EC charging

markpb

Rant ahead!

I’ve recently (and temporarily) moved into an apartment block with two 22kW charge points fitted by EC Charging. They’re the same units that are in a lot of shopping centres except that these are paid-for. No problem there except that they’re the most awkward units I’ve ever used.

The units say to use the ScanAndCharge website or Plugsurfing app to pay. The two units are showing as occupied (when they’re not), non-responsive or not delivering any power. I rang the agent who hadn’t a clue. I rang ECC who said that the units have poor reception underground so the app might not work and recommended buying a swipe card from Plugsurfing. I did that, waited a week, still no luck, rang ECC who said the card might not have been activated, posted it to them, they fixed it and posted it back.

Since then I’ve successfully charged the car… once. The rest of the time I’ve plugged in, then swiped, or swiped and then plugged in, sometimes I do an Inca war chant or a little rain dance to see if it might encourage the car to charge. The closest I’ve gotten is the car and unit negotiating and then giving up.

How is this stuff so hard? I’ve never had problems at any charger like this before. My next attempt will involve dropping a granny charger 8 stories down from my balcony to the car!

the_amazing_raisin

Yeah you'd wonder who had the bright idea that all chargers should be connected via a mobile phone signal, even the ones that are underground

We have a few of those EC charging ones in work, I managed to get one to work exactly once. Used a plugsurfing fob, which thankfully I got for free

After doing the run around between facilities, EC charging and plugsurfing I eventually gave up. Was more expensive than home anyway so didn't need it

We had EC Charge points in my old work place, they was always issues with them and then getting them back out to fix, sometimes they were down for weeks.

One of the most frustrating issues was the fact that when you swiped the card and parked on the right parking bay you had to plug in to the left charge port, this was extremely annoying, if there was no other car charging you were forced to use the left charge port.

The ones I used from EC charging were only the swipe ones, funny enough their most reliable ones seemed to be the 3 phase 22 Kw ones the 7 Kw were always going down.

the_amazing_raisin

They probably get the broken units from other charging companies :rolleyes: