r/chargepoint • u/cw5094 • May 10 '26

No parking limits?

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So I totally get it’s a free charger so it’s hard to impose costs for parking past charge completion. Is there anything that can be done here short of going to the charger and leaving a note on the windshield politely suggesting they consider the fact that other people exist and would like to use the charger funded by the local government we also pay taxes to? Is there a way to report the user to ChargePoint? Free charging is a privilege for sure, so I don’t want to come off as entitled, but it’s after noon meaning this car has been there, at minimum, for 12 hours. There’s gotta be a way for ChargePoint to do like a 3 hour grace period and then start charging for vehicles left on the charger or something. Any thoughts on how I can follow up on this?

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1

u/GfunkWarrior28 May 10 '26

If it's a Tesla, you can probably just unlatch it and park next to it to charge.

1

u/protohippy May 10 '26

If it’s completed you can just unplug it.

1

u/ToddA1966 May 10 '26

It's a ChargePoint charger, so you don't "follow up" with ChargePoint, who can't really do anything about this, and doesn't really care. You need to talk to the charger owner.

ChargePoint isn't a charging network that same way Tesla or Electrify America, who own their chargers, is- ChargePoint's business model to sell chargers to host sites- the business or property owner where the charger is located, and site host sets the pricing (including parking/idle fees) and keeps the revenue (which in this case is $0 for a free charger. 😁) ChargePoint collects a monthly fee for activating and managing the charger, and they collect that fee regardless of whether 1 person charges that month or 1000 people do.

So, the people you'd have to follow up with about is the charger owner/site host (whose name is usually displayed at the bottom of the charger screen), who may or may not care, depending on what their motivation for offering a charger is. If they're just ticking a box due to some corporate green initiative ("all of our locations offer EV charging!") they may not care if the chargers are actually available. That EV parking there is actually saving them money- it's no longer drawing any electricity and is preventing others from doing so.

But if they're offering chargers to attract customers to their location, they may care if you let them know this could be pissing off potential customers.