“EVSE?! I Don’t See No EVSE Here!”

At the mall where I often charge our ‘Prime while my wife and I fake a walk, increasingly, I plug in and “nothing happens.”

More precisely, the ‘Prime just doesn’t see the EVSE. I plug in, I hear a relay in the EVSE click, but the locking solenoid in the ‘Prime does not click. In the cockpit, it says that the charge port door is opened. On the app, it says nothing is connected to the charge port.

I switch to another (ChargePoint) EVSE next to it, and same thing. And another, same thing.

No issues with our Clipper Creek (level-2) at home, and generally no issues with the ChargePoint EVSEs at work.

Historically they’ve worked fine at that location, and sometimes they still do.

Anybody seen anything like that? Thoughts?

 

Hard to tell for sure... When it has this “failure to communicate,” all of the ChargePoint EVSEs at that location seem to behave the same. That would seem to suggest the problem is the car, but no issues with our Clipper Creek EVSE at home, and typically no issues with the ChargePoint EVSEs at work.

Hmmm...

Oh yeah, one other thing: after I gave up on it, an i3 driver drove up and plugged in. I mentioned to that driver that it wasn’t charging us. I’m not sure how an i3 indicates that charging has begun, but he didn’t seem concerned, so presumably it charged his i3 with no surprises.

My best guess is that there might be some minor disagreement between ChargePoint and Toyota about how to interpret some spec in the type-2 connector interface, leaving that interface sometimes a tad dodgy.

 

It’s the safest bet. Well, that is until, maybe 20ish years from now, when gas costs $12/gallon because hardly anybody makes it anymore.

 

Oh, thanks for the reminder. I was going to ask:

I haven’t done any ... networking ... via PlugShare, but I’m pretty sure I can make that happen. However, I’m not sure what to think (at least based upon what I see in the ChargePoint app and website) it would mean to look into it there. Does ChargePoint have a networking site?

Also, I don’t think I’d heard of ChargeHub before. I’ll look ‘em up!

 

(Sorry, I missed your reply here earlier.)

Answer: No, the green light does not go on in these cases. I have tried a fair amount of wiggling, as well as squeezing the trigger a few times, since that breaks the connection.

 

I have seen that sort of thing before, and at these same stations, but not exactly that.

IIRC, what I have seen is it plugging in correctly — the car seeing the EVSE as usual — but the charge puttering around a few tens of mA for several minutes, and then finally kicking up to the full 3.2ish Amps.

However, to answer your question, this last time I left it plugged in for around 20 minutes, and it never saw the EVSE in that time frame.

Correct. In these cases, the car doesn’t seem to notice that the EVSE has even been plugged in. A relay on the EVSE clicks, but the solenoid in the car to lock in the type-1 connector does not click, and the green light does not turn on. In the app, it says the charge port is disconnected.

In the cases where you see it take a while to start charging, does the car seem to register the plug’s presence?

 

These chargers almost certainly get the most usage of all the chargers I plug into routinely...

 

I have not called ChargePoint regarding these chargers, usually because my wife wants to get on with our walk or shopping. However, I have called them regarding occasional issues with the chargers at work. They have been helpful all in all.

FWIW, since the most recent time I saw this (whereupon I started this thread), I have plugged in a couple times with no surprises. It’s definitely a ... transient phenomenon.

 

I’ve had a few more chances to experiment with this. What seems to have the highest chances of solving the problem is, after plugging it in, to press and release the disconnect button several times. Probably that switch is a little flaky, or perhaps the resistor in that circuit is a little different from what Toyota expects.