power surge

[jeffolson]

Does anyone know if the vehicle is protected from a grid related power spike or power surge during charging?

There was a grid problem in my neighborhood. Everyone's electricity went haywire for a few minutes- lights dimmed and over-illuminated, computers and devices shut down, a power strip caught fire (at my neighbor's house).

I was charging my Bolt w/ level 1 charger and a dedicated 20 amp circuit, with the charger cord provided with the car. When I checked the car, it was displaying the yellow "problem" light on the dash. This was while the neighborhood grid was still unstable. Then the Bolt gave a loud bang, or pop. It's volume was loud, kind of like a door slamming, but it seemed electrical in nature.

I unplugged the charge cord. Later I test drove the car- no problems. I even plugged in the charge cable for 2-3 minutes w/o trouble.

It's a new vehicle and I'm a bit worried to operate the charging system.
Thanks

 

[WetEV]

Does anyone know if the vehicle is protected from a grid related power spike or power surge during charging?

Like any electric or electronic thing, there are limits. The car's charger can take 240V AC as part of normal operation as can the charging cable or EVSE, so anything less than that should be no problem. One problem that sounds like what happened to your neighborhood is an open neutral connection. The neutral divides a 240V circuit into two 120V circuits. With an open neutral, half of the 120V circuits will be lower voltage, half will be higher voltage, but not more than 240V AC. Normal 120V appliances, power strips with surge protectors and such might well be fried, if on the high voltage side. Lights on the high voltage side would be very bright, and on the low voltage side would be very dim. If this is what happened, your car and your charging cable (EVSE) should both be just fine, as 240V is in the range of normal operation. EVSE might have disconnected due to a ground fault, which would have made a relay clunk sound. As the car charges and drives fine, sounds like you are fine.

But I can't know what happened to the grid in your neighborhood. It would be a good idea to take the car in and see if there are any related trouble codes recorded. I can't think of anything else to check.

(Edit: typo fixed)

 

[LeftieBiker]

Overhead power wires can also cross under ice or falling trees, pushing the line voltage up to 400+ volts, until the transformer blows. This is what usually kills appliances.

 

[jeffolson]

Thanks for the replies on this. The explanations of the neighborhood grid are similar to what an electrical engineer later told me, although he also stated that he couldn't really know based only on my description.

I like to suggestion to check for trouble codes and I'll follow through. Perhaps the service technicians can more fully describe any surge protections that are built into the car. I read one other post relating to lightning strikes and how important the grounding component is so I'll look into that when I consider having a 220V EVSE installed.

 

[SeanNelson]

I like to suggestion to check for trouble codes and I'll follow through. Perhaps the service technicians can more fully describe any surge protections that are built into the car.

I believe that OnStar can tell you if there were any trouble codes if you describe the incident to them. It'll save you the need to take it in unless something was recorded.