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

[EdmondLeaf]

Diode is one thing but those cars will not charge at all. Do you know if Coulomb chargers (ChargePoint) do the diode check?

[davetex99]

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.

[redLEAF]

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.

[Nubo]

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?

[davewill]

...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.

[smkettner]

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.

[lipower]

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.

[Benjenn]

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.

[Alric]

GE's Six Sigma is slipping!

[KJD]

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.