Who’s going to pay?

 

Depends on the actual fault, I suppose.

Won't know until someone figures that out and tells the OP.

 

That’s a shame! Hope they can fix it soon.

On a side note, did you copy and paste from the linked forum? If not is this forum now turning keywords into links to Amazon?

 

That’s a shame! Hope they can fix it soon.

On a side note, did you copy and paste from the linked forum? If not is this forum now turning keywords into links to Amazon?

I'm not sure now whether the long article in the OP was what happened to the poster (which is what the post implies), or the story in the link to the Irish times. Actually it's as clear as mud what the post is saying, or where the poster is from, since the links are to amazon.com and not to amazon.co.uk, or amazon.ie.

Hovering over the title line it's a link to an article somewhere else. In which case it would have been helpful to enclose it in quotes.

Further confusion: the post in the link is the entire post here, including the Irish bit.

 

This is one of those other 'Big Issues' I've raised for the future of EVs:

You plug in your 6 year old Leaf and things go 'bang', as per the OPs story.

You get a bill for £20,000 from the charge point company as they claim your car broke their charger. Nissan aren't interested because it is out of warranty.

What happens next?.....

The VM and charger company can fight all of this out while it is in warranty. But are EVs ready for the scrap heap once they clear the warranty period, more liability than asset?

 

This is one of those other 'Big Issues' I've raised for the future of EVs:

You plug in your 6 year old Leaf and things go 'bang', as per the OPs story.

You get a bill for £20,000 from the charge point company as they claim your car broke their charger. Nissan aren't interested because it is out of warranty.

What happens next?.....

Your legal insurance comes into play and wins hands down since as its the charge point that's supplying the potentially damaging current it must be capable of both protecting itself and also ensuring it cannot damage a car as otherwise its clearly not fit for purpose

 

Where was this? San Francisco, CA USA (where a google says Greenlots is based)?

 

The car should also have protection systems so that a faulty charger cannot damage it either. Also just because your car blew up on the charger doesn't mean it was definitely yours that killed it in the first place. I doubt if the charge point owner could prove to a reasonable degree that it was your car unless you went around to several chargers and blew them all up and none of them had been visited by the same cars before yours. Then you might possibly say that the person's car would definitely be the problem rather than any one of the previous cars or some other cause eg cracked insulation or damaged connector. All of which are down to the charge point operator to keep on top of.

 

Yes, it's a copy and paste from mynissanleaf and the amazon keyword links have come across from that website. It refers to 'Greenlots' which appears to be a San Francisco, CA USA based charging network.

So, it looks like it happened in the US. If the OP returns, maybe they could confirm that.

 

Yes, it's a copy and paste from mynissanleaf and the amazon keyword links have come across from that website. it refers to 'Greenlots' which appears to be a San Francisco, CA USA based charging network.

But the "This story seems a lot like mine" bit at the end is also in that mynissanleaf post so it's not just referencing someone else's post.

 

< sigh >

I went in and removed the junk Amazon links. We will see if the OP returns with additional details.

If not, maybe we can jump over to mynissanleaf and see what comes up over there.

 

< sigh >

I went in and removed the junk Amazon links. We will see if the OP returns with additional details.

If not, maybe we can jump over to mynissanleaf and see what comes up over there.

You missed one

 

From my POV, both sides should be designed and engineered in such a way that they cant go bang.

If the charger goes bang, the charger is at fault.
If the car goes bang, the car is at fault.

It may well be that the cars totally fine, and has simply shut itself down as a safety measure in response to the charger exploding.

 

It may well be that the cars totally fine, and has simply shut itself down as a safety measure in response to the charger exploding.

Pack fuse might have blown.

 

The car should also have protection systems so that a faulty charger cannot damage it either.

Not as easy as it sounds.

With DC rapid charging the only thing in series between the Chademo/CCS connector where DC from the rapid charger enters and the battery cells is a contactor, and possibly a very large (and slow) fuse.

Yes if the car detects a fault it can open the contactor, but that is a mechanical device that takes time, even if only 10's of milliseconds.

If I had to guess I'd say there was a catastrophic failure of the rectifier in the rapid charger unit, this could result in AC being applied to the pack which is very nasty indeed even if for a short time of say 20 milliseconds.

The amount of current flowing during the reverse half cycles where the polarity is reversed would be staggering, as you'd have the voltage from the charger and the cells in series with only the cell resistance and a bit of cable resistance to the charger to limit the current.

Even if the cells survived the momentary extreme overload it would likely blow the pack fuse, or depending on the design of the pack, individual cell or cell group fusible links. It's possible that there is a giant shunt connected reverse protection diode(s) across the pack as a whole in which case during the reverse polarity half cycle the diode would blow the fuse and probably itself as well. So even if the pack was protected from reverse polarity you'd need to replace the protection diode and fuse.

If it is application of AC from a blown rectifier the damage to the car could be quite severe. Electronics designed to run from DC seldom survive application of AC from a faulty power supply especially at these high power levels.

 

The charger will surely be running a switchmode supply, so even if the input rectifiers were to fail, are you going to see AC on the output?

 

Typical switch mode power supplies have an input rectifier and an output rectifier. So if part of the output rectifier blew (went shorted, which is the usual failure mode for diodes) the yes you would have AC on the output - it wouldn't be 50Hz, it would be whatever the switching frequency is.

I'm sure the charger's contactor would open when the fault was detected, but like the one in the car that would take time as its just a big clunky mechanical relay... It's hard to use solid state protection devices (at least in series) at those power levels without unacceptable losses during operation.

 

I suspect that if that diode failed short, the switcher would simply shut down, they usually have feedback from the output, and they're extremely high speed devices, probably >100khz.

 

I had a charger failure on my Ampera charging at 14A Type 2 Rolec; damp got into the internals of the socket of the car, and when I plugged it into the Rolec, the high voltage going into the car fed back up the low-voltage signal line and fried the Mainpine ECU I had fitted. Car was driveable on petrol, but couldn't be charged. Fortunately my granny charger has short-circuit protection and didn't get fried when I tried that next, so only needed a push-the-button reset. Maybe something similar happened here?

 

It doesn't look like the OP is returning.

Has anyone checked if he is posting on mynissanleaf?

 

Update: OP is active over on mynissanleaf. We may want to continue discussion (wild speculation??) over there.


Chademo killed my new 2018 Leaf - My Nissan Leaf Forum

 

Plenty of speculation going on over there too. One guy talking about the damage that 6kV from the charger would do to the car.... err..... ?

 

No kidding.

This was the first time the car was rapid charged. We really don't know if it was the car, the charger or both.

 

Sounds like Lucas Electrical got into the charger business...

 

Ah I am understanding this now. The poster is based in California and quoted the Irish Times article as being similar to his problem. Not sure why he posted here (and never bothered to come back).

 

With the abuse these chargers get, and with the weather and dirt ingress into the plugs I’m surprised there are not more incidents of things like connector fires.
I suppose all of these rapid chargers that have connectors offline have detected something wrong and prevented a lot of disasters. Not fun at 3am when you need a charge and the connector is offline, but better than a Big Bang and a shower of sparks.

Who’s to say that for the OP as this was the first time charging you never know if someone connected the CHAdeMO on the car in reverse at the factory.