New Member Just Bought a Vtrux

[kmclellan45]

Do any of you previous owners have any contact with any of the service personnel from VIA? 

I am trying to get help with my truck that is down and I am trying to get my hands on the diagnostic tools. I have gone through this thread and done all of the simple checks, no blown fuses, relays or diodes. All of the coolant pumps work and are at the proper levels. I have cleared any DTC's that have shown up on both ports.

Truck will not go into READY mode, get blinking triangle

The scan tool I have will not bring up the modules on the white port specific to VIA.

I call the phone number for VIA and just get a Hello and nothing else.

To avoid going into a semi-retarded rant here I will post my phone number and email here.

619-347-1291

[email protected]

Any help will be greatly appreciated

[Slimsalabim]

1 hour ago, kmclellan45 said:

Do any of you previous owners have any contact with any of the service personnel from VIA? 

I am trying to get help with my truck that is down and I am trying to get my hands on the diagnostic tools. I have gone through this thread and done all of the simple checks, no blown fuses, relays or diodes. All of the coolant pumps work and are at the proper levels. I have cleared any DTC's that have shown up on both ports.

Truck will not go into READY mode, get blinking triangle

The scan tool I have will not bring up the modules on the white port specific to VIA.

I call the phone number for VIA and just get a Hello and nothing else.

To avoid going into a semi-retarded rant here I will post my phone number and email here.

619-347-1291

[email protected]

Any help will be greatly appreciated

[email protected]

 

That's the engineer you'll speak with. You'll need to rent the scan tool for several hundred dollars. The time waiting to receive and turn the scanner is the most annoying thing about these. 

 

Slim

 

 

[kmclellan45]

Looks like VIA Motors has pretty much ghosted everyone, none of the phone numbers work and no responses to emails. I was looking through some posts of DIY electric car forum and there are a couple of people that rented the datalogging device and after sending it back received no further contact.

[Slimsalabim]

31 minutes ago, kmclellan45 said:

Looks like VIA Motors has pretty much ghosted everyone, none of the phone numbers work and no responses to emails. I was looking through some posts of DIY electric car forum and there are a couple of people that rented the datalogging device and after sending it back received no further contact.

 

I know we talked offline about getting the scanner on ebay. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/296191031859?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=wqii6h_vrto&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=kA-lrmBkQD-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

I went through my old photos and found pictures of the pinouts, so hopefully that can help. 

 

Slim

[kmclellan45]

did that datalogger come with software to interpret what was being recorded? 

 

[kmclellan45]

I found an ex engineer that was running VIA Canada program years ago, here is what he wrote back to me:

This isn't the VIA scan tool if that's what you're thinking. We used CANcase for certain programming functions and some CAN based captures for engineering. The tool you need is called a VDDS. Its a proprietary scam tool with an 11" touch screen

Also quoted:

Perhaps they have expanded it's capabilities. But when I last used it, it captured active traffic from the VIA bus (white connector) for the field engineer to review. They can also use CANcase to upload a file or files to specific modules. Perhaps it can also issue a read-clear DTCs command now? I never used to do that

Edited April 29, 2024 by kmclellan45

[Slimsalabim]

6 minutes ago, kmclellan45 said:

I found an ex engineer that was running VIA Canada program years ago, here is what he wrote back to me:

This isn't the VIA scan tool if that's what you're thinking. We used CANcase for certain programming functions and some CAN based captures for engineering. The tool you need is called a VDDS. Its a proprietary scam tool with an 11" touch screen

 

Strange, because that's exactly what we scanned the truck with. Perhaps it just captures the data, then they use the VDDS to analyze it? What's a vdds anyways? I can't find anything on it. 

 

Slim

[kmclellan45]

I didn't find anything online about VDDS either, mostly got sites about Venerial Diesease detection.

going back to the datalogger how did they interpret what was on it? were they live on the phone with you or did they contact you after they got it back?

 

[Slimsalabim]

Just now, kmclellan45 said:

I didn't find anything online about VDDS either, mostly got sites about Venerial Diesease detection.

going back to the datalogger how did they interpret what was on it? were they live on the phone with you or did they contact you after they got it back?

 

They would contact agreed they received it. 

[kmclellan45]

Here is an image of the VDDS screen, as far as I can tell from reading through all of post on different sites, nobody has been rented this device

 

This image was sent to me, I don't have this device in my posession.

[Slimsalabim]

1 hour ago, kmclellan45 said:

Here is an image of the VDDS screen, as far as I can tell from reading through all of post on different sites, nobody has been rented this device

 

This image was sent to me, I don't have this device in my posession.

So, who do you need to grease to get this thing? 

[scraejtp]

On 4/28/2024 at 7:32 PM, kmclellan45 said:

did that datalogger come with software to interpret what was being recorded? 

 

 

No.I was rented the Vector CANcaseXL as well, which was annoying because if they wanted a raw CAN recording I could have gotten a log for them as I have similar tools at my disposal. I never saw the VDDS tool or the screenshot from above either. The CANcase has an SD card it recorded to, and you sent them the datafile. 

 

Not having any ECU communication tools will be the death of these vehicles. I had not reached out to Ryan James for a couple years now as my truck has been doing fine. Concerning hearing that even minimal support is gone, but not really unexpected. 

Edited May 26, 2024 by scraejtp

[louddakota]

I have a Vtrux I am working on and I did a lot of reading and have a few questions. 

When I try to charge I get a solid red light next to the charger plug. I can hear some (relays or contactors) under the truck clicking but I can't get to a Green light. 

I can turn on the vehicle ing and the cluster will come on but battery voltage is in the bottom of the red and I have a flashing triangle light. 

 

I have the battery out of the vehicle and I have checked each battery module, they all have voltage in them. I fell like the power is not coming out of the pack and into the vehicle. Could this be the contactors I see people talking about? Is there a way to check them since I have the battery module out of the truck? 

 

[Nicky Ivy]

On 1/17/2022 at 11:17 AM, madude91 said:

From my experience, it's almost impossible to complete emissions routine on this truck since the engine doesn't go thru the same procedure as a gas truck to complete the emissions routine. 

I have never had success registering in California due to that issue, even tho the exhaust is stock with the catalytic converter. The truck just cannot complete the emissions procedure and will always show as incomplete for a few tests. The test center will tell you to out more miles on the truck to complete it and come back. I have put 8000 miles and still wasn't able to get that to complete..

Ended up buying a HP tuner to turn off that and show as complete. But not sure if that will work. I haven't done it yet.

Do note that other tuners will refuse to turn it off for you since it's illegal to do so. Especially in California.

I have since moved to Utah and haven't tried to register it yet. I will be doing it this month and let you know the outcome.

Clearing the codes will only help with DTC, but the emissions results they will be looking for will show us as incomplete in my experience. 

If anybody was able to register it, please let me know how too 

 

On 4/17/2023 at 2:16 PM, David Silver said:

So I jumped in with both feet on this truck. I was able to get it to charge, just needed to push a little harder. I love driving it but so far I've been unable to get it to pass deq. I'm guessing I need to keep driving in M so it runs the engine until the ECU shows ready. Any advice from others who have made it pass? I emailed Vtrux but haven't had a response yet. 

So I have figured out how to get a Vtrux to pass smog, even in California. It took a lot of digging and some CANbus reverse engineering. Via definitely did not ever intend for these to pass smog test on their own.

 

Basically, what's going on is that many of the O2 and catalyst monitors run in the 'deceleration fuel cut-off' (DFCO) state. Normally, the truck would enter this state whenever coasting on the highway, but since the Vtrux doesn't have the transmission anymore, when you're coasting on the highway, the engine drops to idle and the tests never complete, no matter how much driving you do. In order to get the tests to run, you have to get the engine into the DFCO state, which in the Vtrux means backdriving it with the electric generator motor.

 

With a bit of digging around on the truck's CANbusses, I was able to figure out the message that carries the torque command to the generator motor's inverter, and then rigged up the truck with my laptop, a couple USB-CAN dongles, and a Python script to modify that message and backdrive the generator at certain times. With this, I was able to get the monitors to run, then I undid the mods I did and was able to get it to pass smog and get my plates.

 

I made a video detailing the whole adventure here, and I attached my script as well.

 

Overall, the Vtrux has never fully stranded me but it has a history of being fussy.

It used to like to not start on me sometimes, but I eventually found that the 12V battery negative terminal was loose and that fixed most of the issues I was having.
It sometimes faults while charging, which I am starting to think is an issue in the charge harness, since it doesn't seem to fault once it's fully charged.
I've also had shut off suddenly on me a few times, once when I stomped on the brakes while the generator was going at full power which makes me think that was some sort of reaction to overcurrenting the battery (full regen+full generator power might be too much for it). The other times it was hot out or I was working the truck hard, so I think this might just be it overheating, especially since I checked the motor cooling ATF reservoir and it looks a little low.

generator_runner.py

[ajbessinger]

Has anyone figured out how to obtain the VDDS diagnostic program for these? Now that Ideanomics (who acquired VIA back in 2023) has gone bankrupt, I suppose there is zero factory support left for these trucks... 

I haven't yet worked on one of these, but I run an EV Repair shop in Portland, and have a customer that contacted me a VTRUX with a charging issue that he seems to think is a contactor issue (which based on what I've seen here may be plausible), but I'd like to be able to confirm that with some sort of diagnostic equipment, and presumably, I may have to potentially clear some DTCs post repair?