Got a 2013 Leaf yesterday with wrong charger (200v?)

Hi, I am not sure what is going on here with my charging brick. I am living in the US, but this looks like it should be used in Japan (200v). The dealer I got this from said it works and he has been using it, but I am not sure how he has done this, but maybe he was just BSing me. It seems I ended up with a 200v 15A in/out brick charger. I have a setup in my garage with a plug for a NEMA 14-50R (written on the plug), and I am not able to use this with the charger.

Here are pictures of my brick. I am guessing this is supposed to be used in Japan, so I am very confused about how anyone used this here in the US, why they ever imported this, or if they just used a standard 240V outlet with this and prey it does not blow out? Did anyone try to use this in the US? Any help would be appreciated, I would rather like to avoid buying a new cable.

This is what I have in my garage for EVs: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=SnpsNld6RzMyN0xQUV80bkwyS19lTGZsTG4wcTdn

The details on the brick: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=SnpsNld6RzMyN0xQUV80bkwyS19lTGZsTG4wcTdn

The connector on the brick: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=SnpsNld6RzMyN0xQUV80bkwyS19lTGZsTG4wcTdn

Make them take it back and swap it. Nissan should back you up on this.

Yea, I would do that, but I got it from a used car lot, and it was not Nissan. It is very strange they had it to be honest, as my car was never in Japan. I did try it in a 250V 20A slot and it seems to work on that though. I did not try to charge the car with it there, just saw the green light go on. So it must not check the voltage?

I'm not surprised that it works. Many US L2 stations run at 208V rather at 240V. Both values are nominal voltages and the power is not guaranteed to be exactly at those values. During a brown out, by definition, the voltage supplied by the utility drops below these values.

The frequency on the other hand, is very tightly controlled but since the units state they will work at either 50 Hz or 60 Hz that shouldn't be a problem. In either case, the AC voltage is converted to DC by the charger on board the car.

There have been some instances of folks having their EVSE stop working on 208V but that appears to be a case of the unit disabling itself due to the lower voltage rather that any real physical limitations of the charging system.

It's your car and your risk but if it works I would just use it. It may actually be better than some of the US-supplied units since I doubt it will have any trouble running on a 208V system.

If the 2013 brick is like my 2011 brick as far as having a control voltage transformer running it on 240v may burn it out faster.
Otherwise I run a 120v brick on 240 but I removed my 120v surge protector, put a 240v to 20v control transformer and installed 275v surge suppression in mine. The 2 things in an evse that are voltage sensitive are the surge protection and the control transformer.
If you plugged it in and it didn't blow the metal oxide variator surge protector with in about 1 second you are probably good.

Ok, I will give it a shot tonight. I just got the NEMA 14-50 converter to connect the Japanese end, and we will see how well the components handle the 240V(s). I tried the device in a 208v plug and the green light went on, so it will be interesting to see if this will work. I really would like to avoid buying another charger. I guess the worst that can happen would be a burnout of some component in the device, which will result in me getting a new brick anyhow. I will post how this goes tonight.

A typical "208v" circuit can have around 228 to 234v on it. A typical 240v circuit has 245 to 250v. So not a huge difference.

Well, I just charged up my leaf last night, so I suppose it was a success. Not sure how long this will work, but I will keep posted here if anything changes. I am happy though that I saved some money and didn't need to get a new charger.