What flashing green means on a Pod Point charger
Flashing green means the charger is ready and waiting for the car to accept the charge. It is offering power. The car has not taken it.
That is why this is one of the least alarming lights on a Pod Point despite how it looks. In most cases nothing is wrong with anything. The charger is doing exactly what it should while it waits.
Flashing green but not charging
Four causes account for nearly all of these.
The car is holding it back. A departure timer or a charging schedule set in the car will delay the charge, and the charger flashes green until the car allows it to begin. Turn timers off in the car and let the charger manage the schedule instead. Running both is what causes most of these calls.
The battery is already full. Obvious once said, easy to miss at seven in the morning. Check the state of charge before anything else.
The cable is not seated. On a socketed Solo, take the cable out of both ends and put it back into the charger first, then the car. Listen for the click at each end. On a tethered unit, take it out of the car and back in. A plug that is nearly in gives exactly this light.
Dirt or damage in the connector. Look into the plug and into the car inlet in daylight. The handshake runs through two small signal pins rather than the big ones that carry the current, so they only need to be dirty to stop working. Check the cable for damage along its length while it is out.
The ten minute wait that is not a fault
If your charger flashes green for a few minutes and then starts on its own, that is the law rather than a fault.
Every home charger sold in the UK applies a randomised delay of up to ten minutes before it starts pushing power, under regulation 11 of the Smart Charge Points Regulations. It is on by default and it applies each time charging would begin. The reason is to stop every car on a street starting at the same second when a cheap rate opens.
So before you decide anything is wrong, plug in and give it ten minutes. If it starts by itself, nothing needs fixing.
Flashing green on a Renault Zoe
Worth calling out separately because it has its own cause. Pod Point lists an earthing issue specific to the Renault Zoe as a reason for a Solo to flash green.
The Zoe is unusually strict about the earth arrangement it will accept, and it will refuse a charge that other cars take without complaint. If you have a Zoe and a charger that flashes green at home but charges fine elsewhere, that is where to look, and it is an installation question rather than a charger fault.
How to tell whether it is the car or the charger
Two tests separate them, and you can do both yourself.
Try a different car, if there is one available. If the second car charges, the charger and the cable are fine and the problem is in the first car.
Try the same car somewhere else, on a friend’s charger or a public post. If it will not charge there either, the car is the common factor.
That is the same order we work in when we attend one of these, and it is worth doing before you book anybody, because a flashing green light with a healthy charger and a fussy car is not a repair job. It is a settings conversation, and we would rather tell you that on the phone than charge you for a visit to find it.
