EZ Charge Card NOT Easy....

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Dreamer2000

Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Messages
11
Hi All...anyone have any recent experience with the EZ Charge Card?

Here's mine:

Bought my car on 7/11....got the card the next day...

Registered on EZ's site and then had to individually register on the 5 charging company sites through the EZ site...yea...lot of work...

Then....

It didn't work....

Blink-(7/14)--Had to spend 45 minutes on the phone at a charging site...to make my card actually work....haven't been to another Blink charger yet since so have no idea if it will work next time...

Charge Point-(7/14 and 7/16)-Card worked once and then not again....had to call from a charging station....they say they have activated my card ...won't know till the next time I try charging at one of their EVSEs.... They DID charge my credit card 25$ and send me two other Charge Point cards to activate...spend 30 minutes on the phone with them today creating a "ticket" to be credited back the money I shouldn't have been charged...

eVgo-(7/14-2 times and 7/16-2 times)- Card worked the first time on 7/14 and then not again... I have to call every time for them to turn on the charger so I can charge....they have "escalated" my problem many times over the week and still haven't received a call/email/etc...card still doesn't work at their sites...
The other night I had to wait on hold for 45 minutes with eVgo for them to turn on the charger...unacceptable.....

This program is great..if it works.... LOVE my Leaf and VERY disappointed on this EZ Charge program... Each of the companies tells me how new the program is and that they are working out the "glitches..."

Nissan should have been a whole lot more proactive in working out the glitches BEFORE rolling out this program to the masses...
 
Ouch! Sounds like unless this works perfectly all the time, it's not worth it. I have no problem keeping three little cards in my center console and just using the appropriate one when I need to.
 
It has not been an easy experience for me either. Bought my 2015 SL on July 18 and I've been trying unsuccessfully to get Carwings and the EZ-Charge card activated since. The activation website for the EZ-charge card tells me that the vin number I am entering is invalid (it is not) and tells me to email customer service. I have emailed and still there has been no response. I also tried calling the customer service number on the card and it just gives a prerecorded message that activations can only be done online. Not very good customer service. I can see why Chargepoint didn't want to be associated with this program's customer service -- though it is listed in the materials that came with the card.

Hoping to get it worked out before making a road trip from Seattle to Lake Chelan this week. I've already paid for a couple charges that would have been free with the no charge program. Carwings is less important, but I'm guessing the two issues are linked somehow. Nissan customer service reps keep finding new things on their end that were not in their system and tell me to wait 24 to 48 hours for their systems to update and try again to log into carwings.

If it were not for the expectation of the no-charge to charge program working, all of my experiences with the new Leaf would be exceeding expectations. Hopefully these issues don't turn other new buyers off from the program. The dealers should activate these cards and carwings at the dealership at time of purchase so that the dealer address these types of problems before the customer leaves the dealer. When I bought my C-max Energi last year, I activated my Sync account at the dealer while waiting to get into see finance. Everything was set up and ready to go before I took delivery of the car.
 
same issue with my card. I called Blink and they state not all blink stations are free even the first hour. I went to EZ-charge website and found some Blink stations that show as free and even there the card did not work. Blink stated they will mail me a new card hope that works.
 
When I get my LEAF, I'm not going to accept the EZ Charge Card. I have individual cards for Blink, Aerovironment, and ChargePoint. The amount of time I spend public charging is less than 5 hours per year. I can't imagine that will change anytime soon either. This is just a mess and, after the initial free charging period is over, the companies are going to hound you. Especially EvGO. They are rabid dogs, calling and emailing constantly. :evil:
 
aarond12 said:
This is just a mess and, after the initial free charging period is over, the companies are going to hound you. Especially EvGO. They are rabid dogs, calling and emailing constantly. :evil:

Your experience is different than mine. I was an eVgo subscriber for a year (contract ended in June). I expected to get an email or a call about renewing my contract but never did. In late June I called to see exactly when my contract was up and they told me it had expired a couple days earlier. I asked about renewing and they said they would have to have a salesman call me. Later that day I was on the phone and I missed the call from the salesman. They never called me back. I'm no longer a subscriber. Guess they don't need customers.
 
I have had a good experience registering and activating the EZ-card charge (although the multiple registration was very fastidious).
I have been using the card within the time limits (30mn for DC, 60mn for L2) but I am being charged on my Blink account nonetheless. Anybody else with the same experience?
 
It is not easy to find out which stations are ones on the "no charge to charge" program. One cannot search the EZ-Charge website on an iPhone to find participating stations - must use desktop computer (Not convenient in the car!) :roll: Anyone successful searching that on an Android device?
 
I'm brand new to the forum, and this is my first post.

I signed a lease on a 2015 Leaf at the end of July, and actually signed up for my EZ-Charge accounts using my phone, before I left the dealership, because the dealer said it takes a while.

Blink came online almost immediately. NRG eVgo took about a week.

Anyway, I had been using the free charging successfully for a couple of weeks on both Blink and NRG eVgo chargers until suddenly they closed my account. They closed it without notification and without warning as far as I can tell. There I was yesterday, stranded at the charge station, wondering if I had enough juice to make it home, as I was getting "account not authorized" on the same NRG eVgo quick charger I had just used a couple of days ago. I called the number on the charger, and they said my account was closed and I need to call EZ-Charge about it. I called EZ-Charge and was, strangely, directed back to NRG eVgo. Finally the NRG eVgo guys were nice enough to just turn on the charger remotely, so at least I wasn't stranded, but they had no idea why my account was closed.

Anyway, as I waited to charge up, I called back EZ-Charge again, and I told them NRG eVgo had told me that the account was closed on the EZ-Charge end, and that they needed to handle it. Finally someone there was able to see in the computer that the closure did, in fact, happen on their end, but they were unable to explain why it happened, and by that time, everyone who could help had apparently gone home for the weekend. So, I spent the rest of my charge time ordering cards directly from Blink and NRG eVgo.

To be safe, and not feel stranded, I had to go through the signup process redundantly, once for EZ-Charge, which directs you to each charging network separately, and then once again for each charging network to get their cards directly from them. Hopefully I'm able to get the EZ-Charge Nissan guys to live up to the promised "no charge to charge" and "for two years", but so far, I have actually been charged to charge (when I went over the limits in the fine print by 2 minutes), and the promotion didn't actually last 2 years for me. It only lasted 2 weeks!! You would think, at least, when it expired, that they would let you use it still, and just charge you the normal rate. After all, you do still have to sign up for each network separately to activate the EZ-Charge card, so they have all your payment info.

I'll try to remember to post a follow up whenever they get back to me and explain why my account was closed down after 2 weeks instead of 2 years, and why it didn't revert to a "charge to charge" card after the fun stopped.

I'm actually a little put off that they have to make this so difficult. Why can't we just slide a credit card like you would at a gas pump? Why the red tape? It makes absolutely no sense.
 
It appears to me that the rollout of this event by NISSAN is a utter and complete failure for their No Charge to Charge program.
 
Hey, it is no worse than their battery replacement program initially was! :lol:

wongfeihong187 said:
It appears to me that the rollout of this event by NISSAN is a utter and complete failure for their No Charge to Charge program.
 
Update: They're working on it turning my account back on. Still no explanation as to what happened, but the Blink network seems to work for me at this point. NRG eVgo still does not.
 
OK, NRG eVgo appears to be working again for me now too. I didn't really get an explanation, but I'm back online, and they were very polite about it.
 
Just to follow up on my earlier post, my EZ Card was activated within about 5 days after my purchase. My car was so new that it apparently hadn't gotten added to the EZ Charge database. My dealer's service department (Car Pros in Burien) contacted eVgo and shortly after eVgo contacted me and told me to give the activation another try. After ~4 days of not responding to my inquiries, eVgo became very attentive and responsive. They've followed up twice to make sure everything activated correctly -- once through a PM on this site and once to the email I used to seek help initially. I think they are trying to save face after a bumpy start. At least they are doing that now. I can kind of understand why they may not have responded right away, because they were probably overloaded with emails and had a lack of answers for me. I still would have appreciated a response to let me know my message was received and being researched though...

Now that it is working, I've used it to charge over a dozen times, including on a 400 mile round trip vacation. Only had to pay to charge twice before the card got activated. Since then, I haven't been billed by Blink or AV for use at the stations that are participating. Luckily, there have been NO Charge to Charge participating DCQC stations along the routes of all my trips so far -- and one conveniently on my way home from work. The biggest issue I've run into is that the Blink stations indicate a $ price for each charge before starting the charge. However, I haven't seen any charges show up on my account or credit card. I assume that it shows a charge just in case you go over the time allotment - or because they don't have the software on the stations set up to recognize that the card is linked to the no charge to charge program (leaving that to the back end billing servers to figure out). That is just a minor issue as long as I don't end up getting billed...

Hopefully they have worked out most the issues and it will be a better experience for others soon. I'm very happy with the program now that it is working. Aside from the No Charge to Charge program, just having one card for multiple networks add a huge convenience and makes EV much more accessible to those who are not willing to put up with unreasonable inconveniences and confusing arrays of payment systems.

With DC quick charging available for free in the area, I'm much more willing to deal with the inconvenience of stopping every hour or so to charge for 15-20 minutes. It is a good excuse to stretch my bad back and there is just something rewarding about driving long distances with little to no fuel/energy costs. I'd probably use another vehicle for long distance if the charging was not free. On that front, I'd say the no charge to charge program is a huge success in making me love to drive my Leaf without feeling like I have to compromise to drive it. Compared to driving my old ICE vehicle, its like saving around $10 for every 60 miles I drive using the free charging.

Sure it would be nice if more stations participated in the no charge portion. But the key stations for me are those DCQC stations along the freeways that extend the range of the vehicle. If Nissan could just get those installed and kept operating every 15 to 20 miles along the freeways so that we could drive at least 60 miles before stopping regardless of where our trip starts, that would be perfect for this car. With stations frequently spaced 50-60 miles apart (as is the case from Seattle over I-90 and on the trip from Washington to the Oregon Coast), there is always a feeling of insecurity and worry that one of the stations along the route will not be operational...

By the way, I have not go Plug Share to show my participating no charge to charge stations on an android phone, but the Plug Share app does filter down to only the stations participating in the program on the iPad. It would be very nice if Nissan could build the filter function into Car Wings...

Overall, though, I am very happy with this promotion. I didn't have high expectations for the program at time of purchase, so all this free charging is just a bonus.

Oh yeah, Car Wings is now working too. Dealer had to replace and reprogram my TCU to get it communicating. Only negative part of that experience is that the loaner they gave me was a Sentra instead of a Leaf and it took 2 days for them to figure it out. Other than that, the customer service was great. I figure we can expect little hiccups with all the technology in the Leaf that is not in ICE vehicles. As long as Nissan takes care of those issues with minimal hassles, I'll stay happy.
 
kieranmullen said:
If anyone doesnt want theirs I will buy it.

Just bought a replacement Leaf yesterday and got this card. Useless to me as the nearest covered units are 165 miles away. Unregistered obviously. PM me if you still want one.
 
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