EV charger [Not charging on schedule]what to check

This is the most reported chargepoint problem in the country and it is usually a working charger doing what it is legally required to do. The Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021 came into force on 30 June 2022 and apply to chargepoints sold from that date for private use in England, Scotland and Wales — home or workplace, not public chargepoints and not rapid chargers — which myenergi summarise for owners as any zappi installed on or after that date. Three of the behaviours those regulations mandate look exactly like faults. The first is randomised delay. The regulation requires a random delay of up to 600 seconds — ten minutes — every time electricity would start flowing or the charge rate would step up or down, and requires the charger to be capable of stretching that to 1,800 seconds, which is why Ohme publish that it may be extended to thirty minutes if requested by government.

Myenergi describe it as possibly a few seconds or possibly the full ten minutes, and note that you cannot permanently override the delay function — the regulation gives the owner the right to cancel the delay each time it runs, which is the per-session override, and nothing more. So you plug in, nothing happens, and you conclude something is broken, when the charger is counting. Ohme publish a further wrinkle almost nobody knows: the delay applies to the end of a charging window as well, and it brings the end forward rather than back. A window ending at half past four may stop anywhere between twenty past and half past. That is the published explanation for "my car did not finish charging". The second is the default off-peak schedule. The regulation requires every chargepoint to ship with default charging hours outside what it defines as peak hours — eight to eleven in the morning and four to ten in the evening on weekdays — and to offer you, the first time it is used, the choice of accepting, removing or changing them. How that is implemented varies by brand: myenergi ship with midnight to eight, while Ohme's ePod ships instead refusing to charge in exactly the regulation's peak hours. Plug in at six in the evening on a new charger and nothing will happen, by design.

Ohme's remedy is to pair the charger in the app and set your own schedules, after which the default times are automatically disabled, and the regulation guarantees you can change or remove the default hours at any time afterwards. The third is the surplus mode default. Myenergi ship in ECO+, which will not charge at all without solar surplus, so a brand new charger on a cloudy day can appear completely dead.

1. 1

   Wait ten minutes after plugging in before concluding anything. The randomised delay is required by law and it can use the full ten minutes.

2. 2

   Open the app and look at the schedule the charger thinks it has. On a new installation that will be the factory default rather than anything you chose.

3. 3

   Set your own schedule. Ohme publish that once charge schedules are set up, the default times are automatically disabled, and other brands behave similarly.

4. 4

   Check whether the charger is in a solar surplus mode. Some ship that way, and in that mode a dull day means no charging at all by design.

5. 5

   Check the car as well as the charger. A departure timer in the vehicle will override a charger that is perfectly willing, and two schedules set independently rarely agree.

6. 6

   If you need a charge now, use the boost or max charge function rather than fighting the schedule. That is what the per-session override exists for.