EV Charging Station(Not NS) limiting to 3.7kW

Good day Everyone

I have a peculiar situation here. I have a client with a brand new EV Charging Station that was installed at his house, and no matter what we try it will not charge more than 3.7kW. The charger is connected to single phase power. His vehicle is a Volvo EV.

The client has no other Victron equipment so the unit has been set up to operate as a manual charger. Charging limits are set to 32A max and all GX comms disabled.

The cable that the client has is a 3 phase rated 22kW cable so should handle the power, he has also confirmed that the cable charges at 22kW at a public charging station, so the settings on the car itself are not limiting it either as far as I am aware.

He has ensured that the breaker supplying the unit is a 40A breaker so should not be limiting the unit in any way from a supply side. The charger has also be set to be on AC input side if that makes a difference.

We have also ensured the latest firmware is installed and currently the unit has V2.02/5.2 installed.

SN of unit is HQ2242DPQZ7

Any advice would be appreciated! Client is pushing to RMA the unit if we can not get it resolved but unsure if this is a device issue per say.

Is the CS connected with 3-phase input?
It’s only charging with 1 phase, so my guess is that the car can max. 16A per phase.

What does the car datasheet/manual say about AC charging?
Does it even have a 3-phase charger?
What’s the max. 1-phase current/power?

We had it just a few days ago that someone was complaining and at the end it was the car that only had a 1-phase charger.

Hi Matthias

So the charger is currently connected to single phase through a 40A breaker so theoretically the charger should be able to provide 7.3kW right?

Below are the car specs for charging from single phase

To my understanding then on the victron charger we should be able to utilise 32A to charge at 7.2kW?

I appreciate your help on this

What kind of Volvo is this and what text is hidden behind note [3] ?

My suspicion is the same as that of Matthias that the car probably maxes out at 16A per fase.
What you could try is connect all three inputs of the EVCS (L1, L2, L3) to the single phase supply.

Edit:
From the Volvo XC40 Recharge page:
[3] The maximum charging power that the car can achieve is 11 kW.

This charge speed is the same for single and three phase charging, so the car has 3x 3.7kW = 11 kW total chargers onboard.
When using only a single charger (car fed with single phase), it’ll max out at 3.7kW - as can be seen.
Your best bet is to try what I suggested: connect the single phase grid feed to all three inputs of the EVCS.
That way all three chargers in the car can be used and you’ll be able to charge at the full 11kW the car can handle.

The claim of your client that the car can AC charge at 22kW at a public charger is probably bogus.

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Hey @BartChampagne

So far I have been working off of what the client has been giving me, which is not much as he is always busy, the first picture he sent me directly, but now I got his exact vehicle model and checked the Volvo website and manual and found the following info:

This now makes a lot more sense and I feel stupid for not checking it sooner, but hopefully this thread will make others with the same issue in the future not make the same mistake.

So I am assuming that the last section with " Charging at a charging station or from a charging point at home" is actually 3 phase and 16A per phase? That will answer the question then as a whole.

Sorry the vehicle is a Volvo XC90 Plug in Hybrid to be exact

Thanks I assumed so as well as I could find no supporting info or a picture from him supporting this

I will ask him to do this and report back what happens. Thanks!

On the XC90 page it states that the car can charge with max 6.4kW on two phases.
So yeah, 16A per phase max.

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IF the CS/car accept 3x the same phase than that would overload the N!
3x 16A over the same phase would be 48A on N back!

OP stated that the EVCS is connected to a 40A breaker, so I would hope that the N is also fused with (and capable of) 40A.

Normally the N isn’t fused and 48A is more than 40A.

Without knowing the installation it’s hard to say but I’m pretty sure the wire is not suitable for 48A continuously.