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

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Situation normal with the Web stirring up a bunch of mass hysteria and FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt)...

Common sense here please: Folks installing charging stations should be including a hard-wired high grade surge suppressor when the units are put in place. Reality check: With a charging station and car combination you are directly connecting over $30,000 worth of electrical equipment to the grid. How many folks have surge protection on their computers and TVs?

I have used a GE Wattstation to charge my Nissan Leaf every day (sometimes three times a day) for the last six months. In fact, that is the only charger that has been used with the car, except for its first charge at the Nissan dealership.

As others have mentioned in other posts on this forum, there have been plenty of other diode failures on other chargers, but the common thread seems to be electrical interruptions, breakers being opened / popped, etc. A few months back here in the Nissan Leaf forums folks commented back to me on this that a surge protector is not going to save you in a direct lightining strike. Well folks, we are not talking about direct strikes here, the idea is to protect against surges...

If you have an EVSE, you really should have surge protection as close to the charger as possible – it is just simple common sense.

One other commenter here mentioned the state of charge percent and the Wattstation. The state of charge is controlled by the Nissan Leaf, not the EVSE. The EVSE/charger just connects the car to the power source – it only connects or disconnects when the Leaf says to.

Disclaimer: I don't work for GE and don't own GE stock. I do live in a small town with a GE plant that makes circuit breaker panels that is likely being closed next year according to the local paper.

Ken Clifton
http://www.kenclifton.com
 
pclifton said:
Situation normal with the Web stirring up a bunch of mass hysteria and FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt)...

Common sense here please: Folks installing charging stations should be including a hard-wired high grade surge suppressor when the units are put in place.

This issue does nit seem like FUD, overblown maybe but GE has released a statement and there seems to be many credible reports.

Surge suppression will likely not help this issue at all and most commercial EVSEs have surge suppression built.in. so an external device is not needed. The diode that is blown is on the pilot line which is not part of the high voltage path. The diode would normally see voltages from -12 to +12v. The J1772 spec reccomends EVSEs to include a Transient voltage suppression TVS on the pilot. This should help protect the pilot diode from surges caused by capacitance in the cable/EVSE/EV during connection. My guess is the wattstation either does not have the TVS diode on the pilot orto does not have a large enough TVS diode.

For those following OpenEVSE... The Open EVSE hardware design has a 600W bi directional TVS diode very close to the pilot output.
 
av8r said:
...the circuit breaker tripped when I plugged in the GE Wattstation J1772 'ray-gun' plug into the vehicle....

...I had my electrician look at the GE Wattstation and he found two 40 amp fuses blown in the GE unit...


That's some serious current.
 
I really don't know what to think or do about this. I had a GE WattStation (plug not hardwired type) installed just this past week at my house. It seems to be working fine with my Leaf. I feel confused by the fact that it works well for many people (and has for awhile) and yet it seems that other folks have problems almost immediately. I plan to keep using the WattStation until I hear definitely that there is an incompatibility problem with the Leaf or until something happens to my Leaf.
 
Just saw this clip this morning at http://www.autonews.com/article/20120716/VIDEO/307169822/1439" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Not much detail but "Is there a problem with the GE charging dock?" Can it be worse than the Blink?

Near the midle of the clip is a short piece on the GE device.
 
pclifton said:
Situation normal with the Web stirring up a bunch of mass hysteria and FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt)...

Common sense here please: Folks installing charging stations should be including a hard-wired high grade surge suppressor when the units are put in place. ...
Bull. We've had 4 or 5 separate reports on here of people who have used their new Wattstation a few times and ended up having to have the charger in their car replaced. BTW, your comment about a surge suppressor sounds more like FUD than the reports where people's cars have needed major repair.
 
It's not just GE WattStation, it's any charger that actually follows the J1772 standard.

I've been using the GE WattStation for 6 months now, though, and have had no issues.
 
travisty said:
It's not just GE WattStation, it's any charger that actually follows the J1772 standard.

I've been using the GE WattStation for 6 months now, though, and have had no issues.
No, it seems to be specifically the WattStation. Just read the reports here on MNL.
 
These are not chargers they are "charge cords", EVSE units. To call them chargers only makes it more confusing to newbies. These issues are not related to all EVSE units only this one at this time.
 
jms said:
I've seen cases on here about the diode failing and it not having anything to do with a wattstation. for example http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8653" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My concern is this: If the AeroVironment evse and the 110 evse provided by Nissan do not do the diode check, then how would you know that yours had failed? It is possible that the diode has a high rate of failure but since AeroVironment and Nissan are ignoring that part of J1772 standard it goes undetected?

But there are apparently other cases besides those of the Wattstation. And apparently one of the Wattstation problems was after a lightning strike, which in my opinion wouldn't be the fault of the GE unit.

Has anybody compiled a list of the diode failures and what EVSE they were using?
 
I doubt that Nissan would have stuck its neck out with the advisory letter had they not already been working in concert with GE on a problem they both agreed was occurring. There'd be a heck of a libel suit otherwise!
 
I purchased a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL 10 days ago. I also purchased a GE Wattstation Level 2 charger at Lowes for $999 and 10% off military discount as I'm retired USMC. My oldest son is a licensed electrician, so installation was FREE. All was well for the first 5 days, then the Leaf decided it was not going to accept a charge any longer, either from the GE Wattstation or the Nissan supplied trickle charger. The Leaf is back at the dealership for repairs and I'm driving a dealership supplied loaner, a gas guzzeling Nissan SUV. Yesterday the dealership service manager called to say that they expect to have the car repaired by the end of the week; and asked what type of Level 2 charger I was using. They seemed a bit taken aback that I was not using the Nissan branded Level 2 charger ($2500 installed) and had installed the GE Wattstation instead. They implied that maybe the GE Wattstation Level 2 charger was the problem and not the Leaf itself in that they had 2 other Leafs with the same issue using the Wattstation. I wonder if there's any validity to the dealership assertion that my GE Wattstation Level 2 charger may have killed my Leaf.
 
The GE Wattstation and the Aerovironment L2 units are NOT chargers, they're EVSEs. The charger is inside your car, under the hump in the back.

Even prior to http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9451" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, I recall seeing plenty of posts about the Wattstation being bad news w/the Leaf. I wouldn't buy one.

There is this running thread... http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=7996" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
 
padamson1 said:
Apparently there is a serious issue with the GE WattStation EVSE when used with a LEAF...

http://www.plugincars.com/nissan-de...tion-charger-can-damage-your-leaf-123121.html

[edit]also HybridCars.com has a similar report
http://www.hybridcars.com/news/ge-w...pected-nissan-leaf-charging-issues-48410.html
It's unfortunate that this post which I thought had its own thread and thus is now buried in here. :(

Potential Wattstation purchasers may not find it. It looks like some posts from http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9159" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ("does hardwire wattstation lose less electricty vs plug in?") got moved here. I replied and either I replied to the wrong thread or it got moved here. So, I deleted it from this thread and re-replied back over there.

Sigh... and my re-reply got moved here again!
 
Yeah, I merged the threads. Either that or I (or another mod) sift through 8 pages of posts and split all the non-charging LEAF posts in this thread into another thread. Seems that a GE WattStation Problem thread is easier.

Your re-reply was in the wrong thread completely which was discussing hard-wiring, not GE WattStation frying LEAF chargers.

Edit: Reviewed this thread - the WattStation killing the diode came into discussion on the 2nd page. No way it's getting unraveled now.
 
drees said:
Yeah, I merged the threads. Either that or I (or another mod) sift through 8 pages of posts and split all the non-charging LEAF posts in this thread into another thread. Seems that a GE WattStation Problem thread is easier.

Your re-reply was in the wrong thread completely which was discussing hard-wiring, not GE WattStation frying LEAF chargers.
I recall there were posts in the "does hardwire wattstation lose less electricty vs plug in?" thread that also discussed compatibility and damage to the Leaf as a result of the Wattstation. I was replying to that.

I think those got moved here...

Personally, I think the recent warning stories in the media belong in its own thread and ought to be a sticky. That's the only EVSE I'm aware of that damages the Leaf. Not buying one (until the problem is fixed) == people not making a mistake in spending all that $. Also, it's a good warning for people that might go to a friend's/relative's house to charge on their Wattstation. I'd hate for Leaf owners to have to replace the charger once it goes out of warranty...
 
This is a very serious issue, and now it's being reported on Autoblog Green, and I feel fortunate that I didn't buy one of these as I had considered. I came here today searching for a thread on this, and I didn't immediately find this thread because I searched with a space between the words, like Watt Station, so hopefully this post will help in that respect.

Watt Station + Leaf = No Charge
 
It really is unfortunate. I did consider the unit too.

Too early to lay blame. It could be either side, or it might just be that neither side has a specific defect, just some weird unanticipated interaction between them.
 
Back
Top