Anyone got bored of plugging in everyday?

If there is indeed a "kill" mechanism in the Toyota EVSE, I would suspect that it came from the lawyers, not the designers. Consider:

1) After too many connects/disconnects, the power pins wear out, and the power connection becomes flakey.
2) The connector overheats, and catches on fire.
3) Toyota is slapped with a big lawsuit for negligent design, and there is a highly publicized and embarrassing recall.

So just have the part self-destruct in a safe way. The owner then gets a replacement from any one of a number of vendors, not necessarily Toyota. No expensive lawsuit or embarrassing recall.

 

Here’s an angle that is completely insane: Toyota likes to know when, how, and why their engineering fails. The EVSE may have a counter AND safety-related logic in it. Not for nefarious reasons, but so that the person inspecting the dead one can make note: “10,123 charges, and part #123-123-123 got fuxxored”.

I had a Toyota pickup that developed a crack in the exhaust manifold. Toyota replaced it for free (twice, the second time the truck had >250K miles) stating “it had a design flaw”. I was told they kept the cracked one to inspect how it failed. This is one reason why people buy Toyotas.

 

Safety Requirements. Toyota has to meet all the auto and public safety requirements for power electrical equipment. That is not something they have a choice of deciding what to follow and not follow. They have to meet them all. All I'm claiming is the indication and replacement requirements are a result of needing to meet these requirements, not because they felt a need to make money by forcing stuff to fail. As a minimum, connectors will wear out. How to protect both people and equipment from sparks, excessive heating and other ramifications of extensive connector wear is a very difficult problem. You cannot depend on every car buyer to maintain either their car or support equipment. This is proved yearly with many deaths due to vehicle maintenance being completely ignored. Quite a few people wait for the tires to pop to determine when they need replacement. Waiting for an ESVE cable to fail as the indication to get a new one certainly required coming up with using something other than depending on sparks, shorts, or fires.

No, That is not in the J1772 specification. The specification only covers the interface between the car and EVSE. An EVSE must meet a lot of other standards beside J1772 and many of these vary by country. One example would be the FCC emission requirements. Those are US specific. Any countdown feature would be a result of those other safety standards.

No. I would not consider the counters in the Prius that disable the car after so many safety cycles of various abnormal conditions as software bombs for the same reason. I would consider those public safety requirements. The best that could be done is alert the operator of abnormal conditions long enough ahead of a more serious condition before disabling the equipment. That is how the car works and it looks to be how the ESVE works.

 

That is completely described in the J1772 specification. The web has quite a few tutorials on it that are easy to understand. The handshake is absolutely required. A lot of 12V based comms must be negotiated before allowing the high voltage/current enabling to be supplied by the EVSE. The interesting part to me was how Lead Acid battery based EVs cannot charge in enclosed spaces as communicated by the EVSE cable.

 

I thought it was just me. I charge at home and at the end of my 50 mile morning commute, I plug-in at the gym and feel like both me and my car are getting recharged at the same time.

 

Look, I've always had the option of installing a Level 2 charger. That's not an issue. I happen to need the Level 1 charger most of the time, because I don't have much access to charging stations. Many of us are interested in getting to the bottom of this issue, and we are making some headway. If anyone is worrying too much, I'd say it's you. If you're not concerned, then take my advice and don't be concerned.

 

Yes, it's a new spin on the technique developed by Henry Ford. He sent "company men" to junkyards to see which components had failed and which hadn't. Crude but effective data-collection for industrial design.

 

GregP507, a few pages back you raised the question, "do we want expiration dates on our tires?"
I don't know about Canada, but here tires come with a coded date of manufacture, with an intended life of six years, if not worn out by that time. Just say in'.....

 

Well, I have strong feelings about that. There's no reason a tire should lose integrity after 6 years. At the farm, we have a 1946 GMC which hasn't moved from where it was parked in 1962, and the tires still look pretty good. I'm not saying they'll still hold air, but I'm quite sure they held up just fine for the 16 years they were in service.

 

As a pharmacist, a coded date of manufacture is NOT the same as an expiration date.

If you could point me to the government site documenting "intended life of six years" for all tires used in the US with recommendations tires be replace at that interval, I'd appreciate it.

 

I did some homework on the pin life of the Yazaki pins at the core of the charging connector. Any company can make the pins (e.g. ITT) but the original manufacturer is usually the one to establish the standard the pins were built to.

SAE 2009: Yazaki's booth proudly displays J1772 connector

I also verified the 10,000 cycles is what the Yazaki data on their Japanese data sites. Bottom line is 10,000 insertion cycles is the connector pin life, so if a counter is used by Toyota, it is probably that number or something derated from that number. That is quite a few charge cycles and would last 27 years unless derated or multiple charging cycles are counted per day

 

Sorry, I don't have a government site to which to refer you. As a pharmacist, do you trust the expiration date provided by the pharmaceutical companies?
From Edmunds.com in an article about car maintenance:
How Long Does a Tire Last?
Carmakers, tiremakers and rubber manufacturers differ in their opinions about the lifespan of a tire. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has no specific guidelines on tire aging and defers to the recommendations of carmakers and tire manufacturers. Carmakers such as Nissan and Mercedes-Benz tell consumers to replace tires six years after their production date, regardless of tread life. Tire manufacturers such as Continental and Michelin say a tire can last up to 10 years, provided you get annual tire inspections after the fifth year. The Rubber Manufacturers Association says there is no way to put a date on when a tire "expires," because such factors as heat, storage and conditions of use can dramatically reduce the life of a tire.

Heat: NHTSA research has found that tires age more quickly in warmer climates. NHTSA also found that environmental conditions like exposure to sunlight and coastal climates can hasten the aging process. People who live in warm weather and coastal states should keep this in mind when deciding whether they should retire a tire.

 

Yea . . . . this thread has gone from highlighting one non-existent issue to another. I don't mind calming had wringers now and then, but for me it's time to cut bait . . . .
.

 

Amen, friend. Amen.

 

Indeed. You can buy an L-1 outdoor charging station from Clipper Creek for $500, not $1200 (I have one). The handshake protocol for L-1772 EVSEs is essentially public domain. And tires last varying periods, depending on construction, how used and ozone levels, but 6 years is a good average safe lifespan for passenger car tires. I've gotten ten years from a set, but while not worn out at the end, they were rotting.

That about cover it? NO, WAIT! That was rhetorical...

 

Items of interest and discussion, but trivial in daily life. This forum has been slow for several months and I welcome new topics and open conversation.

 

SlowRR, I did the same thing. I've upgraded my stock EVSE from Toyota to a 240 from EVSEUPGRADE.com
After about a year, I had a short in the cord - probably from all of the plugging and unplugging of the 240. So I now leave it permanently near the 240 plug. I drive in and plug in.

I purchased a 120 portable on ebay for about $300 which I use at work. I've noticed the prices are getting cheaper on these things as evs and phevs are becoming much more popular.

 

In general here in Ireland, we agree that a tyres optimum life is circa 5 yrs. Afetr that it's not as good, rubber dries out etc

 

So is it basically possible to drive Plug-in like a conventional hybrid and not charge the batteries at all? Have been reading threads saying that aux battery is charged by the HV battery so wouldn't this charging cycle get affected?

 

Virtually separate in the way they operate. A conventional hybrid captures lost energy by regenerating energy from coasting and braking. A plug-in takes its energy in through a charge cable.
The Toyota Plug-in Hybrid does both, but keeps a virtual partition in the traction battery between regenerated energy, and plug-in energy. It would be extremely inefficient to burn gasoline to charge the EV battery, therefore once the computer has estimated that you have consumed all of your stored EV energy from plugging in, EV mode is disabled.

There's still plenty of energy left in the traction battery, but from there on, it's gasoline power, augmented by regenerated energy.