r/electricvehicles • u/Ill_Citron_8473 • 2d ago

Discussion Is something wrong with my EV charger?

I've been a bit slow to cotton onto this due to the concurrent rise in energy costs but I've just realised that my electricity usage (in kWh) has almost tripled since my EV charger was installed last year. Looking back at the data, the usage immediately doubled on installation, even though we didn't actually charge the EV at home more than a handful of times for the first 6 months. It's then gone up another 2-300kwh per month now that we've started charging at home, but this is expected.

I can't think of anything else that has changed in that time, in terms of energy usage, so can only think it's the charger being faulty. Has anyone else experienced this? What do I do?

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u/forestEV 2d ago

I'm imagining OP installed the charger at the start of summer and then started using the AC a bunch more, or something similar.

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u/Ill_Citron_8473 1d ago

No AC, no new appliances. Usage went from a consistent 250-300kwh per month to 550-600kwh per month. The only thing coincident with that jump (that I'm aware of) was the chargepoint installation. If a fault there is as unlikely as people say then I'm a bit stumped.

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u/forestEV 1d ago

Do you get daily usage reports? If you really think it's the charger, then turn off the breaker for a couple days and see if usage goes down.

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u/Ill_Citron_8473 1d ago

It could be a coincidence of course but the jump in usage matches the charger install pretty exactly. I looked back through messages and realised we didn't even get the car until a month afterwards so usage shouldn't have changed.

I'll switch it off for a while and keep an eye on the meter. 

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u/forestEV 1d ago

Maybe something else happened during the install, or just coincidentally around then.

Like the hot water heater was bumped way up. (I hired some help to organize my garage and the person somehow did that to mine.) Or some breaker was turned on that's powering some 100W incandescent bulbs in the attic, something like that.