Unable to charge at public stations (haven't tried chargepoint)

Do you set it on "charge now" when you get out of the car? If you have a calendar set up for charging at home, it will just wait until the next charging event to charge unless you set it to "charge now".

 

You may have your Prime on a charging schedule. If you do, you have to enter the charging schedule screen and press "charge now" or, the car won't charge.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

if you just 'plug in' at home, and it starts charging, it should charge anywhere with a compatible plug. that is very odd.

 

There is nothing special about Chargepoint, other than there being a $100 complimentary promotion from Toyota through them. If a charging station has a J1772 plug that fits into the car, then it is compatible. Standards, and all that. I would go along with others and suggest that the car is on a charging schedule.

 

Interesting, even if you're on a charge schedule, the green light in the charge port door will still come on momentarily then shut off.

 

Maybe the plug is not seated completely? It has to be completely in, to where the latch engages. I sometimes had that problem with my 2012 PiP at some charging stations. Some plugs have a seal which interferes with proper engagement, and I had to really shove it in hard until it clicked. I even removed the seal one time to get it to work.

If the green light does not come on for a short time, then being on a charging schedule is not the issue.

 

good point.^^^ the only thing i can think of is that the public stations are L2 vs L1 at home. shouldn't matter.

 

Could some of the charging stations be damaged? There was one in my area that appeared to work sporadically. It would charge some LEAFs and not charge others. It took a long time and quite a number of complaints before it got fixed.

 

I had issues with charging because I didn't have one scheduled. I didn't bother because I do NOT have a charger at home.

I could NOT select "charge now" when I plugged into a public charger unit if my car still had charge in the EV battery. To get around this problem, I put down a time and day on my charging schedule and then I could select "charge now". Now I have no issues.

Alternatively I read somewhere if you plug in a charger into your car and then quickly unplug and re-plug it in, it will trigger the "charge now" feature. I haven't tried this yet...

 

I know there are several charging networks; Blink, Chargepoint, SEMAconnect and others, that each require a separate account and sometimes a deposit on a credit card before they'll work. Recently I tried to charge at Roswell GA city hall and found it was a GE WattStation. At some point there's just too many charging networks to be a member of I think.

 

A nissan leaf guy rolled down his window and asked me where he could find a "faster" charger this morning when I put my prime to chargepoint station. Realized that level 2 is not enough for leaf, a car with only 100 miles range.

 

The issues you have encountered may not be due to lack of scheduled charge, as far as I understand, with no schedule the charge should start immediately (without the need of selecting 'charge now' as this message will not appear when no schedule is registered).
As for your question, yes, unplugging and immediately re-plugging will initiate immediate charging, overriding the schedule.

 

Doesn't make sense. L2 should work fine for a Leaf, but will take ~3.75 hours for a full charge, according to L2 charging charts. However, public chargers don't always deliver the juice at the stated rates, and may have time limits on charging, as a Bolt user found out recently while making a long trip. Tesla has it figured out, but the other 2nd party paid charging solutions still have a lot to be desired.

Chevy Bolt EV: 800-mile trip in 238-mile electric car shows challenges remain

page 3 and 4 of that article outline her frustrations.

 

Xzen's issue in post #11 may have some similarity to the o/p, both seem to be odd behavior for prime.

 

I took my Prius Prime (PP) to Oregon for the eclipse and stayed at Oregon State University. On the way I stopped in Ashland and successfully used a L2 charging station to top off at Southern Oregon University. I think it was a ChargePoint. It was FREE on a promotional period! No credit card needed. Worked great! When I arrived at OSU I found they had many charging stations on campus of the Blink variety. I tried three different ones, they all wanted my credit card number to start and NONE worked! A Chevy Volt owner came over and told me she and her husband had just spent over an hour trying to get the @#$@#$ Blynk Charger to work and talking with Blynk support. When I got home I discovered that they had charged my credit card $5 for each charging attempt! On the way out of Corvalis I found a ChargePoint charge station at the local Power Utility's parking lot that was open to the public. Got another L2 charge for free. Then I discovered that all PP buyers get a $100 dollars in charging credit from ChargePoint when they open an account. This was after I had already created an CP account without entering the incentive verification code. I called ChargePoint and they honored the buyer's incentive even though I had already created the account. Good experience with CP so far...

 

What I would give to have a line of L2 16A ChargePoints installed locally... well honestly I would probably just give my hour of charging time and that's it.

 

We have 36 at our main campus and we're getting 16 at my facility. But none are Chargepoint. The 36 are GE and the 16 are Aerovironment.

 

Charging can be delayed if the battery is too hot as charging in excessive heat is really damaging. How hot is your car usually when you try to plug in?