Glitch Number One

Not with the car… with our Blink

We have charged our car exactly twice with our Blink Residential Level 2 Wall Mount charger. (Their term – not ours. The charger is actually built into the car. The Blink electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) provides the juice from the wall to the car.) When we tried to insert the SAE J1772 connector into our LEAF, it refused to connect. There was a high degree of friction encountered, and rather than try to force a connection, we returned to the 120 volt EVSE supplied with our LEAF. We had noticed that there was more friction when connecting the Blink to our car but we didn’t think too much about it, as the connector is obviously a different supplier than Nissan uses on their portable unit.

Upon closer inspection, we found that the moisture o-ring seal inside the connector housing seemed to have deformed. It protruded away from the connector wall, interfering with the insertion of the connector into the car. The Nissan supplied Level 1 EVSE works fine, so it does not seem to be a problem with the connector on the car.

We have contacted customer support via the toll free number supplied in the Blink owner’s manual. We spoke with a very enthusiastic supporter of the electric vehicle (EV) movement, as the representative on the other end of the phone worked to understand our issue and generated a ticket to resolve the problem. The Blink EVSE itself worked fine the two times that we used it. It may be as simple as just replacing the line with the connector attached. We will see how long it takes to resolve and keep you posted.