Durability of the Chademo inlet?

Today I made my longest trip yet with my new 2016 SV. I drove 120 miles round trip and on the way home needed to stop for a quick charge. I had never used this particular charger before and when I went to plug in the Chademo it seemed as though it was broken. I took quite a bit of force to get the Chademo to seat right in the inlet so I could squeeze the lever. The lever itself was broken and I ended up cutting myself on it. I almost gave up but the level 2 charger at this location was down and I didn’t think I could make it to the next charger. So with blood pouring out of my hand I tried again and finally was about to get the charger to start. Every other time I used the Chademo port on my car it required very little force. This got me thinking. How much force is too much? Should I have abandoned the charger and tried to make it to the next one? This was the first time I had any range anxiety and it had nothing to do with my car and everything to do with the broken DCQC.

On a positive note I was able to travel 86 highway miles on a 100% charge to LBW at 26 F outside with the heat running… Not too bad…

I've never encountered that. Perhaps there was a foreign object inside the connector or inlet, esp. the 4 holes on the car side?

But I only used the CHAdeMO inlet on my previous Leaf ~16 times in the 2 years I had it. My current one has no CHAdeMO, and I'm ok w/that.

I thought of there being something in my inlet so I check between tries but never thought of looking inside the connector. I guess I should try that next time. I have only use the Yazaki connector a few times, most of my experience with Chademo has been with chargers that have had a newer style connector that is much easier to use. I wonder if I was just using it incorrectly, altho I was able to use the Yazaki connector at my dealership with ease.

http://youtu.be/317VrBDkBjg
http://youtu.be/FqjMlblghEc - I created this one

Skip to about the 40 sec mark if you want to skip the chatter. The latest Yazaki connector with the yellow button is MUCH better than the above unintuitive crap.

If you haven't already, it might be a good idea to make a note of your issues on Plugshare.

Thanks for the videos! looks like I was doing it correctly, guess the charger was just broken. I did make a note in plugshare about cutting myself on the charger but didn't report the charge as broken as it did charge my car.

ebuonaccor said:

I have only use the Yazaki connector a few times, most of my experience with Chademo has been with chargers that have had a newer style connector that is much easier to use.

Click to expand...

BTW, those new-style connectors might well have been Yazaki, too. It's a manufacturer, not a type.

Crappy old design:



(although that sliding thing on the collar is the worst part, and that's not on this version)

New and improved:


Both from Yazaki.

I'd bet that the old style was originally meant (minus the slider?) to feel like a gas pump -- pull the lever to start the charge, and it pops back when full (does it ever do that?), then you'd only need to hit the release once. So, they tried to be intuitive, but failed, IMHO.