ericsf
Well-known member
Yesterday, I had to unexpectedly leave work early and had to use the fast charge to make it to my appointment. It was a "do or die" situation. With half a dozen QC stations on the LEAF's GPS map along the way - 3 of them I had used at least once before - I felt confident it was going to be easy. Oh man was I wrong.
First stop in Mountain View at Intuit. The Blink's touchscreen on the right was smashed, both screens off. The pretty but useless video on the top rolling like if nothing was wrong. I thought "Okay, plenty more QC to try on the way". Back on the road.
Second stop at Facebook in Menlo Park. The message on the screen told me the emergency shut-off had been triggered and the station had "no power". It still had plenty of power to roll the useless video on the big screen but no charge for me. Back on the road.
Third stop in Menlo Park at another Intuit location. There, everything looked okay on the surface but once I scanned my card, I found out that the touchscreen was not working. Unable to press the "continue" button, impossible to charge. That time, I called Blink's tech support line. All they could tell me was that they knew about the problem but could not override the system and let me charge remotely. Wasted 10min of valuable charging time on the phone. Back on the road.
Fourth stop, Redwood City near the Stanford hospital. I saw this one on the GPS map but had never used it before. Drove around the building twice, asked someone who pointed me to some weird group of L2 but no QC. Thanks Nissan for putting up ghost stations on the map. Back on the road.
Fifth stop, Evernote in Redbood City. It didn't look good at first as only the screen on the left was lit. Another LEAF was plugged-in but done charging. I unplugged him and tried to get mine started. The first time I got a "charging can't start error"... darn. Tried again, same. A Volt owner using the nearby L2 saw me struggle and told me "this is always broken, good luck with it!". I was about to switch to a L2 and see how far 30min of L2 charging could get me (very little hope I was going to make it to my appointment at that point) when I noticed I had left my car turned on. Dang! The third time was the charm: I was finally charging.
This last glitch was my fault but come on Blink: Out of 4 stations, 3 were unusable, 1 was half dead. Seriously?
First stop in Mountain View at Intuit. The Blink's touchscreen on the right was smashed, both screens off. The pretty but useless video on the top rolling like if nothing was wrong. I thought "Okay, plenty more QC to try on the way". Back on the road.
Second stop at Facebook in Menlo Park. The message on the screen told me the emergency shut-off had been triggered and the station had "no power". It still had plenty of power to roll the useless video on the big screen but no charge for me. Back on the road.
Third stop in Menlo Park at another Intuit location. There, everything looked okay on the surface but once I scanned my card, I found out that the touchscreen was not working. Unable to press the "continue" button, impossible to charge. That time, I called Blink's tech support line. All they could tell me was that they knew about the problem but could not override the system and let me charge remotely. Wasted 10min of valuable charging time on the phone. Back on the road.
Fourth stop, Redwood City near the Stanford hospital. I saw this one on the GPS map but had never used it before. Drove around the building twice, asked someone who pointed me to some weird group of L2 but no QC. Thanks Nissan for putting up ghost stations on the map. Back on the road.
Fifth stop, Evernote in Redbood City. It didn't look good at first as only the screen on the left was lit. Another LEAF was plugged-in but done charging. I unplugged him and tried to get mine started. The first time I got a "charging can't start error"... darn. Tried again, same. A Volt owner using the nearby L2 saw me struggle and told me "this is always broken, good luck with it!". I was about to switch to a L2 and see how far 30min of L2 charging could get me (very little hope I was going to make it to my appointment at that point) when I noticed I had left my car turned on. Dang! The third time was the charm: I was finally charging.
This last glitch was my fault but come on Blink: Out of 4 stations, 3 were unusable, 1 was half dead. Seriously?