New owner and question about PlugShare

Hi all--I'm a new owner of a 2019 Leaf Plus as of last week--loving it so far!

I had a question about the reliability of apps in terms of status of chargers.

On PlugShare, I see that there are three CHAdeMO chargers on my commute from Denver to Boulder, but all currently show that they are "under repair," which is inconvenient. Is this normal? Should I believe that they are actually under repair, or would I be able to go use them?

Thankfully, I'm charging at work right now, so shouldn't be a problem today, but wondering for future charging needs.

At least one of those chargers shows a successful charge this morning, and the others have recent successful charges and 10/10 ratings. That is all very encouraging, but I would be worried if one of those chargers was my only option. Since the car is new to you, I’d suggest stopping by one on your way home from work and trying it out, but have enough range left to get home in case it isn’t working. Check in on PlugShare either way!

I'd try to avoid CHAdeMO charging when the weather is hot, since high battery temps speed up degradation of the battery.

If you have L2 charging at work I'd just stick to that. CHAdeMO is nice if you need it but if you have the time to charge at L2 then that is probably a bit easier on the battery, especially when it's warm outside.

Enjoy your Leaf. I have a 30kWh pack so a Boulder/Denver RT is right on the cusp of what I'm comfortable with on a single charge. With a Plus I'd think it would be pretty easy unless you're way down south.

zmountin said:

Should I believe that they are actually under repair, or would I be able to go use them?

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Reports on PlugShare about there being a problem with some station are usually believable. The thing is, there's no way to know when a particular problem is rectified. If the PlugShare report was from yesterday, then it's probably still broken. If it was from last month, then it's probably fixed by now. The only way to know is to stop at the station and try to use it... and to make sure to check-in on PlugShare to update the status either way (even if it's to say it's still broken).

Thanks, all! It looks like they are all back up and running now, so must have been a momentarily blip.

Thankfully I was able to charge up at a L2 at work today--first time charging! I was able to make 2 Denver/Boulder RTs and one more time back up on the initial charge (plus a bit of driving around Denver too), so I feel pretty good about that.

But, I was curious for the future about if/when I need to hit the CHAdeMOs on the way up or down, and was just surprised when it looked like all of them were out of commission at the same time.

zmountin said:

Thanks, all! It looks like they are all back up and running now, so must have been a momentarily blip.

Thankfully I was able to charge up at a L2 at work today--first time charging! I was able to make 2 Denver/Boulder RTs and one more time back up on the initial charge (plus a bit of driving around Denver too), so I feel pretty good about that.

But, I was curious for the future about if/when I need to hit the CHAdeMOs on the way up or down, and was just surprised when it looked like all of them were out of commission at the same time.

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Maybe scheduled maintenance or upgrade.

You can also check the sites for the specific brand of charger (ie. chargepoint, evgo, etc). They will generally tell you if somebody is actually using the charger at that moment, or if it is down.

All of the information you see about public charging on PlugShare is user provided, so it is only as accurate as the user community makes it. PlugShare is the best single resource to find a public or private EVSE available near where you are but if you want the actual status of a particular network (chargepoint, blink, etc.) charger, use their app.