#HomeCharger

Ford Motor Co. has reportedly issued a stop-sale on its electric vehicle home charging solution. The good news is that Mach-E buyers can use the included mobile charger to plug into any 120V outlet (or regular charging station) and still have the option to buy a third-party box that effectively does the same thing as the wall unit Ford has placed on a sales hiatus. But it’s not particularly heartening to learn that the automaker had to stop selling a $799 EV charging device that hasn’t been working properly when it only started manufacturing the Mach-E a few months ago.

Then again, traditional automakers haven’t had the best track record with EVs. The industry as a whole seems to be struggling with them and their peripheral equipment, likely due to the segment still being in its infancy. At least Ford seems to have learned how to roll with the punches.

The GE Wattstation killed my Leaf! That’s the story being reported by the New York Times as well as PlugInCars.com. As the tale goes, 11 Leaf owners have had their chargers “damaged” while charging with GE’s Wattstation home charging station. The relative significance of only 11 failures aside, the Nissan Dealer in San Pablo, CA confirmed to PlugInCars.com that Nissan North America has notified dealers of a potential problem with the Leaf and the GE home charging station. TTAC contacted Hilltop Nissan and they have yet to return our calls. Rather than just parroting back the usual news reports we dug deep. We contacted GE and Nissan, consulted some professional electrical engineers and read though hundred of pages of boring SAE documents. Click past the jump to learn more about EV charging than you ever wanted to know.

Worried about the high MSRPs on most of the electric vehicles scheduled for launch over the next year? Don’t forget to include the cost of buying and installing a home charging station. Nissan reckons the charger for its Leaf will cost about $2,200, including a home electrical inspection [er, that’s a medical marijuana grow…] and installation. Oh, and it won’t be Nissan coming into your home: Aerovironment, a firm otherwise best known for its Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, has the contract to supply and install the Leaf’s charger. Coulomb Technologies supplies the home charger for Ford’s first EV, the Transit Connect EV, and according to Automotive News [sub], they’re partnering with Ford to give chargers away to the first 2,000 buyers of the electric-drive delivery van. But, as usual with good news in the EV sector, the charger giveaway is actually being funded by tax dollars…