State of Charge (the youtube channel) just reviewed a smart EVSE that comes with an OBDII dongle so that it can do some of these functions without using the vehicle settings.
Looks interesting, but I have some serious concerns over plugging in an OBD2 device that EV OEM’s tend to “hide” on purpose. The OBD2 port is not readily accessible on most EVs (eg. Tesla) since it’s not a traditional port for diagnostics as with ICE vehicles. It really doesn’t add much value since vehicle diagnostics are clearly visible on the service menu.
I always have an OBDII dongle plugged in to whatever I'm driving, mostly because they're all heaps that need to be scanned frequently, lol. I had to keep the data up while driving the spark to keep an eye on the weak cells. I have heard of dongles causing odd issues on some vehicles, and also this particular product apparently only works on some vehicles, and those vehicles have charge limits built in. So I'm both not really concerned about the dongle aspect and not particularly interested in that specific charger. Also, charging to 100% isn't a real problem, you just don't want to store it that way.
I thought all the various connectors for EV charging were not simply electricity transfer, and all of them had data connections as well so the car's system "talks" to the charging system. If that's true, why would this system need the addition of an OBDII BT connection as well?
Understood, they are lead-acid batteries, but the point is the charger knows when to stop (at 100%). It doesn't just keep charging and boil-out the batteries. The OP is worried about using an app (not sure why), when the Slate could easily put limits on the charger (controller in the truck) via a setting through the main screen.Charges to 100% right? Slate will do the same thing... That's not the question being asked
A home level 1 or level 2 charger just has a contactor and welded-contact detection circuit. It's only little more than a dumb cable, the car does all of the AC-DC conversion and charge management. There is a control signal that tells the car whether the outlet is capable of a 15A, 20A, 30A, or 50A, and a signal from the car to the cable that tells it when it's ready to charge and the contactor should close. The inverter in the car controls how much current it will draw and can stop charging at any point.
All Slate should do is have a knob on the dash (matches the look of the HVAC control knobs), at the left side of the steering wheel that has a dial range between 50% to 100% marked off in 10ths (i.e. 10% detents) so the driver simply sets the battery SOC level he wants to charge to. Will work for both DCFC and Level 2 home EVSE.
Well, I charge my phone every night to 100%. As most other people. And Slate has made it clear you can operate the vehicle without a cellphone. So it must have embedded software, via the onboard charger, to charge to the appropriate level.
I have a Bluetooth OBDII interface that I leave connected to my Kia EV6 all the time. The OBDII connector is completely standard and in a typical position (under the dash to the left of the steering wheel). With a (non-Kia) app, I can see a massive amount of data including overall SOC as well as battery state of health, voltage reading for each individual battery cell, the voltage for the 12V aux battery, etc. The OBDII "dongle" detects when the vehicle is turned on or charging and otherwise goes into a low-power sleep mode where the parasitic drain on the 12V battery is under 0.1 mA. With a typical 40 Ah 12V battery, that's 40k hours to drain it even 10%.
Slate has said that in order to update the truck's software, you will have to download the update to your app and then use a cable to connect the phone to a USB-C port on the truck. I expect and other phone capabilities would require the cable as well.
Assuming an app would use bluetooth, a phone with no sim only turned on for that and similar purposes isn't a bad compromise.
