locking behavior for J1772 adapter (and possible suggestion?)

[ljwobker]

I found a couple of old threads, but old enough that I wanted to revisit this question...

My problem is that 90% of my charging is done at home, safely in my garage, with an AeroVironment EVSE that I originally had for my LEAF. It's really annoying to have to climb in the car to unlock the charging port to release the 1772 adapter.

Is there any way to set the car so that it does NOT lock the charging adapter? An even more optimal solution would be to tell the car "don't lock the adapter to the car when it's parked in my garage". The car can already prompt me with a homelink drop-down as I approach, so this seems like a feasible request.

That aside, anyone have thoughts on how I might prevent the adapter from being locked, or find some easy way to unlock it remotely?

 

[Gizmotoy]

Buy one of these from Lola and strap it to your EVSE?

Get J1772 adapter to pop charge port door

 

[HankLloydRight]

Interesting question I had too.. I have only charged once at a Chargepoint J1772 station, and when I was done, I pressed the button on the J1772 handle to unlatch the J1772 adapter from the handle, and instantly the adapter was unlocked from the car too and I could just pull it out. That seemed strange to me since I heard all these other problems of getting the adapter locked in the socket. But in my one case, it unlocked itself as soon as I tried to remove the handle from the adapter. This was before my car was upgraded to firmware 5.9. So what went "right" in my case?

 

[ChrisPDX]

You should not have to go into the car to release the adapter. As long as the car is unlocked (door handles extended via the key fob), it will release the J1772 adapter. Simply press and hold the unlatch button on the J1772 handle and wait a few seconds. You will hear the car release the adapter. Then pull both the J1772 handle and adapter out at once. That's it! So as long as you have the key fob with you, no need to do anything via the touch screen.

 

[David99]

When done charging, press the unlock button on the J1772 plug. Charging will stop and one second later the car will unlock thew charge port and you can pull out the adapter. This only works if you have your key on you. I have done it many many times, always works.

If the key isn't present, you can pull the J1772 out, but not the adapter. IOW, no one can steal your adapter.

 

[ljwobker]

OK, cool. As stupid as this may sound, it was the "hold the button down for 2 seconds" part that I wasn't aware of. Two years of driving the LEAF conditioned me to push-pull without enough delay to fire the unlock on the Tesla. ;-)

 

[smsprague]

A little off topic but about how many miles per hour of charge do you get using your EVSE

 

[mibaro2]

The first time I tried using the j1772 adapter, I ran into the same problem. Through trial and error, I figured it out. (I should check the owners manual and see if it describes how to use it. ) It was a frustrating first experience though.

 

[ljwobker]

A little off topic but about how many miles per hour of charge do you get using your EVSE

I get 31 or 32A of current at a hair over 240V. So about 7.5KW of power, divided by the ~333wh/mile that I get. Answer: about 22 miles of real range per hour on my EVSE, or more like 25-27 miles of "Rated" range?