NRG No Charge To Charge

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jstack6

Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2015
Messages
15
I got a green card from NRG with our SOUL EV. It's a no charge to charge card like Nissan has for the LEAF. I thought it was for 2 years BUT after using it on the new NRG DC Fast Chargers in our area I got a bill and they say it was only good for 60 days from purchase. How could I know? Their units don't say how much they charge. You can't see it on line.

Also the units charge at 45 kW until you hit 80% then drop to 4 kW, a 10 time reduction and you pay by the minute. Don't ever stay past 80% or you pay 10x more.
They also auto stop after 30 minutes. If you not done and want more when you start again they charge you extra. You have to wait 1 hour between charging times. That would be crazy on a trip to and from Tucson. If you drive direct and arrive in 30 minutes you have to wait 30 more minutes to charge again or pay lots extra.

A very odd business plan and I won't use them with those rules.
 
My Soul didn't come with a card.
I recently took a road trip, and bought a membership to AeroVironment.
I thought I would just pay $20 for the month, but I had to at an additional $15 for the fob.
On the way to my destination, one AeroVironment QC was down so I had to sit there for 2.5hrs using the L2.

On the way home, to avoid the 2.5hr wait, I went to a NRG unit. They were not the company I had a membership with, but I figured a one time hit was better than 2.5 hrs in the snow.

I was going downhill and really didn't need to charge, but I had not made the trip before and wanted to be safe. I called the 800 number, and they charged me $10 for a one time session. About 15 minutes in, my Soul hit 83% and stopped charging. I tried to restart it to charge to 93% (to get my money's worth) but the unit would not restart.

I guess I was supposed to call the number again, and I don't know if they were going to charge me again. I didn't feel like starting that fight, when I didn't need the charge.
So, basically I paid $10 for a 15min session.

I did like that it gave me realtime stats of the amps, etc going into the car. AeroVironment did not do that. They just displayed total kWh transferred and current % of your battery.
 
The dealership didn't mention the card, but searching through the stuff they provided I did find it. When I went to register it though they don't have a plan for my area since they don't have any kia dealerships in my area that sell them and I got it from a city more than 200mi away.

Also, the drops in wattage are from the car, not the charger provider. On a DC, it will actually stop at 84% and it is not recommended to continue charging off a DC after that. If you need to charge more for your trip, switch to a L2 if possible. Even if you remove and re-plug it back in, you will not charge faster than an L2 once you pass the 84% mark anyway and it will stop again at 93%.
 
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