Stop any car charging from my EV Charger

I have today had a GE EV charger fitted and tested.

However I or my installer can not see anywhere in the app or Cloud to stop ANY car charging. We have set it to Solar, Hybrid and Grid modes. My installer said on the zappi you have to enter a 4 digit code. As there is no display on the GE app I was expecting I would have to press the button to start charging, but as soon as you plug the car in it start charging. We then tried next doors car and it also just started charging from the grid.

How to I stop anyone pulling up on my drive, plugging in there car and charging their vehicle (without powering off the EV charger completely)

Daveb01 The zappi's code is one way to do it, but a bit tedious.

According to GE EVSE brochure,

Start charging either by swiping your RFID card across the RFID reader on the charger unit, or via your GivEnergy app

Also mentioned at around 5:20 into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifGzGNC9I20

DD

Thanks for the reply, I read that as well and was expecting it to work, however I thought I would ask incase I was missing something. We have tried all three modes and as soon as you plug in the car it starts charging, without me going into the app to start a charge. We then plugged in next doors car and it stared to charge as well. So had to switch it off in the Gateway until I can sort it.

BTW, my installer phoned GE and asked them and they said switch the EVC off. So not really happy.

Daveb01 Probably doesn't help much, but I leave my Zappi in 'stop' mode most of the time. I schedule an api call for just after 11am to put it into that mode. (11am is the latest you can ask IOG to charge car by.)

That way, I have to explicity put it back into a charging mode to allow it to charge, and because the screen is locked, that has to be via app or api call. Because I'm generally checking the charging schedule anyway, it's not a hardship to pick up the phone to do it all. (I don't charge every night.)

All that said, I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone actually parking on someone else's drive and stealing their electricity. As someone said (probably EVM on youtube) it takes a long time to steal electricity of any significant value, so you either have to leave your expensive EV on their drive, which seems a bit of a high-risk endeavour, or sit and watch it charge, which seems like an enormous waste of time.

Before I got zappi, I had granny cable in a holster on the drive, permanently plugged in, and I'm not aware of anyone ever trying to steal electricity.

But there are always exceptions - if you're often away for extended periods, for example. And of course, if GE advertised RFID cards as a security feature, it's perfectly reasonable to expect that to work.

https://www.smarthomecharge.co.uk/features/can-a-stranger-steal-my-energy-or-use-my-ev-charger/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ3KARxS1Ek

There definitely are clips of people doing exactly that online (see https://youtu.be/OP2VbcUvjDI?si=4HOo7WOcDOHSgKMw for example), how common this is I cannot say. I definitely have had a few instances of people "borrowing" our parking space because it is a convenient location for nearby shops and restaurants.
Only the OP can assess the likelihood of such theft based on factors like location, access, seclusion, cameras and overlooking - and it is probably worth assessing the cost of someone doing this versus the cost of any measures to prevent it. In the depths of a windless winter day at peak time Octopus Agile can charge a maximum of £1 per kWh - assuming the driver left their vehicle for no more than hour and a standard 7kW domestic maximum charge speed, the worst the property owner would be out financially is seven pounds. This would probably just about cover a cheap padlock. Overnight full charging could of course get a lot more expensive if the property is unoccupied.
If a charger is sold as having RFID tag capability though, it would seem reasonable to expect this to be supported, and could possibly lead to a claim under the Trades Descriptions Act. The datasheet certainly describes using RFID or the app to control charging alongside plug and play.
It might be worth emailing support and checking in writing how to do this or if it is something coming with a future firmware update. It sounds like it is currently configured to plug and play (which in fairness sounds like a sensible default), so it may just need configuration to lock it to RFID tags or require you to start charging in the app.

pwdst that particular video looks rather staged (on a channel of "skits"), and the number plate is not recognised. But maybe it does happen.
Must be annoying to have someone park on your drive. I vaguely recall hearing that the police don't get involved in such civil matters?

But anyway, I'd think that a bigger problem with automatic plug&charge is that you don't want your own car to immediately start at daytime prices, let alone anyone else's car. Most would want to charge only off-peak.

pwdst It sounds like it is currently configured to plug and play (which in fairness sounds like a sensible default),

Don't the smart charging regulations require that it defaults to off-peak charging? Though obviously it would the installer that does the final configuration, and can in principle set it to whatever user wants. (Though didn't manage in this case.)

The plug and play reference was in reference to whether a car could charge or not, not when it would charge.
That said, although I don't know about the regulations you cite here, out of the box your charger won't know when your off peak period is until configured, some people use their EV itself and not their charger to control when it charges and I imagine that immediately after installation testing that charging is working correctly would seem like a sensible first check before then setting up schedules.
Allowing all cars to charge unless the user explicitly wants to manage this would be a sensible factory configuration as many won't want to deal with using RFID tags or the app to approve a charging session and will just want to return to their vehicle and find it ready for use. I can imagine returning to a low battery because you forgot to swipe the RFID tag would be very frustrating, especially if you had never been concerned about theft in the first place.

pwdst I don't know about the regulations you cite here,

https://pod-point.com/guides/smart-charge-point-regulations

I hadn't picked up it was from a skit channel as it had popped up as a recommendation a while back and I just grabbed the link from the history. Googling does come up with a few more results, which mostly appear to be from TikTok. I have no particular inclination to watch those nor assess if they are genuine.
There appear to be at least as many "can someone do this" articles or posts as actual references to it happening so you could take that as an indication it isn't a significant problem (at least yet).

Is there an electrical isolator somewhere. Get one with a padlock, or fix a lockable enclosure around it.
If it is indoors just turn it off when you are not charging

When I had my home charger installed I asked the electrician the same question. He replied;

“If someone can afford an EV, they can afford the electricity to charge it. Don’t worry about it”. After just paying for mine, I tend to agree with him.

I have the Tesla Wall Connector and you can “exclude all cars/ only allow Tesla’s or just allow your car(s).”

Pete UK If someone can afford an EV, they can afford the electricity to charge it. Don’t worry about it

On the other hand, the free podpoint chargers at Tesco were in constant demand. Now that there's a charge for charging, usage has plummeted.

pwdst There definitely are clips of people doing exactly that online (see https://youtu.be/OP2VbcUvjDI?si=4HOo7WOcDOHSgKMw for example), how common this is I cannot say.

If you believe that video is real then I have some magic beans to sell you.

People regularly park in our clearly private parking space rather than pay an entire pound (gasp) to park near to the shops. Some people have even parked overnight whilst visiting properties nearby.
The fact that the legitimate resident might return at literally any time either does not occur to them or is simply of no consequence. They are entitled to that parking space.
Plugging in for a bonus free charge whilst they are there does not seem much of a stretch, especially as the percentage of electric vehicles increases with more vehicles trickling down onto the used market. With battery prices falling and smaller cheaper models due onto the market this year and next, the days of the premium for an electric vehicle are widely forecast to end - certainly within the lifetime of a home charger being installed today.

If people want a more canonical example of it actually happening, at least one Tesla driver parked on someone's lawn and plugged into a regular 110v outlet for 12 hours per https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28524175/tesla-owner-steals-electricity-charging/
The linked news story is not available in the UK (GDPR) but corroborates this when you use a VPN.

pwdst
Link takes you to the story without needing a VPN. Reads as though there's more to the tale than is being disclosed.

The car and driver article worked for me without a VPN but the news article primary source which it references did not. I was able to access it when using a US VPN endpoint though. This is not uncommon with US based news sites as they don't want to have to bother with GDPR.

So new EVC app update in GE app today. I hope this fixes the issue.

Is this not what the "plug and go" toggle switch is for in the app?? Or is that option disabled and still doing it? I have mine set to solar at the moment, and I must admit plug and go is disabled and it still charges when excess solar is available. But i Presumed that is due to the fact you couldnt start the charge without waiting for solar to become available otherwise and I always assumed going back to grid mode plug and go would become active.

Stupink

I have found the same, if set to Solar it is disabled, if it is set to Hybrid, it then becomes available.

I can understand the convenience of the thought process on a driveway behind a locked gate, you plug the EV and it starts charging. Either via Solar, Grid, combination or schedule.

But I would like to have one setting to stop any charging?

This is what I have now set in new App and it stops any car charging (at the moment)