I'm going to sound stupid but please, can someone give me a step by step guide to charging an electric car

[Pleasehelpthisisridiculous]

Had to hire a car for a couple of weeks, they only had an electric jeep left and I cannot figure out how to charge it.

I went to 2 different charging ports, paid, and couldn't do it, and I'm trying at home now and cannot do it. I've googled and followed the instructions but I feel maybe they skipped a couple of obvious steps out because I cannot figure this out.

Can someone please give me a step by step idiots guide to charging this damned thing.

I will be eternally grateful.

Mine you plug the big end into the car and the smaller end into the charger and away you go. I have never used a fast charger so no idea if it was one of those

did you plug it in correctly? It should kind of click in. Are you using the right cable. If the basics are right, there could be a setting on the car - for example i can set mine to charge overnight.

What do you have at home to charge with? Is it a cable that plugs into a normal socket? With mine you would literally put the cable in and it will start charging.
On public chargers with the fast chargers they have their own cable - you just connect that to your car and can pay using contact less.
For the slower public chargers you will need your own cable to connect and you might need an app to pay, or you may be able to use your card on the charger.

Could you post a picture of your car’s charging port and the cable?

Can you find anything on YouTube?

im terrible at public chargers - I literally always have to call the helpline. The newer the charger the better - the big stands of fast chargers at service stations are the easiest.

It's clicked in properly, and it's just a normal cable.

It's clearly a me problem as that's 3 different chargers not worked now but I can't figure it out at all.

I'm going to check the settings on it just now, see if I can see a charge overnight option.

I always thought I was a reasonably intelligent person until now.

Really making sure the plug ‘clicks’ into the car is my biggest thing.

Did you switch the car off before you plugged it in?
Was it unlocked?

We park up
Switch off
Plug car in
Wave phone or debit card at machine
Give it 30 seconds or so to get started
Go and get a coffee

Sometimes you get a broken charger, but they're now few and far between. We're into year four of EV ownership and the network is much more reliable.

Facebook is good for this. Find the group for the car you have and ask them.

Don’t worry about the money- it should be refunded of charging didn’t happen, but it may take a few days.

Tell us the situation. Do you have a cable that came with the car? If there’s one with an ordinary domestic plug on one end, it can charge from an ordinary domestic socket but it’s very slow. Worth putting it on overnight though.

Then there are chargers that have the cable attached. They should work as described on the machine.

Most likely issue is a timer on the car so it charges overnight on a cheaper tarif. If so, you need to turn that off. Look on the screen for something about battery, charging and timers.

Can you go into the screen inside the car and find the charging menu? Make sure it’s set to Charge Immediately or something like that. It might previously have been set to charge during certain hours.

Also, some chargers require you to download their app and add money to an account / card details. They are more likely to accept card payments these days but you might have found an old style one?

Yes, Podpoint are annoying for making you top up.

Hmm yes, probably a charging timer setting. We use the timer on our home charger to avoid this.
Phone the car hire emergency line and see if they can help?

The mistake I always make is plugging in before getting the payment sorted. Some older chargers simply can’t cope with this.

Thank you so much all, I just messed about with the settings and set it to charge overnight now, that was stressful 🤣

In our car the doors need to be locked for it to actually start charging. Is it something like that?

Is the cable with the car (rather than attached to the charger)? I ask because I’ve had an issue before where I plugged in the wrong end of the cable first and it wouldn’t work.

now I’m going to be unhelpful because I can’t remember which way round, but I plugged it first into the car and then into the charger and it should be the other way round (or vice versa!). it wouldn’t work until I did it the other way round

Yea, check it actually is charging. Usually something flashes. First time I did it, it wasn’t actually charging and I didn’t realise until next morning.

There is no one right or wrong way because every providers seems to have a different process. Add in that quite often I come across buggy chargers and have to plug, unplug and replug in a few times until I can get it to charge. One charger I use a couple of times a year always prevents me from releasing my cable from the charger until I’ve spent ten minutes working myself into a complete stress locking and unlocking the car, trying to release the cable in my vehicle’s app, plugging and unplugging to/from the car until finally some magic combination releases it of the above.

So. Leave plenty of time. Carefully read all instructions. Be prepared to have to do it all a few times before it will actually charge. Once it is charging, check that there’s no additional step like confirming in an app or on the charger itself to prevent it disconnecting again (bitter experience).

Range anxiety is nothing compared to dealing with public chargers!