KenClifton.com

Our New GE WattStation — Made in NC

We powered up our second electric vehicle charging station today!  It is a General Electric WattStation made in Mebane, North Carolina.  I was really pleased to know that this product was made in the USA and even better about 100 miles from my home in NC.

WattStation Online

The WattStation is a level 2 charger.  It charged our first Leaf in about 3 hours.  I looked at a lot of charging stations before settling on the General Electric EVWSBC-CP01.  Leviton, Schneider Electric and GE all have charging stations available at retail locations now.  I purchased mine from Lowes using their Web ordering.  I ordered it on a Thursday after 5 PM and it was delivered by FED-EX on Saturday of the same week!   For some reason searching Lowes Web site with “WattStation” did not return any results — I had to type in the Lowes item number: 107343 to get any results.  They appear to have the search fixed now.   Home Depot sells the Schneider charging stations online too.

Close Up of the WattStation Running

So, why did I go with the WattStation?   Well, I talked to my wife, who has been charging her Nissan Leaf everyday.  Initially, I was leaning towards the Schneider unit because it has the segments that light up showing how many hours the vehicle has been charging.   When I showed all the units to Kat, she liked the Wattstation because it had an illuminated socket for the charging plug and a really neat wrap around storage method for the charging cable.  She simply had no interest in seeing the segments showing the hours charged, because the Nissan APP for the iPhone gives you all that and more.  The segments on the Schneider were redundant.  Are you going to walk out to the car to see something that you can get immediately on the iPhone?

On the other hand, the cord storage, the nice socket in the middle that is lighted so that you can see it at night are really important things.  Remember, with an EV a charging station is something that you will use EVERY DAY.

Aside from the items mentioned above, some other things that were important to me were:

1) A high security lock to secure the charging station to the mount.  It can’t be removed without a key, similar to those found on soft drink machines.

2) A cord and a plug to connect the charger — instead of requiring a hard wire connection.  The plug connects to a standard 50 AMP Leviton 5374 receptacle, available at most home improvement stores.

3) Built-in GFI protection

4) Rain-proof NEMA 3R enclosure