Noob question on Chargepoint chargers

[andy92782]

There are several Chargepoint L2 chargers in my office park. Twice now I've come across a situation where it seems like they should work but they don't. Here's what happens:

1) Use Chargepoint keyfob or iPhone app to authorize... done.
2) Remove charger cable from the harness
3) Attach the J1772 Adapter to the cable
4) Insert firmly into the charge port on the car

The screen in the car says "Charging Stopped". The screen on the Chargepoint charger says "Waiting for vehicle....". If I open the Tesla app on my iPhone and select the Charging tab, I'm presented with a button that says "START CHARGING". If I push it, nothing happens. I then remove the cable from the car, remove the adapter from the cable and return it to the charger. It then closes the session and sends a notification to my phone saying "charging complete, total cost $0.00" (or something like that).

On other occasions I've repeated the exact same procedure and charging starts as I expect.

1) Am I doing anything wrong?
2) The Chargepoint chargers are "twins", ie they're 2-in-1, shared between two parking spots and there are two cables. It seems like each time this has happened there's already been another car charging off one of the two cables, but if I move parking spaces to another Chargepoint where nobody's there yet (0 of 2 cables in use), I can start charging successfully.

Any idea what's going on?

 

[SSedan]

Chargpoint stations are poorly set up and even worse maintenance wise.

 

[Kermee]

Nope. You're doing it correctly.

I haven't had that happen to me before, but TBH, from charging threads involving ChargePoint EVSEs, especially the CT4000, aren't the most... reliable. I use them all the time where I live, but they're generally in better shape than some of the ones I've heard about.

 

[Eno Deb]

Chargpoint stations are poorly set up and even worse maintenance wise.

That depends entirely on the station owner. Chargepoint offers a service plan with a fairly quick response time. My employer has this plan and I have never seen a charger down for more than a day or two (and we have dozens of them on the campus).

The OP's problem sounds like there is some issue with the load-balancing or perhaps insufficient power. It should be reported to the station owner (probably the employer or the real estate developer running the office park).

 

[JPWhite]

I've come across Chargepoint units saying "Waiting for Vehicle". I called chargepoint and reported the error. It didn't sound certain they'd do much about it. It did help I was successful getting a charge at another station up the road, the support rep could see my failed attempts followed by success.

Be sure log the failures on plugshare as well so others know the unit is acting up.

 

[andy92782]

Thanks for the replies. I'll try it again tomorrow. FWIW, I did report it through their app.

 

[forkee]

ive used a decommissioned chargepoint charger at my local car wash. it's free to use, just need the little card to wave in front to activate. it doesn't even show in the list of active chargers on the app because it had been taken out. i do it the same way as you. once it reads the card and unlocks the connector, click the adapter on it and plug into car. car should recognize and initiate charging.

 

[cwerdna]

That depends entirely on the station owner. Chargepoint offers a service plan with a fairly quick response time. My employer has this plan and I have never seen a charger down for more than a day or two (and we have dozens of them on the campus).

The OP's problem sounds like there is some issue with the load-balancing or perhaps insufficient power. It should be reported to the station owner (probably the employer or the real estate developer running the office park).

Yep.

OP: can you point out which model it is from Everything You Need to Know About ChargePoint Stations - ChargePoint, or one that's close enough?

If it's the CT-4000 series, it has a color LCD, a bunch of buttons underneath it and UI w/a cowboy. (Chargepoint reps at their booth at an EVent a few months ago told me the UI is being revamped and the cowboy will be going away. I saw some of the revamped UI and it looks very different.)

The older CT-2000 series have a monochrome dot matrix display. We have both at my work but to make a long story short, we don't have access to the CT-2000s any more. They've been turned over to another company that's sub-leasing a building we don't really occupy any more.

We have tons (dozens) of CT-4000 series stations and most are pretty reliable. I sometimes after lunch go start sessions for waiting cars and have on occasion started as many as 10+ sessions in a day. Some other folks do the same.

I've been charging my Leaf at work almost every weekday for over 5 years now first on CT-2000 series then later CT-4000 series.

Make sure you don't have any timers enabled. You shouldn't need to push any buttons on the Tesla app. I've plugged in waiting Model 3, X and S into Chargepoint J1772 stations and not had to do anything. I don't have their key nor access to their car via app. However, I recently (in the past few weeks) encountered a 3 that would not start charging on a Chargepoint station. I had to tug on a door handle to wake it up to get it going. This was NOT needed in the past w/other 3's.

I had a problem w/another Tesla (I think a 3 but might've been an S, would have to check my chat logs) where it wouldn't start but then at like 1 pm (maybe 30 or 40 minutes later), it started drawing power out of the blue (I was monitoring all my sessions via ChargePoint). I asked the driver via internal chat (I don't know them) if they had a timer set and they claimed no. It eventually stopped apparently early (after a few hours of charging), as well. It's unclear what % limit the driver had their car set to. Some folks at my work don't really know what they're doing when it comes to EVs.

 

[tivoboy]

Check the car for charging enabled and check the car for your charging THRESHOLD. I've plugged in before and forgot that I had the car set to max 50%, and it was AT 50% when I plugged in.

As others have noted, these stations are not owned or operated by Chargepoint. It's a network, they CAN purchase equipment from chargepoint but the station owner is responsible for it's operation, connectivity, maintenance, etc.. and it doesn't always work it's way up to Chargepoint unless we communicate TO Chargepoint that something isn't working.

 

[wws]

Sadly, it is kind of the way things are with public L2 charging. At my sons college, there are a pair of Chargepoint charging stalls. One works, the other fails exactly as described in the OP. It has been noted in the plugshare reviews for a while, but last I checked was still broken.

 

[Santa Claws]

Had a similar issue as OP but in Warwick, NY. I literally had to tap my iPhone several times to get it to authenticate each time. Roughly 3 authentications later it finally caught on that I'd seriously like to charge my P3D.

It was a free-to-charge Chargepoint. I just hope it's not a write-off for someone and that they're just making it difficult for people to actually use it...

 

[andy92782]

OP here. These are CT-4000 stations.

I just parked my car at one of them and began charging (0 of 2 were being used when I pulled up). About 20 minutes later while I was at my desk, the Tesla app began sending me "Charging Interrupted" notifications. If I had to guess, someone probably tried to activate the second plug on the same charger I'm using. The charging quickly resumed at normal rate (20mi/hr, 189V, 30/30A).

 

[Rocky_H]

The charging quickly resumed at normal rate (20mi/hr, 189V, 30/30A).

Ugh! That is 19 volts below nominal, which is 9% low. I wonder if that's what is causing the issues with these stations.

 

[SSedan]

That is my chargepoint experience too way under votage and reduced rate because of.

 

[gochin23]

There are several Chargepoint L2 chargers in my office park. Twice now I've come across a situation where it seems like they should work but they don't. Here's what happens:

1) Use Chargepoint keyfob or iPhone app to authorize... done.
2) Remove charger cable from the harness
3) Attach the J1772 Adapter to the cable
4) Insert firmly into the charge port on the car

The screen in the car says "Charging Stopped". The screen on the Chargepoint charger says "Waiting for vehicle....". If I open the Tesla app on my iPhone and select the Charging tab, I'm presented with a button that says "START CHARGING". If I push it, nothing happens. I then remove the cable from the car, remove the adapter from the cable and return it to the charger. It then closes the session and sends a notification to my phone saying "charging complete, total cost $0.00" (or something like that).

On other occasions I've repeated the exact same procedure and charging starts as I expect.

1) Am I doing anything wrong?
2) The Chargepoint chargers are "twins", ie they're 2-in-1, shared between two parking spots and there are two cables. It seems like each time this has happened there's already been another car charging off one of the two cables, but if I move parking spaces to another Chargepoint where nobody's there yet (0 of 2 cables in use), I can start charging successfully.

Any idea what's going on?

I had a similar situation happen just now with a ChargePoint charger, I plugged in and it started charging but I would get notifications on my phone every couple minutes saying "charging interrupted". I tried unplugging and re-plugging but this time it didn't even start charging, it said charging stopped. Unfortunately all the other EV spots were taken so i could not test a different plug.

 

[Foxhound199]

I've been having this weird problem where my car goes to sleep and stops charging when I use the chargepoint at work. From this thread, it sounds like the problem is most likely on chargepoint's end.

 

[eladts]

I encountered similar issues with CharPoint stations in Boston and Brookline. It seems like the Model 3 is very sensitive to anything out of spec.

 

[cwerdna]

That is my chargepoint experience too way under votage

That has nothing to do w/Chargepoint itself. L1 and L2 stations are EVSEs. They're basically smart safety switches. They don't alter the incoming supply voltage nor convert AC to DC. There's a problem w/what's feeding the EVSE.

Basics of SAE J1772 : Support and Wayback Machine has some background info.

I've also attached a drawing from planet4ever on mynissanleaf. The principles are exactly the same.

 

[Kermee]

Most 208V CT-4000's I've run into have been between 198V-202V's. 189V does seem a bit low, but the on-board charger in your Tesla will happily accept anything around 120/110V'ish to 277V.

P.S. I wonder if the on-board charger would accept voltages as low as 100V like it in in Japan. LOL. Imagine the L1 charging speed...

 

[SSedan]

That has nothing to do w/Chargepoint itself. L1 and L2 stations are EVSEs. They're basically smart safety switches. They don't alter the incoming supply voltage nor convert AC to DC. There's a problem w/what's feeding the EVSE.

Basics of SAE J1772 : Support and Wayback Machine has some background info.

I've also attached a drawing from planet4ever on mynissanleaf. The principles are exactly the same.
View attachment 351058

Or maybe if voltage so low the amperage begins to be dialed back is a common thing many of us have seen then we can presume this is something to do with their installation standards or equipment.