George, I done a bad thing

I'm sure none of you will do anything as stupid as this, but I was saved by good engineering design.

My PHEV is charged from a standard 3-pin plug just inside the garage door, but when charging is complete, I like to roll it down to the bottom of the drive (which is on a 10% hill) because there's a tree at the top which has roosting birds, leading to a 'decorated' car the next morning. The other night, charging was complete, so I unplugged it from the mains, but didn't venture out because of heavy rain. When the rain stopped, it was completely dark and I forgot (idiot that I am) the charger was still plugged into the car. Of course, there was lots of beeping and flashing lights when I switched it on, but that's just normal, right? So I put the car into neutral and rolled it down the hill - seconds later there was a loud thump from the back of the car. I found the charger had pulled out of the car (it was still attached by the retaining cord in the garage).

The good news is that the plastic retaining clip is designed to be the weakest part, so that had failed (leaving the clip still held in the car's charging unit), thereby protecting the cable and its connectors from damage. A dab of hard plastic glue, and it's all as good as new, and still works. I hope not to repeat this experiment!

Plus one for the topic title!

oh my gawd! that is a horror story for bed time reading that!

I think you were rather lucky no damage to the car itself!

Oh man, I feel your pain.

To prevent this kind of thing from happening, I ALWAYS develop habits to prevent them.

In this case, ALWAYS unplug the connector from the car first.

Now you've done it, Andy - we can debate whether it's better to unplug from the mains first or the car (assuming you're using the supplied non-tethered charger).

Heheheh...

I'm fairly sure there is a CVT in the charging box, on the supplied cable. :lol:

Mine charges overnight, using the on-board timer, so that it has maximum charge when I hop in, in the morning.

This also means that charging has completed before I arrive to unplug the car, so the box is really just sitting there, not doing much.