GE WattStation Problem Thread (Was: Dead on Day 2 of use.)

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Diode is one thing but those cars will not charge at all. Do you know if Coulomb chargers (ChargePoint) do the diode check?
 
A new local owner not on this forum had her new Leaf refuse to charge after she used her GE Wattstation at home. The dealer said the damage was caused by the GE station. They are fixing the Leaf under warranty and have instructed her not to use the GE unit.
 
Wow, I came close to going with the GE unit but it simply would have been a tight fit (where I needed to have it wall mounted) so opted for a much smaller (and less expensive) Schneider / Sq D which has performed flawlessly for the last 6 months. The GE is a looker but needs to get its act together, I'm sure they'll eventually get this right but a bad rap from Nissan will be hard to overcome easily.
 
redLEAF said:
Wow, I came close to going with the GE unit but it simply would have been a tight fit (where I needed to have it wall mounted) so opted for a much smaller (and less expensive) Schneider / Sq D which has performed flawlessly for the last 6 months. The GE is a looker but needs to get its act together, I'm sure they'll eventually get this right but a bad rap from Nissan will be hard to overcome easily.

Depends on what is going on. Is the GE unit overloading the diode? Are its diode test parameters within specs (if any?) If so, then the finger of blame could shift back to Nissan. Hopefully at some level they're working together on this.

I'm curious as to which of the common L2 units does the diode test?
 
Nubo said:
...I'm curious as to which of the common L2 units does the diode test?
From what I've been able to glean from the forum, the only ones that DON'T test are the AV unit, and the Nissan L1 EVSE. So the dealer will never detect a bad diode without specifically testing for it with something other than their EVSE. Certainly most (all?) of the public ones like ChargePoint and Blink do. Of the home units, I know that SPX, Coulomb, Blink, and apparently GE EVSEs do.

P.S. It was nice that the dealer fixed that woman's LEAF for free, but it would be better if someone held GE responsible for repairing a LEAF instead. You can bet they would quickly get their act together.
 
davewill said:
P.S. It was nice that the dealer fixed that woman's LEAF for free, but it would be better if someone held GE responsible for repairing a LEAF instead. You can bet they would quickly get their act together.
If the GE units were systematically damaging the LEAF I would think we would hear more of these troubles.
There would certainly be a lot of returns for GE if Nissan was fixing a lot of these under warranty and declaring GE Wattstation defective.
 
That is unfortunate that some of you are having issues with the WattStation. I have not had any issues with mine. It has been installed since December and charges every day. I now have over 7,000 miles of trouble-free charging on it. The main reason I went with the GE over all the other units was that it had a 30amp rating and it was made by GE. It sucks when two behemoths start pointing their finger at each other. My personal favorite is when Microsoft and IBM pull their fingers out. Nightmare.
 
Ours is one of the ones EdmondLeaf mentioned in his post. We've had our Leaf since May 19th but only driven it about 350 miles so far... charged it with our GE Wattstation maybe 6 or 7 times. Plugged it in to charge last Thursday, the charger came on, the charging lights on the car started blinking and then everything went off. Tried multiple times. Took it to a nearby Nissan dealer to plug into their charger. Nothing. Tried the trickle charger at home. Nothing. The Nissan Dealer we got it from came to our house Friday to run diagnostics which said the on-board charger was bad and he told us they knew of problems with the GE chargers causing this. We took the car in Monday, Nissan overnighted the part, the dealer charged the car and we picked it up last night. We took the charger back to Lowe's and ordered the Aerovironment charger. Not taking any more chances! Thrilled with the service from our Nissan Dealer. Happy to have our Leaf back in working order so quickly! Anxious to get the new charger.
 
Installed my GE Wattstation first week of December and it has worked great.

I have never had a moments trouble with it. Nissan just likes to sell the AV unit for inflated price.
 
I would like to hear a LEAF that was repaired and went home and it failed again on the GE Wattstation.
Sounds more guilt by association. Dealers all well known for making up any story to blame the consumer.
 
smkettner said:
I would like to hear a LEAF that was repaired and went home and it failed again on the GE Wattstation.
Sounds more guilt by association. Dealers all well known for making up any story to blame the consumer.
The problem being that nobody is likely to make that test and take the chance they'll be hung out to dry for an expensive repair. The only way to resolve it is for GE to get involved in one of these situations and prove/disprove the allegation.
 
Hello,
Just wanted to chime in here. Mine was the first Leaf to suffer a diode failure of the charger in April 2011. If you look at the circuit diagram there is no way that the GE Wattstation can over power the diode. It is protected by circuits / components which limit current and voltage. About the only thing that could get in there would be a high voltage negative spike on the ground from a lightning strike (cause of the #2 failure in Tennessee). They tried to blame my TIG welder but the car was 30 miles away when it failed.

The only other possibility would be a static discharge not shunted because the ground pin on the J1772 connector is recessed and not connecting first.

I suppose if the contactor is putting out a sizable negative spike when disconnecting, that could have an effect if the circuits are not sufficiently isolated. But if that were true it would not have passed the UL tests.

Just my .02

Nissan replaced the charger under warranty.
 
We weren't willing to take any chances by using the GE Wattstation again. Nissan took such great care of us getting the car back to us so quickly and GE really couldn't tell us anything. If it is working fine for others, that's great. I just know what happened to us and since it seems to have happened to others, too, I'm good with switching to the charger Nissan recommends to be on the safe side. It didn't cost much more... less than $200.
 
Gentlemen,

I sure wish I had stumbled on this thread before I purchased my GE Wattstation from Lowes, because I'm sort of stuck in this same blame game between Nissan and GE here on Oahu. I purchased my Leaf on 24 May 2012. I was never contacted by Nissan's preferred EVSE guys for a home evaluation etc., so when I picked up the Leaf the salesperson suggested I do as many other new Leaf owners have done is pick up an EVSE L2 charger from Lowes or Home Depot, so I did just that. As it happens, my oldest son is a licensed electrician, so I got the GE Wattstation for $995 less 10% off because I'm retired Military with Zero cost for the installation. I watched my son install the thing and it's not rocket science at all. Anyway, 4 days later the Leaf would not accept a charge at all, either from the GE L2 EVSE, the Nissan supplied L1 charger or at the Dealership L2 charger. It took my dealership 2 weeks to get the necessary parts in stock in order to repair my brand new car....bummer. In the mean time, the Nissan Service guy gave me a phone number to GE Resolution. I called them and they were helpful. GE is sending via FEDEX 2dayAir, a replacement Wattstation with a return lable for the supposedly defective unit. The GE Resolution guy said that GE and Nissan engineeres are working closely together to decide on just what the problem is. Nissan on the other hand advised me to not under any circumstances reconnect my Leaf to a GE Wattstation, and if I did and the Leaf charging system crapped out again, Nissan would not cover the repair under warranty. The GE Resolution guy told me there are in addition to my Leaf, two other Leafs here in Hawaii with the same problem. Until I stumbled on this forum, I had no idea there were a lot more. I sure hope they get their collective act together soon.

Gary
 
Now that kickahaota has reported same trouble ... in another thread ...

Is it only me or is it time for GE and/or Nissan (not for the car, but GE may not have contact info if sold via Home Depot etc) to issue an IMMEDIATE RECALL AND NOTIFICATION to all EV owners until the issue is resolved !? :roll: :evil:
 
Hi all, I am new to this forum, but my husband and I are in the process of purchasing a Leaf and I popped on to compare EVSEs. I like the look of the WattStation, but reading this thread makes me nervous about purchasing one. Does anyone have experience with the Schneider or Eaton charging stations?
 
I use Schneider virtually every day since about September. Never any issues.
I also use a Leviton 160 about once a week recently with no issues.

I have not read a troubled post about either of these.
 
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