Pod Point

ask user to change the rating

I drove to Lidl in Chippenham because the app said all three types of charger were available. When I arrived there were two cars charging, one ccs and one type two. The app still said all were available. I connected my car to the Chademo, then the charger said I would have to wait for the other cars to finish. When I tried to unplug, it wouldn’t release the cable. The charger said use the app to terminate the charge, but the app just says all three are available. Useless; I was trapped until the other cars finished.

I have used multiple pod point rapid chargers (mainly at Lidl’s around the north of the UK) and fast chargers. I also now have a pod point home charger. I have seen horror stories about installations going badly, and unusable chargers as well as the app itself not being reliable. I have found that whilst it’s not perfect it certainly amongst the quickest and most reliable interface (beats charge your car app and chargers for ease of use by a mile, in my experience). It’s very easy to identify chargers and connect to them, I was a bit gutted at one recently when I discovered that it could only charge CHAdeMO or CCS at one time, but a very courteous BMW i3 owner gave up his charge early for me. It was free after all, so I can’t complain at all. I do occasionally find using free chargers that my session is not captured on the app, but usually it’s just a bit slow receive the data. I have noticed and agree with other reviewers that if you use a charge timer in your car like my leaf has, the app completely fails to record the actual ‘charge’ time, and instead gives you the start, end and duration of the car being plugged in. However, the kW delivered appears correct which is of much more interest to me. It’s also nice to be able to download the data to review in a spreadsheet, but I am an analyst by trade so I appreciate that won’t be for everyone!

ask user to change the rating

The app is painful to connect to a home charger. When you do get it connected it doesn’t do much useful. The Smart chargers don’t seem very smart. Reports charge data and average use not more. It sometimes reports charges as zero cost randomly. It gives average usage per day that is always wrong until the month is finished. On 1st day of the month it divided my used kWh by 31 days and gave an average per day 1/31 of the real value. Come on guys it’s not difficult - divide by days elapsed in the month please, so after 1 day divide by 1 for an average per day! It cannot apply the correct costs to old data so all the charges prior to downloading show inaccurately. Surely simple to add a checkbox to apply the number retrospectively?

ask user to change the rating

Can not connect home pod-point to app... keeps coming up with error message when PSL no. input, with message to contact support. I did so and have had no response other than automated acknowledgement. So essentially I have a “dumb” charger which works ok but with no management capability due to this app not working. UPDATE The folks at Pod-Point got in touch and have sorted this issue, so that’s a thumbs up to them for good customer service. So I’ve upped my score to 3 stars. Will review again after some charge cycles when I’ve found out whether the app works ok and is useful.

Another user posted a fix for the charging error- which works. Simply set economy 7 to yes add you normal rate per KWh to both day and night rates. It now works properly. Incidentally, Podpoint’s suggestion of reinstalling the app did not work for me, despite doing it several times. Now the app is ‘working’ its relatively useful. I wish I could say the same for the Pod-Point chargers in my local Sainsbury’s (Richmond) - all 8 sockets have been broken for nearly a month!