ChargePoint ChargePass

[davewill]

just tried to get one but gave up after 10 minutes because the guy on the other end didn't understand English. I thanked him and just told him I'd try back later

The woman I dealt with, while obviously in an overseas call center, had excellent English, even colloquial. I was impressed with her skills.

 

[gascant]

The sales office at Boardwalk Nissan had a huge pile of ChargePasses on the desk. I asked Brendan Dolan about them and he said they were mailed a bunch of them to hand out to Leaf owners.

Yep, Boardwalk had them on display at our BayLEAFs meeting April 2nd. I picked one up (with the free key chain card) and activated it yesterday with $25 on account. Sweet deal!

 

[gascant]

I downloaded the ChargePoint App for BlackBerry yesterday. I launched it and it does show the stations, details, etc.. But, instead of maps, I just see a series of diagonal black lines. Has anyone else had this problem? I have a Curve 8900 and I just realized that it's coming up on being 2 years old in July .

I called their CS and rep did speak English pretty well--he took my case and said someone from IT would get back to me Monday. Using the "belts and suspenders" approach, I also submitted an inquiry about same at their web site.

Nice to see many unrestricted and free stations here in the South Bay. But I loaded up my account so as not to be caught short by sudden changes.

 

[sdbonez]

just tried to get one but gave up after 10 minutes because the guy on the other end didn't understand English. I thanked him and just told him I'd try back later

2nd time was the charm..,

 

[EricH]

I downloaded the ChargePoint App for BlackBerry yesterday. I launched it and it does show the stations, details, etc.. But, instead of maps, I just see a series of diagonal black lines. Has anyone else had this problem? I have a Curve 8900 and I just realized that it's coming up on being 2 years old in July .

It works perfectly on my year-old Storm 2. Am biding my time about trading into Verizon for an iPhone, since the Owners Portal is possible-but-not-worth-it on the Bberry browser. If not for the iPhone 5 lurking somewhere over the horizon, would be there already.

 

[lettcco]

Used Santa Monica Place charge point charger yesterday. Had a hard time finding it though: Entered the 2 different public parking structure which are not it, and then circle the mall once in crawling traffic before finding it finally. They need to fix this:



and although the charging is free, the parking fee still applies, which is like 2 hours free and $1 for each 30 mins. Still a great deal for hassle-free parking for EVs

 

[TRONZ]

Ya, it's irritating how they display those SMP stations. Before they only showed one station in the wrong location. I emailed them about the other stations needing to show up for availability and correcting the location. This is what they came up with. One out of two I guess.

 

[TRONZ]

It looks like you can now reserve a charge station in the ChargePoint Network. This will be very handy for this weekend.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/25/chargepoint-lets-you-reserve-electric-charging-stations-cuts-do/

 

[gascant]

I downloaded the ChargePoint App for BlackBerry yesterday. I launched it and it does show the stations, details, etc.. But, instead of maps, I just see a series of diagonal black lines. Has anyone else had this problem? I have a Curve 8900 and I just realized that it's coming up on being 2 years old in July .

It works perfectly on my year-old Storm 2. Am biding my time about trading into Verizon for an iPhone, since the Owners Portal is possible-but-not-worth-it on the Bberry browser. If not for the iPhone 5 lurking somewhere over the horizon, would be there already.

I finally got resolution of this on Thursday. It turns out that Coulomb does not support the application on BlackBerry with AT&T as the carrier. So I am SOL if I stay with that combination. They said that the BB user base is shrinking anyway, so they are channeling their resources into iPhone and Android.

 

[Lopton]

Used Santa Monica Place charge point charger yesterday. Had a hard time finding it though: Entered the 2 different public parking structure which are not it, and then circle the mall once in crawling traffic before finding it finally. They need to fix this:

and although the charging is free, the parking fee still applies, which is like 2 hours free and $1 for each 30 mins. Still a great deal for hassle-free parking for EVs

Thank you for the map and info, went there today. Chargepoint is exactly what Blink should have been doing, glad at least one company has their act together. There were 2 Volt's there and us, and 2 gas cars parked in spots. When we got back from shopping 3 gas cars all with parking tickets and our leaf charging happy as a clam.

-Matt

 

[TRONZ]

There were 2 Volt's there and us, and 2 gas cars parked in spots. When we got back from shopping 3 gas cars all with parking tickets and our leaf charging happy as a clam.

-Matt

Yikes! That would have been all the charge spots. The next EV would have been screwed! They will tow if you call them and I am very glad to see them ticketing.

 

[EricH]

I finally got resolution of this on Thursday. It turns out that Coulomb does not support the application on BlackBerry with AT&T as the carrier. So I am SOL if I stay with that combination. They said that the BB user base is shrinking anyway, so they are channeling their resources into iPhone and Android.

Sorry - I can now vouch for Bberry/Verizon and for iPhone4/Verizon working well. Of course, I wouldn't have needed to switch if Nissan had delivered on its long-promised Leaf app for Bberry, so the prevalence of Coulomb's attitude is what is making that outlook come true -- the fewer developers bother with Bberry, the sooner it will die outside of corporate environments.

 

[TEG]

Hopefully someone from ChargePoint reads this.

So, I find a lot of ChargePoints in pairs in parking garages.

When I am plugged into one of them, the screen cycles through various displays saying things like "#1:Available"... "#2:In use/charging"....

On the side of the posts they have numbered the different units so I can see one parking space has a #1 and the next parking spot has #2. But then I realize that my car is charging on post #1, yet my display says #1 is available, but #2 is in use. I go to space #2 and it says both #1 and #2 are available. Then it dawns on me. They are talking about the two connectors on the one EVSE. #1 is the 120V behind the door and #2 is the J1772. So EVSE #1 has a port #1 & port #2, and EVSE #2 also has a port #1 and port #2.

To people working on the project, or those who have used them a bit it makes perfect sense, but it can cause some "newbie confusion" for those who aren't familiar with the ChargePoints. I think they have tried hard to make these as easy to use as possible, so it is a minor disappointment that this little confusing bit was left in. Perhaps they could just change the display firmware to say something like "120V: available... 240V in use" instead of reusing #1 and #2 which become ambiguous when there are two ChargePoint stations in neighboring spots. Or they could say "NEMA5-15: Available... J1772: In Use" (although I think 120V vs 240V is a better shorthand.)

(Hopefully I made the point clear enough.)

----

Another situation that can come up is if you activate the ChargePoint and then plug the J1772 into a Leaf that is on a time-of-day charge schedule and isn't currently in the "ready to charge" state. You have to go in the car and press the manual override button to start immediate charging. But the things the ChargePoint display says when plugged into a Leaf that isn't actually ready to charge are a little weird.

 

[Lopton]

Hopefully someone from ChargePoint reads this.

Just a suggestion I e-mailed ChargePoint (link on their website) to let them know that I thought they were doing a good job in the LA area, new chargers constantly, and quick website updates. And the CEO of the company actually personally wrote me an e-mail to thank me for my comments. So they seem to be open to suggestions.

-Matt

 

[cdub]

Took me forever to find these chargers again yesterday. Too bad they didn't work for me.

The really need to update the signage outside of the parking area... I too went in the wrong ones.

I really should have reread this thread before I went - it was really a spur of the moment thing... which I'm realizing isn't a good thing in the Leaf until more infrastructure is there.

 

[cdub]

When's the Android app coming out?

 

[gascant]

Android app should be out soon. Being tested.

I was at South San Francisco garage yesterday with seekzeroe and we both charged on the Coulomb chargers there. Worked perfectly but I see what you mean about the "in use" and "available" messages. Those should be changed.

 

[BudRaymond]

ChargePoint also charges the host $0.50 every time a card is authorized, but you didn't hear that from me...

I need to look for the bill on that Does the 50 cents get charged if the station is set up for free access?

No, Chargepoint only charges the site owner if the site owner is charging the user.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

What is the name of the android. App?

 

[gascant]

What is the name of the android. App?

It's not available yet--still in beta testing. They have their quota of beta testers and hopefully it's going smoothly and will be released soon.

If you charge at Coulomb Tech Home Office, they charge the $0.50 to your account. It's convenient for me, at least, because it's next to a trail on which I have been known to run

The $0.50 did not get posted against my account with yesterday's charge in South San Francisco.