2015 Nissan Leaf isn’t charging

So we recently got a 2015 leaf, and so far it’s been great. But today we went to charge it, and the lights delayed for a few seconds before all 3 started blinking and beeping, 3 times in a row for about 30 seconds. We won’t be able to get it looked at until Tuesday, but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas what that means? The car starts, there are no warning lights on, and otherwise seems absolutely fine.

If you try to charge outside of the timeframe specified when a charge timer is set, you will get the three dash lights lighting one after the other. If there is beeping as well, though, you either have a ground fault in your house wiring or an internal fault in the EVSE (charging station or cable).

Are you using the Nissan 120v charging cable? What do its indicator lights show? Is it plugged into a well-reputed 3-prong outlet? Can you try a different outlet? If all above checks out, you might inspect the connector at the end of the charge cable as well as the connector at the front of the car. Ensure the connector is plugged in all the way to the car (does it click?). Have you tried replugging it?

I had that happen when I was plugged into a public level 2 charger that stopped working. I presume something isn't right somewhere between the connector at the front of the car and your home's connection to the utility.

Are there any public charging stations nearby you can try?

So we haven’t been able to set up a home charger. We actually use a public charging station around the corner from our house. And I’m sure it was working because it was charging a car on the opposite side charger. (I tried both plugs once they were free and neither worked. It kept saying “waiting for vehicle...”)

Are you using a level 2 charging station, or a fast charging station - the kind with the huge round plug?

I believe so, yes.

clprop said:

I believe so, yes.

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Heh. Which? I was referring to two different kinds of charging station. L-1/L-2 setups are called "EVSEs" and provide either 120 volts (L-1) or 208-240 volts (L-2) to the car's onboard charger. Quick Charge stations (sometimes incorrectly called L-3) access the car's battery directly, and fast-charge it with 400+ volts of direct current. They are actually external chargers, while L-1/L-2 units are just smart power cables.

Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I’m pretty sure it’s a Level 2 charger. We have a ChargePoint station near us that can usually charge my car back from low to full in about 4 hours.

Charging station errors aren't rare. You should try charging the car at another station. If you have the 120 volt (L-1) charging cable that came with the car, you can try that with a good, unloaded 120 volt household or commercial circuit. If the error doesn't occur, you know it likely isn't the car. If it does then we can proceed from there.

Gotcha. I’ll see if we can find another station or if we can find an outlet. Maybe if I just unplug some stuff in the basement... We rent currently and I actually had someone come and look at the house to see if they could hook us up and the guy said the wiring wasn’t going to be able to handle the load. It would need to be upgraded or he wouldn’t feel comfortable adding to it.

clprop said:

So we haven’t been able to set up a home charger. We actually use a public charging station around the corner from our house. And I’m sure it was working because it was charging a car on the opposite side charger. (I tried both plugs once they were free and neither worked. It kept saying “waiting for vehicle...”)

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Yes, that is exactly what happened to me with a ChargePoint level 2. I went to a municipal charging station across town and it worked fine.

The included 120v Nissan charger draws about 1300 W and isn't too taxing on modern home circuits. I started off using an extension cord, but after a while, enough oxidation at the plugs made the cord get warmer than I was comfortable with. Plugging it directly into an outlet in a ramshackle garage has been working fine, though.

The included 120v Nissan charger draws about 1300 W and isn't too taxing on modern home circuits.

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As long as they aren't already powering more than a light or two. Since it's a continuous load you don't want the circuit, if 15 amp, drawing more than 1500 watts continuous.

Well thankfully my husband went and found a charging station that seems to be working just fine! So it must have been the other station. I hope, anyway.

As far as charging at home, we don’t have an outlet that fits our charger in the garage. The guy who we called to install it said he wouldn’t do it unless we upgraded the wiring, which I’m not going to do for a rental. The guys who live below us have stuff plugged in constantly. In theory we could maybe run an extension to the basement where the dryer is, but the part that gets me nervous is something possible going wrong with the car if there’s too much plugged in. We didn’t really see it as an issue if we couldn’t manage to charge at home because the station is a 5 minute walk from us. It would be nice, though.

This is our first electric car, if you couldn’t tell...

There's a learning curve, all right. One of the prime Rules of driving an EV is "Always have a backup charging option." There is a way that you could have L-2 charging at home, but it might be too labor intensive and pricey: There is a device that will manually or automatically switch loads between a dryer and an EV charging station. You would also apparently need an electrician to make you a 240 volt extension cable to the basement and that dryer outlet. There may also be code issues. You might also price having just one 120 volt 20 amp circuit, with one outlet, installed to plug in an L-1 charging cable. If you have the Nissan original cable, then a 15 amp circuit would be better. If you had to acquire the cable anyway, there are charging cables available that will charge at 16 amps on 120 volts, rather than the 12 amps the Nissan cable uses. Just keep in mind that 120 volt charging is quite slow.