Service Manual (training course)

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The pic I attached says "clear of obstructions", so while you're LIKELY right, even with 1/2" clearance I would still drill a hole in any cover, just in case.

That makes perfect sense and certainly can't hurt. Maybe even connect with a tube. (I have no idea what sort of gas would be expelled, maybe hydrogen?) I was just thinking a cover wouldn't be air tight, not that the gas could be dangerous.

Yeah, I'd read about warming the battery. (IIRC, it was in case the battery wouldn't take a charge.) At the time I was thinking it might be wiser to put the car in a garage with a portable heater directed towards the car, to warm it & the batt a bit. (I had a portable heater installed in my '73 VW van, suspened behind the front seats, that I'd plug into the porch light. I could turn on the light 15 or 20 minutes before leaving for work to warm the van. It made all the difference on cold days.)

[ElectricTireShredder]

Several 500e users have reported no problems charging when it's very cold, even around 20 below zero Fahrenheit.

Sometimes when it's super cold you just have to turn the key on before plugging in to charge. That likely activates the battery heater to allow charging, but if it was so cold that even that didn't work you could run the cabin heater. That in itself wouldn't warm the battery much, but just using power from the battery warms it up, the same as it does in a phone or laptop.

BEVs have their own built-in electric cabin heater, so there's no need to add your own, & the car doesn't even need to be plugged in. You can just turn it on with a phone app & it only takes about 5 minutes to warm up the Fiat's small cabin.

[ElectricTireShredder]

Below 0% disables the contactors (pg 90, pdf pg 98)

"The below 0% SOC limits and controls will be enabled to protect HVBS SOH...

• PIM into standby/turn off DC-to-DC converter/open high-voltage battery contactors
• This state remains until a plug-in charging event is detected"

So once the SOC goes below 0% the contactors would no longer clunk closed by opening the left door or turning the key. If something was preventing charging, like an OnBoard Charger failure, the contactors would never close.

[Dani500e]

So once the SOC goes below 0% the contactors would no longer clunk closed by opening the left door or turning the key. If something was preventing charging, like an OnBoard Charger failure, the contactors would never close.

And what can you do in this case?

[ElectricTireShredder]

GET IT TO CHARGE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, TO PREVENT PERMANENT DRIVE BATTERY DAMAGE!

In the case of OBC failure, you'd have to replace it. However, I've only ever seen one report of that, after about 90,000 miles.

In the more likely event that the OBC is fine but it's not charging for some other reason, you'd check this link to another post on this same forum:

http://www.fiat500usaforum.com/showt...-amp-or-charge

[ElectricTireShredder]

BLEEDING COOLANT & BRAKES:

On the other forum, jws500e has reported that the $49 version of the AlfaOBD app provides the coolant bleeding procedure mentioned in this thread's post #8.

So it might also provide the brake bleeding procedure mentioned in this thread's post #16.

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Thank you for the posts.