Home EV charging playing up? It's usually a setting, not the hardware.
Slow charging, sessions that stop overnight, a safety switch that keeps tripping, or a charger that just won't start — before you book a service call, know this: most home charging "faults" turn out to be schedules, app settings and physics doing exactly what they're supposed to. Here's the honest diagnostic order — the free checks first, the real hardware faults second, and exactly who to call when it genuinely is broken.
Reviewed by the Mission Green Energy Team · Updated July 2026
Is your charger broken?
Probably not — check the free things first.
Most home EV charging "faults" are settings and schedules — a timer in the car app, a smart-charging plan pausing on purpose, or a 10-amp cable doing 10-amp things. The honest diagnostic order: free checks first, electrician second, warranty claim last.
Here's the pattern we see over and over. An EV owner is convinced the charger has failed — and the culprit turns out to be a charging schedule set in the car's app months ago, a retailer smart-charging plan pausing sessions on a price signal, or the simple physics of a portable cable that was only ever going to add 10–15 km of range per hour. Genuine hardware faults exist, but they're the minority.
So before anyone charges you a call-out fee, run the free checks in this guide in order: the maths of what your charger can actually deliver, the schedules hiding in two different apps, the safety-switch and hot-day behaviours that look like faults but aren't, and the solar-diversion quirks that make a perfectly healthy charger sit there "waiting." Then — and only then — the last section tells you exactly who to call for what: electrician for the circuit, charger support for the firmware, dealer for the car. If you're still choosing a setup rather than fixing one, start with whether you need a wall charger at all and the cheapest way to charge at home.
Charging slower than expected?
First, do the honest maths.
The most common "fault" isn't a fault at all — it's a 10-amp portable charger doing exactly what a 10-amp portable charger does. Know your hardware's real numbers before you judge it.
The baseline maths, for a typical EV on a single-phase Australian home:
- 10-amp portable charger (the "granny cable"): about 2.4 kW from a standard power point — roughly 10–15 km of range per hour, or 100–150 km overnight (source: Chargewise). For the average Australian daily drive of under 40 km, that's genuinely enough — slow is not the same as broken.
- 7 kW wall charger (32 A single-phase): around 40–50 km of range per hour — a full working charge overnight (source: EVSE Australia).
If the numbers you're seeing are below what your hardware is rated for, work through these — all free:
- Charge-current limit set in the car. Most EVs let you cap the AC charging current in the car's settings or app — handy once, forgotten forever. A car capped at 8 A will charge slowly on a 32 A wall charger and report no fault, because there isn't one.
- Charge ceiling and schedules in the car app. An 80% charge limit, or a departure/scheduled-charging window, can make a session look "stuck" when it's just finished early or waiting for its window.
- Cold weather. On cold mornings the car's battery management system deliberately reduces the charge rate to protect a cold battery. It recovers as the pack warms. Normal, temporary, not a warranty claim.
- The charger's own settings. Smart chargers can be capped at install time (deliberately, to suit your circuit) or dialled down in their app. Check the charger app's current setting before assuming decline.
Only once you've confirmed the car is uncapped, the schedules are off and it's not simply cold — and the rate is still well below rating — does "slow" become a real fault worth a support call.
Charging stops mid-session?
Check the app before blaming the box.
A session that pauses at 11pm or on a 40-degree afternoon is very often the system working as designed. Here's the honest checklist, from most to least likely.
- Smart-charging and VPP schedules. If your charger is enrolled in a retailer smart-charging plan, a VPP-style program or a "charge on cheap/green power" feature, it can pause and resume on schedules and price signals you agreed to at sign-up. Open the charger app and look at the session history before you conclude anything is broken — a deliberate pause is a feature you're paying less for, not a fault.
- Scheduled charging finishing its window. A schedule in the car or the charger that ends at, say, 6am will stop the session mid-charge, exactly as instructed.
- A shared circuit tripping. A portable charger on a power-point circuit shared with a fridge, freezer or workshop gear can overload the circuit when the other appliance kicks in — the breaker trips, everything on the circuit goes dark. If other outlets died at the same moment, this is your answer.
- RCD (safety switch) trips. An RCD trip also kills the session — see the next section, because repeated trips have their own rules.
- Thermal derating on hot days. In an Australian summer garage, chargers and cars deliberately slow or pause charging when they get hot, then resume as they cool. A one-off pause on a scorcher is heat protection doing its job. If it derates on mild days too, that's worth a support call.
The pattern matters more than the event: one pause with an explanation in the app is fine; repeated unexplained stops — especially with a tripped switch at the board — mean stop guessing and get the circuit looked at.
Breaker or safety switch tripping?
That's the circuit talking. Listen to it.
A repeated trip is nearly always a circuit problem, not a charger problem — and it's licensed-electrician territory, full stop. Never DIY, never bypass, never "work around."
An EV charger is one of the biggest sustained loads a home circuit ever sees — a 10-amp portable unit runs a standard power-point circuit near its limit for hours, which ordinary appliances almost never do. That's why trips cluster around EV charging even when the charger itself is healthy. The common causes:
- Shared or undersized circuit. The charger plus whatever else lives on that circuit exceeds its rating. The fix is a dedicated circuit — an electrician job, and the single most common outcome of "my charger keeps tripping."
- RCD type mismatch. Some older safety switches nuisance-trip with EV charging electronics; modern installs use RCD types selected for EV loads. Diagnosing and swapping an RCD is electrician-only work.
- A genuine fault. Earth leakage from a damaged cable, moisture in a socket, or a failing charger. This is exactly what the safety switch exists to catch — which is why you never override it.
The honest rule: one trip — reset it once and observe. Repeated trips — stop using the charger and call a licensed electrician. In Australia all fixed wiring work is legally restricted to licensed electricians anyway; there is no DIY version of this fix, and "it only trips sometimes" is not a reason to keep resetting it.
Charger won't start?
Three free checks before any phone call.
"Won't charge" is the most-reported fault and the least likely to be hardware. In our experience the culprit is usually one of these three — and every one of them is free to check.
The double-schedule conflict
The classic. Scheduled charging can be set in the car and in the charger app at the same time — and if either says "not now," nothing happens. Turn both schedules off, plug in, and see if it starts. This one free step resolves a remarkable share of "dead charger" calls.
Cable, latch & connectors
The plug must physically lock before charging begins — reseat it and listen for the latch click. On socketed (untethered) chargers, check both ends of the cable; a half-seated charger end is easy to miss. On tethered units, check the plug and the holster — some models won't start with the plug misreading as holstered.
App & connectivity (OCPP)
Smart chargers that authorise sessions through an app or an OCPP back-end can refuse to start when their Wi-Fi or 4G has dropped — the hardware is fine, the permission never arrived. Restart the charger, check its connection status in the app, and look for a "plug and charge" or offline fallback mode in settings.
Solar charger not tracking
your exports? Two usual suspects.
Solar-diverting chargers are brilliant when set up right — and mystifying when one small sensor is wrong. Before assuming a fault, understand the CT clamp and the 1.4 kW floor.
- The CT clamp is the charger's eyes. A solar-diverting charger follows your exports using a small current sensor (CT clamp) at the switchboard. It must be clamped on the grid side, around the correct conductor, facing the right direction. Installed wrong — or knocked loose or moved during unrelated electrical work — and the charger reads nonsense: it may import at full rate while "solar charging," or never start at all. If your charger has behaved oddly since day one, or since a sparky visited, suspect the clamp. Fixing it is electrician/installer work, not a setting.
- There's a hard floor on how slow charging can go. Under the EV charging standard (IEC 61851), the minimum charging current a charger can deliver is 6 amps (source: Elinta Charge) — roughly 1.4 kW on single-phase. A solar-only mode therefore can't start until you have about 1.4 kW of surplus export; myenergi documents exactly this threshold for the single-phase zappi (source: myenergi). Cloudy day, small array, or the oven and dryer eating your surplus — and the charger sits in "waiting." That's correct behaviour, not a fault.
- Blended modes exist for a reason. Most solar chargers offer a mode that tops up the gap from the grid (myenergi calls the dial the "Minimum Green Level"). If waiting for pure surplus frustrates you, blend — that's a preference change, not a repair.
The honest test: on a clear sunny day around midday, with major appliances off, check your export figure in your solar app. If you're exporting well over 1.4 kW and the charger still won't follow it, then you likely have a CT or config problem worth a call.
When it really is broken:
who to call for what.
Free checks done and it's still misbehaving? Match the symptom to the specialist — ringing the wrong one costs you a call-out fee to be told to ring the right one.
Licensed electrician
Repeated breaker or RCD trips, a warm or discoloured power point or plug, a dedicated circuit for a new wall charger, or a CT clamp that needs checking or moving. In Australia this is legally licensed-electrician work — there is no DIY lane here, ever.
Charger manufacturer support
Error lights and fault codes, firmware updates, app log-in and connectivity problems, OCPP and smart-schedule glitches, and warranty claims on the unit itself. Have the model, serial number and a photo of the fault light ready — it halves the call.
Car dealer / brand support
The problem follows the car: it won't charge on multiple chargers, shows charging errors on the dash, or the charge-port latch is sticky or faulty. Quick isolation test: if the car charges fine elsewhere, it's your home; if only the wall box fails, it's the charger or circuit.
The diagnostic order
we'd give a friend.
Cheapest explanation first, dearest last. Most people never get past step two.
Step one: schedules and settings. Turn off every charging schedule in the car and the charger app, check the car's charge-current limit and charge ceiling, and check whether a retailer smart-charging plan is pausing sessions on purpose. This is free and fixes the majority of "faults." Step two: the physical basics. Reseat the cable until the latch clicks, confirm the charger has power and connectivity, and sanity-check your expectations against the hardware — 10 amps is 10–15 km/hour, and that's normal. Step three: isolate. Try the car on another charger, or another car (or the granny cable) on your circuit, and note which side the fault follows. Step four: the right professional. Circuit symptoms go to a licensed electrician; charger symptoms with an error code go to the manufacturer; car symptoms go to the dealer. What we'd urge against: paying for a call-out before doing the free steps, tolerating a switch that keeps tripping, or ever "fixing" a problem with a double adapter or extension cord. And if all this troubleshooting has you rethinking your setup — whether a wall charger is even worth it, or how to charge for near-nothing on solar — our guides on whether you need an EV charger, the cheapest way to charge at home and whether V2G is worth it yet give you the honest picture, and our electrification hub covers the whole-home view.
Home EV charging problems
— your questions, answered.
Usually because the hardware is doing exactly what it's rated to do. A standard 10-amp portable charger plugged into a normal power point delivers about 2.4 kilowatts — roughly 10 to 15 kilometres of range per hour — while a dedicated 7-kilowatt wall charger adds around 40 to 50 kilometres of range per hour. If you're using the portable cable that came with the car, slow is normal, not a fault. Beyond the hardware, check the settings: many cars have a charge-current limit or a charge ceiling (say 80 per cent) set in the car's own app or dashboard, and scheduled charging in either the car or the charger app can hold the rate down or delay the session. Cold weather also slows charging, because the car's battery management system deliberately reduces the charge rate to protect a cold battery. Check the car's charge settings and the charger app before assuming anything is broken.
Check the app before blaming the hardware. If your charger is enrolled in a retailer smart-charging plan or a VPP-style program, it may be pausing deliberately on a schedule or a price signal — that's the product working as designed, not a fault. Other common causes: a shared circuit tripping when another big appliance switches on, an RCD (safety switch) trip cutting power to the whole circuit, and thermal derating on hot days, where the charger or the car deliberately slows or pauses charging to protect itself — common in Australian summer garages. A one-off pause on a 40-degree afternoon is usually heat and resolves itself; repeated trips at the switchboard are a circuit problem, and that's a job for a licensed electrician.
A repeated trip is nearly always a circuit problem, not a charger problem — and it is licensed-electrician territory, never DIY. Common causes include a portable charger sharing a circuit with other appliances (a 10-amp charger runs near the limit of a standard power-point circuit for hours at a time), an undersized or ageing circuit, an RCD type that isn't suited to EV charging and nuisance-trips, or a genuine earth-leakage fault. If it trips once, reset it and watch. If it trips repeatedly, stop using the charger and call a licensed electrician. Never bypass a safety switch, never move a portable charger onto a double adapter, power board or extension cord to work around it, and never keep resetting a breaker that keeps tripping — it's tripping for a reason.
Work through the free checks first, because most 'won't charge' calls turn out to be a setting. First, the classic double-schedule conflict: scheduled charging can be set in the car and in the charger app at the same time — if either one says 'not now', nothing happens. Turn both schedules off and try again; if charging starts, you've found it. Second, reseat the cable at both ends and listen for the latch clicking home — the plug has to lock before charging can begin. On socketed (untethered) chargers check both ends of the cable; on tethered units check the plug and holster. Third, smart chargers that authorise sessions through an app or an OCPP back-end can refuse to start when their Wi-Fi or 4G connection has dropped — restart the charger and check its connectivity. If none of that works, note the fault-light colour or error code and call the charger manufacturer's support line.
Two usual suspects. First, the CT clamp — the small current sensor that tells the charger how much your home is exporting — must be clamped on the grid side of your switchboard, around the correct conductor, facing the right direction. If it was placed incorrectly at install, or an electrician moved it during other work, the charger is reading nonsense and cannot follow your solar. That's an installer or electrician fix, not a setting. Second, minimum current: under the EV charging standard the slowest a charger can deliver is 6 amps, which is roughly 1.4 kilowatts on a single-phase supply — so a solar-following charger typically cannot start until you have about 1.4 kilowatts of spare export. On a cloudy day, or with the oven and dryer running, there may simply not be enough surplus — the charger sitting in 'waiting' is correct behaviour, not a fault. Most solar-diverting chargers offer a blended mode that tops up the shortfall from the grid if you'd rather charging start sooner.
Match the symptom to the specialist. Call a licensed electrician for anything on the circuit side: repeated breaker or RCD trips, a warm or discoloured power point or plug, wiring work, or a CT clamp that needs moving — never DIY any of it. Call the charger manufacturer's support line for charger-side faults: error lights and codes, firmware problems, app or connectivity issues, and smart-schedule or OCPP glitches. Call your car dealer or the car brand's support when the problem follows the car — it won't charge on multiple chargers, shows charging errors on the dash, or the charge-port latch is faulty. A quick way to isolate the fault: if the car charges fine somewhere else, the problem is at home; if the portable cable works but the wall charger doesn't, you've narrowed it to the charger or its circuit. And before any of those calls, switch off every charging schedule in both the car and the charger app — that free step resolves a remarkable share of 'faults'.
Where these figures come from.
Charging-rate and standards figures on this page are drawn from vendor documentation and industry guides and were current as at 2026. Your car and charger's exact figures vary — check their manuals before relying on a number.
- Chargewise — granny charger vs fast charger (10 A ≈ 2.4 kW ≈ 10–15 km of range per hour)
- EVSE Australia — how long home charging takes (7 kW ≈ 40–50 km of range per hour)
- Elinta Charge — IEC 61851 charging standard (6 A minimum charging current)
- myenergi — zappi charging modes (~1.4 kW surplus needed to start single-phase solar-only charging; Minimum Green Level blending)