For the second time in a month, I’ve navigated to a Chargepoint DC fast charger found in Plugshare only to find that the start charge functionality has been removed from the Chargepoint app. The reason… the station owner stopped paying their subscription to Chargepoint. So the station is “live” and shows lit up and available physically on-site, but there is no way to activate a charging session. Both times have nearly left me stranded. From now on, I’m avoiding Chargepoint altogether or at least verifying availability within their app and not just trusting PlugShare. This is a real PITA and a word of caution to everyone out there!
Does the Chargepoint app say the chargers are working and available?
Michael said:
Does the Chargepoint app say the chargers are working and available?
They do not show up in the Chargepoint app. I know a lot of people who just use PlugShare to find chargers and look at recent reviews to see if they are reliable. This charger last night showed a good session two days ago.
@martin
Are you sure this is a public charger? Chargers that don’t show up in their app are usually private access.
My office has them, they don’t show in the app and you need a key card that has been granted access to use them. It’s possible whoever put it in PlugShare doesn’t know it’s restricted.
I think you’re exaggerating here a bit.
If the owner stopped paying the subscription, CP stopped providing their services, plain and simple. ChargePoint processes the payments, maintains the station, pays for the data connection, and so on. This costs money, and the station owner decided to choose the subscription-based model.
The fact that the screen is lit up does not mean that the charger is functional.
If this station would appear in the CP app as “available,” it would be a problem because CP would be misleading consumers. Now it is really not.