Blink and Ikea

[tbleakne]

Just today I pulled into one of the two spots at the Lafayette Whole Foods >>>

I have been hoping Whole Foods would start putting in chargers, because the Pasadena, CA store is on the route I take when driving to Jet Propulsion Laboratory for their monthly lectures. Does anyone know of other Whole Foods locations that have charging ?

 

[JimSouCal]

Well I finally got my Blink card Saturday (actually 2), probably not-so-coincidentally after calling in to complain Thursday. Will have to come up with some excuse to go to Ikea again now.

Also got 2 cards, postmarked Dec 2nd. The post office delayed delivery for about a week. Skipped IKEA shopping. Maybe next year. Or just for fun later.

 

[EricBayArea]

For those who are curious, I went to the Ikea at Emeryville, CA and as others have pointed out the 4 charges are active, HOWEVER, they are NOT marked spots. The spots are on the first floor of the parking structure, closest to Ikea so as you can imagine, they are prime spots and were all taken. Oh, and one is a handicap spot.

I was lucky enough that someone in one of the spots had just walked up to their car and was leaving so I got one. When I came back, a white Leaf was in another one of the spots. But it's a problem because they are easily taken without signage.

I wrote Ikea so hopefully I hear something back.

UPDATE: I heard back from Ikea Customer Care:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

We do appreciate the feedback you provided in your email, as it lets
us know how we are doing. We will forward this information directly
to the store as the only cars that should be parked there are the
ones that would need this service.

 

[richard]

Well, I need to go to IKEA, and still NO BLINK card in the mail a couple of weeks after registering "on the blink" website. Why couldn't IKEA have gone with Chargepoint?

Don't worry... when/if you get the card, you now get to spin the roulette wheel as to whether the EVSE will work or not.

At IKEA Costa Mesa this weekend. Wife's first time using a Blink. She tried waving the card around in front of the unit. I showed her it actually needed to be laid up against the plastic (cheap reader). Then upon leaving, she looked at the station funny (not sure what she did exactly, maybe swipe her card again before removing the plug), and by the time we left, it was doing the intermittent ker-clunk noise, with an error about not being able to connect.

Next day, I was there to do a return, and it was still making the noise and complaining.

So routine use is apparently too much for these stations.

 

[tbleakne]

On Jan 15 I re-visited IKEA in Covina. Location right near entrance caused many customers passing into the store to notice my car. EV-only signage at the 4 Blink stations is very prominent, unlike other IKEA locations reported in this thread, and apparently this signage was effective in warding off ICEs in the spots.

Leftmost of 4 Blink was tagged for repair. Rightmost Blink accepted by Blink rfid card, but then displayed "Failed Selt-Test" after I plugged in. I reported this failure to Blink, IKEA, and Recargo.

Since many home Blink EVSEs are having frequent failures, and now I see public Blink EVSEs with issues (2 out of 4), I really wonder how could we possibly expect good reliability from Blink L3, which is much, much more complicated ?

Has anyone tried Blink units at Wal-Mart in Corona, CA ? Judging from above experience, I need to have backup plans. Its location is attractive to me because there is a Mimi's Cafe next-door.