Gentari is one of the largest EV charging point operators in Malaysia, but our recent experience with its charging network and Gentari Go app has been incredibly frustrating.
Over the past few days during the Merdeka weekend, we encountered multiple failed charging attempts at three Gentari locations: Petronas Bayan Baru in Penang, MINI Tian Siang in Ipoh and XPark Sunway Serene in Petaling Jaya.
Initially, we thought there could be an issue with the Toyota bZ4X which we currently have on loan for review. However, the EV had no problems charging at other DC chargers.
For an EV charging network, reliability is everything. Drivers should be able to arrive, plug in and start charging without having to repeatedly switch chargers, restart apps or wait several minutes before trying again.
Multiple failed charging attempts at Petronas Bayan Baru
Our first frustrating experience happened at Petronas Bayan Baru in Penang, which has three 180kW DC chargers. This is the CPO’s largest EV charging hub in Penang with a total of 6 bays.
We tried three different charging nozzles, but each attempt failed. Gentari Go would show an error while the DC charger itself displayed “Charging completed” despite delivering 0kWh.
To make matters worse, we couldn’t immediately start another charging session.
After a failed attempt, Gentari Go would continue showing the charging session as active. We had to wait a couple of minutes for the app to end the session before we could try another nozzle. Imagine having to go through this situation under the hot sun.
Eventually, we managed to get the Toyota bZ4X charging after switching to a fourth nozzle. This was after 20 minutes of trying to figure out what’s wrong and switching between different charging bays.
A failed charging attempt is annoying enough, but having to wait several minutes between attempts makes the experience unnecessarily frustrating, especially when you’re travelling long distance.
Customer service wasn’t particularly helpful too by providing the same scripted instructions of asking us to activate the charger first via the app before plugging in.
The same problem happened again in Ipoh
When we arrived in Ipoh, we encountered another issue with Gentari’s 180kW DC chargers at MINI Tian Siang. We activated the charger via Gentari Go app but charger couldn’t activate.
This time it showed the error “The vehicle detected a problem. Please reconnect”.
After experiencing failures at two different Gentari charging locations, we started wondering whether the Toyota bZ4X was the problem.
However, we subsequently charged the same EV at DC Handal’s 240kW DC charger at Symphony Suites in Ipoh, activated through the ChargEV app. And this time, it worked without issue and we are relieved that the Toyota EV wasn’t the problem.
After returning to Kuala Lumpur, we also charged the bZ4X at a DC Handal charger at Bamboo Hills using ChargEV, again without any problems.
This gave us greater confidence that the repeated failures were not caused by the car.
Charger failed with Gentari Go, but worked with JomCharge
Things got even more interesting when we tried charging at XPark Sunway Serene.
We attempted to use the new 480kW DC charger through Gentari Go. This time, the app managed to activate the charging session, but the charger didn’t appear to respond and no energy was delivered.
Eventually, the charging session stopped because no energy was being dispensed.
We then tried again using the exact same charger and the exact same nozzle, but instead of Gentari Go, we activated the charger through the JomCharge app.
It worked! Same car. Same charger. Same nozzle. Different app.
While this doesn’t conclusively tell us what caused the earlier failures, our experience at XPark Sunway Serene strongly suggests that there are serious issues with Gentari Go app and how it communicates with its chargers.
This morning, we were able to charge up at JomCharge x DBKL street-level EV chargers with no issues via the JomCharge app.
If you’re wondering why we didn’t use other apps such as JomCharge and ChargEV during our previous charging visits, it is because of membership discounts. We have an existing membership that offered 50% off charging rates when we charge using Gentari Go. Since we paid for it, naturally we would use Gentari Go instead of a roaming partner app.
But if the charging experience is frustrating, the benefit of a membership discount quickly becomes irrelevant if the app you’re required to use makes it harder to start a charging session.
Gentari needs to improve the reliability of its charging experience
EV charging doesn’t have to be complicated. Drivers shouldn’t need several charging apps as backups, nor should they have to troubleshoot whether the problem is caused by the car, charger, charging network or app every time a charging session fails.
We’ve used Gentari chargers many times before without experiencing this level of frustration.
But having repeated problems at Petronas Bayan Baru, MINI Tian Siang Ipoh and XPark Sunway Serene within a short period is concerning. And based on the comments we’ve seen on social media, we are definitely not alone.
We have highlighted the issues we encountered to Gentari and are currently awaiting its response. We will provide an update when we receive further clarification.
Malaysia’s EV charging infrastructure has expanded significantly but reliability and ease of use matter just as much.
Experiences like this can hurt confidence in public EV charging and ultimately hamper EV adoption.
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