Unreliable Ecotricity Chademo Charging With i-miev (Ion)

So, I was on a trip W/bound on the M25/M4 (UK) today and had Chademo'ed 40 miles after leaving home with a full charge to 80% at Nissans HQ at Maple Cross, no issues. Got to Reading Services and had to get round to the E/b side as W/b Chademo was U/s, got the manager out to kindly open the access barrier, connected as usual to ecotricity's Chademo and got a ground fault error. Tried again, same thing. 5 miles remaining. What to do? Managed to get thru to ecotricity's help line who suggested going to Nissan in Reading but the post code (correct) takes you to the wrong place and twice round a busy dual carriageway before finding it (bear right at the BP and it's next to Audi). They were helpful and let me charge BUT despite it starting up ok, it kicked me out with a 'can receiving error'. Tried the button to resume and it did but kept on giving the same error after 10-30 seconds of charging. Thinking I'm well stuck now with no miles at all, I spoke to the management again who said it was working fine for their Leaf, that morning. So tried ringing Peugeot who could only offer the AA. Went back to the charger and tried again and it charged for about one minute and then gave same error. Noticed that each time i did this the car was charging a percent or two. By the time AA turned up (saying they thought it was a flat ICE battery and therefore no help at all) I was at 50% having been at Nissan for an hour.

Then, after another few resets it continued without error. Believe this is due to the much lower current being drawn by now (50A compared with 120A when empty). So AA cleared off, I continued charging normally to 80% and then again to 85%, then drove on to Membury Services. Charged perfectly normally on the Chademo there. By now raining significantly. Off to Leigh Delamere services. Guess what, again after initially starting to charge, the ecotricity chademo kicked me out again with a ground fault error again. By now it was raining quite hard. Ecotricity help line not answering anymore. Gave up trying to get where I was going, another 60 miles, and decided to divert to sister - 15 miles away but only 10 miles range!

Managed to get to other side of services (nightmare) and, would you Adam and Eve it, Chademo works perfectly normally. Quick 10 mins fast charging and off to sisters in time for dinner.

So, convinced problem is not with car as surely it would either charge normally or not at all (?) but equally convinced chargers should have a canopy to keep rain out of 300+V, 120A connections and that they should get fixed quicker!

Not very impressed and realistically unlikely to trust ecotricity fast charge network again for a long time.

Anyone else had any similar experiences?

MW

Martin, thank you for your tale, which I enjoyed from the comfort of my armchair
Presumably you'll be communicating directly with ecotricity?

Well, as an update to this, I rang ecotricity helpline yesterday morning and got the same chap I had spoken to on my first trip 2 weeks ago when I couldn't charge at Bridgwater or Sedgemoor (N/B). He confirmed that both Reading Chademos were 'off-line' but suggested neither were due to the wet. At least it means there is nothing amiss with the car. I'm not convinced at least some of my trials have not been wet related. That said, coming back yesterday via Oxford (2 chademos 10 miles apart and I used them both) and South Mimms M25 services, all char demos worked perfectly normally despite it still being fairly damp - not raining though. I did have to wait 30 mins at S Mimms for a Leaf to charge, tho.

So lesson is, don't go EVing long distance in the pouring rain (I'm convinced all the errors are wet related - none of them have any cover, FCOL! - and check the chargers are working with ecotricity before relying on them for a charge.

Well, I have good news to report.

I have once again undertaken a trip to Devon and back from my home in East Herts - about 180 miles using the A10, M25, M3, M27 and A35 and can report no problems charging on a combination of Ecotricity's rapid chargers and Nissan's ones (at the Maple Cross HQ (now a newer RC), Bournemouth and Wincanton dealers (also all new units). The RCs on the 3 different motorway service areas are also all new and at Fleet they have 2 separate units now, one including the EU CCS DC connector. No queues either.

With an alternative route opening up along the A303 things are definitely improving on the long distance EV front in the UK. In fact I could have used the A303 this time had Hampshire County Council - who got £100ks from OLEV to specifically fund rapid charging - managed to get the 3 sensibly sited RC's that they have 'organised' (and I use the word in its loosest possible way) actually connected to the mains. As it is, they have been sitting, fully installed, at their designated sites for 2 months now waiting to be connected. The installation company claims they have not been paid the VAT and so won't connect them. HCC deny this quoting unspecified last-minute problems as the reason for non functioning of these RCs.

The other 3 RCs they have installed all lie within 5 miles of at least 2 other RCs leaving the entire rest of the county with none at all - in my view a hopelessly miss-managed state of affairs.

Nissan still gets my vote for being the most forward-thinking and EV driver-friendly organization out there. They appear to have a completely 'open door' policy towards all EVers, tho I learned on my recent trip that one Bournemouth Mitsubishi Outlander driver is already taking the micky by hogging the RC at the Bournemouth dealership and not even asking before using it! Ecotricity is up for praise too, but I am (perhaps a bit cynically) doubting their motives. I would much prefer a properly managed and funded national RC infrastructure located and maintained as part of a strategic transport network which would not rely on potentially flaky private enterprise to work.

I am also semi-officially advised that LEAFs are beginning to sell like 'hot cakes'... MW