Charging in California

[Doug_G]

My god, it's such a trivial specification, how could so many manufacturers screw it up?

 

[TEG]

For example, a LEAF L1 EVSE can apparently *not* charge a Volt (can't find the reference right now)...

Leaf 240V charging via the portable 120V EVSE

...The Nissan/Panasonic L1 EVSE delays putting out power once the Pilot is acknowledged until it performs an internal self test. This test takes approximately 3 seconds and you can normally hear the clicking of the relays while this test is underway. The problem is the Volt seems to "give up" right before the EVSE completes it's test and recycles the Pilot, which starts the test all over again. This continues in an endless loop and the Volt never starts charging.

The proper fix would be to correct this in the Volt's software, because the EVSE is technically allowed to delay. This is not limited to the Nissan/Panasonic unit, several EVSE's on the market also delay.

Soon after posting the above, Ingineer/Phil worked out a "workaround/upgrade/mod" that he can do to the Leaf's portable to charger to make it work with the Volt.

But, it does point out that there are myriad compatibility problems between various EVSEs and various cars.
(Thankfully some resourceful folks are making fixes as the problems are found.)

 

[SByer]

My understanding is that the engineering team did know about this - but communication about this firmware defect broke down somewhere along the line.

"Any code without a unit test is a future regression."

It could also be that the actual specs allow for a little slop and somebody tested towards one end of that and somebody else had parts that leaned the other way. Without a central group testing mechanism (e.g., WiFi alliance) such things will happen. They'll happen even with cross-manufacturer testing, just slightly less often.