Charging cable pulled out when car started moving

sandange said:

OK ... sorry didn't get it on film.

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The second way to abuse the J1772 is to HOOK the EVSE cable with the side mirror. I've done both ways. My solutions are to always park with the front right wheel over a bump in my sloped driveway and to root the service loop of the J1772 to not catch the mirror. The bump is just big enough the prevent the car from drifting down hill. Fortunately, my flimsy homebrew support post for my L2 EVSE bent before it broke the J1772.

Well, we are people after all, and can easily make a mistake, get distracted , absent minded, senior moment, etc.

But now after the fact we need a fix to the problem.

Personally I believe in prevention -

The design for the plugging in needs to be changed so that
WHEN not IF this Happens
(This has now happened to several here on the forum and I know of one other here in Quebec.)

The pistol should slip off without causing any damages
One idea...

1- The charge port should be facing directly out the back or the front of the car

2 - The latch on the pistol - should mate onto a spring mounted pin that should click, receive & retain the pistol in position while in use . The pin would easily depress on the spring to release in a run away situation.

Now all this may be history once they figure out cost efficient wireless charging.

We're stuck with J1772, but a number of hobbyists have used industrial connectors that are actually spring-loaded and can self-disconnect or be remotely 'ejected', making them easier to idiot-proof without too much complexity.
Personally, I favor having the charging inlet on the side of the car so it's less likely to be damaged in a minor accident, and and the interlock on our gearshift should be fairly easy for the factory to add. BUT, one reason I picked the i-MiEV was its simplicity and greater potential for owner modification than a LEAF or FOCUS EV.

Agreed. The ability to roll while plugged in isn't an issue with J1772 itself, it's the programming of the i-MiEV. The BMW i3 will not shift out of Park while it's plugged in (I'm sure most if not all other EVs behave like this, but the i3 is the only one I've tested).

I was out driving in -30 C ( -22 F ) temperature,
I drove to a shopping mall where I connected an L2 public charger to top off before I headed home. When I came back, the car had not charged .

I looked at the charging pistol connector and it looked like a gasket had come loose.
And the pistol didn't feel like it was engaging firmly.
I guess public chargers get a lot of abuse.

I headed towards home where I knew of a fast charger & charged up to 80 %.
Afterwards I stopped, at a Wal-Mart, where they had free L2 charging so I decided to test the connector, the pistol refused to fully insert, or latch, or charge.
I managed to get home and same problem with the portable or home charger, 110/ 240 v

I suspect the L2 charge port socket was damaged.
Bluey is at the dealer and they diagnosed a damaged connector pin in the receiving socket.

Just wondering - was it damaged from my run away event that happened 2 months ago?
I had no problems charging up to now.
or
Did the extreme cold temperatures have something to do with it?
Possibly some ice in the public charger pistol that damage the connector pin.

The OEM piece comes with full length wires. and is very expensive
I did a search and found this site.

https://www.jpson.com/products/ev-charging-evse_c1180.html

Anyone know if one of these fit our car or of an aftermarket replacement part.

Small tip I do.
I have a Diesel Truck I plug in in the Winter. When I unplug it I have a zip lock baggie that I cover the plug with so it is covered.
I put the zip lock in my drivers seat so that if I forget to unplug I will remember as I sit down in the truck


I have pulled out with it plugged in 2 times. but the plug it in front so it just popped off.

First note that I park and charge on my driveway with a moderate incline. I had not yet noticed the park lock flaw. My i-MiEV was plugged in. Due to the limited length of the OEM charger I have to back in. (The Nissan Leaf front charge port is a better design IMO.) Soon a new charger with a longer cord will arrive.

I was in a hurry to go and my imperfect human brain forgot to remove the charger. I quickly turned the key on and without thinking assumed I was ready to go and shifted from park to B. I let off the brake and applied throttle. My driveway incline allowed the car to start moving! Luckily before the charger and charge port were destroyed I stopped. The charge cable was too tight to disconnect! Of course I could not start to use reverse, but fortunately I was able to unbolt the charger to release enough tension to disconnect.

This would not have happened if Park was locked until the charger is disconnected.

This is a serious design flaw that perhaps could be resolved by a software fix.

I sent an email to [email protected] about this.

PV1 said:

Agreed. The ability to roll while plugged in isn't an issue with J1772 itself, it's the programming of the i-MiEV. The BMW i3 will not shift out of Park while it's plugged in (I'm sure most if not all other EVs behave like this, but the i3 is the only one I've tested).

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Aha BMW were smarter with the i3! I could not find this thread until FiddlerJohn pointed it out, thanks.

First note that I park and charge on my driveway with a moderate incline. I had not yet noticed the park lock flaw. My i-MiEV was plugged in. Due to the limited length of the OEM charger I have to back in.

I was in a hurry to go and my imperfect human brain forgot to remove the charger. I quickly turned the key on and without thinking assumed I was ready to go and shifted from park to B. I let off the brake and applied throttle. My driveway incline allowed the car to start moving! Luckily before the charger and charge port were destroyed I stopped. The charge cable was too tight to disconnect! Of course I could not start to use reverse, but fortunately I was able to unbolt the charger to release enough tension to disconnect.

This would not have happened if Park was locked until the charger is disconnected.

This is a serious design flaw that perhaps could be resolved by a software fix. I sent an email to [email protected] about this.

Soon a new EMW charger with a longer cord will arrive but I'm not sure that will help, if I don't back in I will see the charger even less when I leave. The best option I have is to glue or bolt down a strip that I can drive over but prevents rolling down the driveway.

I'm a little more fortunate to have a level parking spot. There has been a couple of times where I forgot to unplug, jumped in the car, turned the key, and no READY dings. Then I look in the mirror and see the plug still in the car.

The trick I use is I crank the key to start and let the car boot while putting on the seatbelt, which is enough time for the car to go into READY and all warning lights go out. If I happen to see red on the dash, I know something is up.

Playing with the key one day, I found that the car can actually come out of park in ACC position with the brake pedal pressed :shock: . There was definitely some oversight in the Park lock mechanism. Ideally, there should be a solenoid or similar to prevent shifting out of Park unless READY (which would do away with plug-in roll-offs), but then again, why not electronic gear selection with an actuated park pawl?

To be fair . . . . they did design in a feature which prevents the car from going to 'Ready mode' if the car is plugged in. The 'software fix' is already in the car - A very LOUD chime which sounds announcing that the car is ready to be driven - No chime, no go . . . . not that hard to remember. It's kinda hard to say there is a 'serious design flaw' because the operator chooses to shift the car out of Park when the Ready Mode has very clearly not been established

I'm all for 'idiot proofing' most things, but not if it increases the cost (and complexity) to everyone else, which an extra electro-mechanical solenoid to prevent the shifter from being moved would certainly do . . . .

Don

With GdB's blessing I merged the 'Lock Design Flaw' topic into this one, and I couldn't resist capitalizing the first letter of this thread title. :roll:

From my perspective, this is an interesting case study as a dilemma for manufacturers as to where to stop in trying to make their vehicles invulnerable to us humans. If they listened to the lawyers, we'd be back to cars crawling a 3mph preceded by a person waving a flag.

Perhaps the silliest recent one is the 500e which locks the transmission if no one is in the driver's seat - thus making it impossible to singlehandedly push the car: if I recall, this was discovered by a 500e owner whose car died in a parking garage and the tow truck wouldn't fit inside the garage and the owner couldn't figure out how to get the car to move so he could push it down to the truck. :shock:

Back On Topic, if you park and charge on a hill, what about getting into the habit of putting the car key either on top of the EVSE or next to the J1772 pistol grip?

Isn't there an actual Parking brake in between the seats ?
Maybe do that, but have a rubber band or something that you can put on the EVSE when plugged in, and then put it on the parking brake when you are NOT using the EVSE ?

I had posted before that I have a ziplock baggie on my plug for my Diesel truck that I put on the drivers seat when it is plugged in.

JoeS said:

Back On Topic, if you park and charge on a hill, what about getting into the habit of putting the car key either on top of the EVSE or next to the J1772 pistol grip?

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I leave my charger J1772 pistol grip in front of my house to avoid a lot of cable wear and tear and save time not putting it on a real. So that idea is not for me, otherwise I like that idea.

My solution is a "board stop". I will screw two thin boards down to the concrete at my parking spot.
I think the most common incline is just a track house typical front driveway with moderate incline. I did a test and 3/8" to 1/2" board is enough to stop it rolling down my driveway. I scooted vigorously in my seat without being able to roll over a 3/8". Note I back in (board against front tires) and keep 51 psi in the OEM tires with 10k miles. Worn tires should be better IMO. Lower pressure should be worse.

I'll try again later with a 1/4" board in front of the back tires closer to the wall so they are not a trip hazard. Thinner is less annoying to drive over and there is an added convenience of using it as a parking guide to back in close to the end of the driveway. On the other hand if you park far past your board stop a plenty thick one will handle a bit of rolling momentum better.

I have some extra recycled plaster deck 1x6 boards ready to cut a strip for this and extra concrete screws.
If I cut the 1x6 strips at an angle, to make them a triangular cross section, they will be easier to cross as I approach the wall slowly.

GdB said:

... My solution is a "board stop".

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The Board Stop was my solution until I resurfaced my concrete driveway. The driveway looked so nice and I was tried of tripping over the Board Stop. Yesterday, I ripped out the J1772 car inlet port.

. -

I broke all four port flanges and two wires. The EVSE was ripped off the wall and the J1772 handle was broken in pieces with contacts bent and broken. The EVSE cable was pulled so hard that it broke wires inside the Charging Station.

It was time to up my game. I not only fixed the Charging Station and the inlet port cable/connector, but I installed a Break-A-Way connector.

. - . -

My Break-A-Way connector is a Trailer 7Way Connector. I disabled the 7Way latch with a paper clamp and installed the connectors in the J1772 cable about one meter from the EVSE. I bolted the truck side of the 7Way to the wall and the trailer side connects to the J1772 handle side of the charging cable so it will unplug when pulled hard.

While fixing the badly broken J1772 handle/connector I installed a LED and a red LASER.


The Bad News. I don't recommend any of these modifications.
1. The Trailer 7Way Connector is not designed to disconnect while conducting 14A. To mitigate this I doubled the power and ground contacts in the connector, but that's still not good enough. The appropriate Break-A-Way connector would disconnect the Pilot signal to allow the EVSE to open it's contactors before the power contacts separated. The Trailer 7Way was the only four contact Break-A-Way style connector in my parts box.
. -
2. Powering the LASER and LED required unorthodox design. Not Good.
3. Each little modification lowers the reliability of the system.
3. After doing this, the Board Stop was a better solution. I have had this "charging cable pulled out" issue five times, but never while using the Board Stop. I never tried the tigger19687 "bag over the connector or on the seat" technique. That is the simplest. Thanks tigger19687. Simple is better.

The puddles that form on our completely flat driveway are annoying in this rainy climate, but after all of this broken charging gear, I'm quite thankful to be a flatlander! :roll:

FiddlerJohn said:

I have had this "charging cable pulled out" issue five times, but never while using the Board Stop. I never tried the tigger19687 "bag over the connector or on the seat" technique. That is the simplest.

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I'm still in the dark as to how this is possible . . . . I guess I just don't get it

The 'Ding Ding' that accompanies the Ready light is really LOUD on our cars - It's the equivalent of hearing the engine fire up on an ICE - Do people have problems rolling down the driveway in ICE's without the engine running . . . . with no power steering or brakes??

We never touch the shift lever or release the parking brake until that reminder that the car is 'ready'. I would bet you that Mitsu never once anticipated this happening. I'm sure the ready Ding is loud for exactly that purpose - To let you know it's safe to put the car in gear

Don

Eventually after hearing sounds over and over, I think the ding ding sound is easy to not notice. So going thru the motions of startup while in a hurry more than usual it's easy to go to fast.

I live in a very flat area, so much so the LA flood control district built a huge artificial flood control channel behind my house 60 years ago. All the houses have a lot of driveway slope. I think it comes down to quality of grading by the developers.

This is really a design flaw and maybe a safety issue that Mitsubishi should address.

Probably the only way to get some progress is by legal means, or threat of it.

I doubt this flaw exists in all other EV's.

Sorry, but I think the loud two-tone ding when the key is first turned (and which is supposed to occur before pulling the shift lever out of Park) is sufficient warning. As someone who occasionally forgets to unplug the car and doesn't hear the ding when turning the key - I find that this immediately raises the warning flag! Modern cars are already excessively nanny-ish, IMO.

FiddlerJohn, that's a very creative breakaway connector you built although, like you, I wouldn't recommend it as there might also be an issue with voltage ratings on that trailer connector.