Home charging with ChargePoint and range added calculations

I came close to buying the ChargePoint on looks alone, but in the end my practical side picked the ClipperCreek:
40A for others, and future use in other cars.
No frills, solid reliability, solid company
14-50 Plug rather than direct wire connection for portability
I think I squeaked in to the 2016 tax credit so the final cost will be ~ $450

The CP has a good reputation too, but the CC is at the top. Either strike me as good choices.

 

We got it and love it. We set the Prime up to tell Charge Point when to charge over night. When my wife gets home from work and knows she's going out again, she'll hit charge right away. It charges very fast. Wife needed gas the other day. Cost $22 to fill the tank and we went 1084 miles. Used $28 in electricity to charge it (via the Charge Point app). Not bad in my opinion

 

ok thank you all

 

Got it installed today!

 

It really is a pretty box. I think they want you to make looser loops

 

Is it an indoor or outdoor installation? We don't park our thousands dollars car in the garage instead of putting bicycles and other stuffs in. I am thinking to install one outside of the house next to the drive way.

 

I got mine installed in the garage this Saturday. It is the 16A plug in model and it works great thus far. I am seeing some strange results in the app though. I let the car set the scheduled start or immediate starts for charging and do not use the charger schedule. For some reason it is not storing the correct end of session time in the app although it does send an email saying that the car is not drawing much current and has most likely completed it charge cycle. As you can see in the attached report the session times are way off. In one example it took 15-20 minutes to charge the car completely, but ChargePoint did not recognize for 8 hours that it was completed. I had restarted the ChargePoint unit initially after setup, but I just restarted it again and will see if this makes any difference. For those using with a Prime is there something in the Prime configuration that I may have overlooked to tell the ChargePoint unit when the car charging is finished? Has anyone else seen this behavior in reporting?

 

I also use the charging schedule in the car rather than the one in the charging station. When I look at the activity report in the Chargepoint app, it says that the session starts when I plug in, and ends when I remove the plug. The activity report sometimes looks a bit weird, in that it shows a ramp up the time charging actually started, but if you touch the graph to get the instantaneous current report, it is correct, and indicates zero until the charging actually starts. When charging completes, the graph goes to zero, as expected. Note the color of the LED on the charging station: Green means unplugged, blue means plugged in (and in a charging session), pulsing blue means actively charging. Since I usually charge my car in the middle of the night, I don't have it tell me at 5am that charging is complete.

 

Nudge, nudge, WAKE UP!!!! YOUR CHARGING IS COMPLETE!!!!!

 

That was my misunderstanding, I thought session meant the charging session time, not the time connected to the vehicle. Session time is useful for public chargers, but not useful for home chargers where there is a one to one ratio of chargeable vehicle to charger. I normally have my vehicle scheduled to charge for a departure time and just leave the vehicle plugged in at all times while in the garage. Well, I will make a feature request to ChargePoint to add charge time as a variable to plot against the various time frames.

 

I think that when they came up with the home version of the Chargepoint station, the notion of "charging session" did not map quite right. It is clear that they took the public charging station, ripped out the billing hardware (such as the NFC reader) and functionality, and replaced the cellular phone by WiFi. In the public station, a session is from the time you plug in to the time you unplug or close the session by swiping your card or close the session with the app, and they did not change that for the home version. Note that you actually CAN get several charging intervals without unplugging, by switching between "charge now" and "timer", so is that one "session" or two?

 

Quick question does the Chargepoint allow you to lock it so no,one else could use it? Mine will be installed outside of my house in the driveway. Someone could pull up my in the driveway during the day.

 

what's your address, I need to charge my car

 

Now you I wouldn't mind... let me know when you are nearby!

 

will do. Probably not anytime soon, but I will be in Everett Washington around June 4th

 

If you install a home charger I don't think you can lock it. Are you installing a 30 AMP 25 ft one? Keep us updated how it go? I am interested to install one outside my house too. I charged my car since 3:15 PM this afternoon takes 6 hours too long during the day.

 

If I can't lock it I'll go with a ClipperCreek 40 AMP to future proof. They can be ordered with a lock. I'll add a JuicePlug to make it Smart later.

 

No locking for the Chargepoint home charger. And I don't see any place to put a padlock on the handle, like on the one that comes with the car. FWIW, I got the 32A station, to get the longer cord.

 

I created the following request to ChargePoint based on my earlier confusion with session times. I do not know if anything will come of it, but I felt it needed to be requested.

Please consider the following enhancement request. Thanks.

I recently bought and installed a ChargePoint Home 16A plugable unit in my garage. I love the unit and the speed at which it charges. I also like the mobile app and website.

I have a request for an enhancement to your ChargePoint app and website. Please add a new variable that represents the total time spent charging. I thought session time represented this, but it was way off. I discovered that session time was the total time plugged in. While this is a useful item for public chargers, for a home charger with only one EV to charge it is not useful. What is more useful is the total time spent actively charging the EV. I am plugged in all the time I have my EV in the garage, but I set a scheduled departure time for the car to manage such that it is charged and ready to leave when I am. For me being able to compare start and stop of active charging time and the total charge time for each charging activity is more important to review. Thanks.