station said it was charging the FUV but still no charging indicator on the FUV.

My Owners Guide says to contact Arcimoto when this happens. I called 3x and got disconnected 3x. So much for customer service.

[JeffV]

Today (2022-01-08) I went to plug my FUV in to charge it. It has been sitting in my driveway for about a month with not being plugged in. There was 35% charge on the battery. When I plugged it in there was no indication of a charge happening. The charger said it was charging and the relay in the FUV that "picks up" when the plug is inserted into the FUV. To test to see if my charger was working or not I drove to the nearest commercial charging station. This station said it was charging the FUV but still no charging indicator on the FUV.

My Owners Guide says to contact Arcimoto when this happens. I called 3x and got disconnected 3x. So much for customer service.

I've had good luck with an email. It kicks off a notification process at their end. They are clearly still learning, but getting better IMO.

I've had the charging problem several times. It could be a low 12 Volt battery or a bad on-board charger. I just had a second one replaced last week at 14,000 mi.

[bicycler1951]

I've had good luck with an email. It kicks off a notification process at their end. They are clearly still learning, but getting better IMO.

I've had the charging problem several times. It could be a low 12 Volt battery or a bad on-board charger. I just had a second one replaced last week at 14,000 mi.

This morning (2022-01-10) I called the Customer Support line again. The call was answered on the 2nd ring. The young lady who answered had Pedro call me back. He wants me to do a "hard reset" and he will call me tomorrow with instructions. I wasn't available today.

Pedro also gave me the Support Dept e-mail address so I will use that to contact them in the future.

I don't think it's a low 12 volt battery. The display, lights etc all work just fine. It drives just fine. The high voltage battery just doesn't charge.

Thanks for responding.

Tom Tilque

[CharonPDX]

Is it parked outdoors, and it is very cold?

FUV does not have a battery heater, so will not charge the battery if it is below freezing.

[bicycler1951]

Yes my FUV is parked outdoors. In the week after Christmas the temps got down to the mid-20's at least 3 or 4 times. All I can do is cover my FUV with a plastic tarp. At best if I had $10k, which I don't, I could have a carport built.

This morning a FUV mechanic came by and did a hard reset. He said the software does shut down the charging system when it gets below freezing but it doesn't let the charging circuit reset when it gets warmer. An update is in the works. My FUV is charging now. Also he showed me how to do a hard reset.

I also attribute my problems getting in touch with Customer Service with the Wi-Fi setting on my phone. My neighbors allow me to use their much faster internet connection for downloads. But it prevents me to do other things like video conferencing, ftp connections and augmented Wi-Fi calling. So I have to use my much slower but in this case much better cable internet service.

[CharonPDX]

FUV definitely has greater "vampire drain" than most EVs. Mine loses a few % per day. I've left it to die a couple times over COVID, and using a jump-starter battery pack on the 12V combined with a hard reset has always let me charge back up.

[harriska2]

I also had to do a semi-hard reset. The weather was in the 20s and 30s and we got a weird error "1 motor not working limited to 30mph" error. Did a right side only reset (newer firmware allows this) and it started charging again. My firmware was upgraded early August 2021.

We built an 8 x 12 carport against our workshop for about $1000. Included pavers, metal to make 2 posts, beam, 2x4s, and polycarbonate. Works a treat. The carport is at a 90 degree angle against the driveway but we are still able to get it in there relatively easily. Carport was a *very* necessary thing for rain, ice, and snow.