The charging connector wear and health

[TikiSteve]

Yes, connector wear 'is a thing' in fact I do think some of the issues you hear about NEMA 14-50s overheating can be due to connector wear. I was at a destination charger the other day and happened to look in at the contacts and OMG, I was appalled at the mess the contacts were in. At the end of the day I did decide to charge from it, but I was wondering if anyone carried a can of contact cleaner with them?

Even plug cycles can wear the plating. ABC always be charging! In 10 years x 365 days x 1 plug cycle per day = 3650 plug cycles, thats a lot of plating wear!

 

[rwiegand]

Plating seems really unlikely on a connector of that sort. Anything I've seen for serious current is solid metal.

 

[OxBrew]

Many battery charger contacts use some brass alloy with either gold or engineered plating. Amphenol, for example, has a proprietary plating they use on most battery connectors that reduces galling, has very low resistance, is used on most brands of portable battery equipment and EV chargers. No idea what Tesla uses, but I know they did extensive testing for at least a year or more during development. The NACS system is one part I have full confidence in, it's as good or better anything on the market.

Yes, wear is a thing, and perhaps high use chargers need cleaning or replacement periodically, like anything. I've never seen a Tesla charger not work due to contact issues, and some I've used showed a ton of wear.

 

[jcanoe]

Tesla Superchargers, destination chargers may get a lot of use and even abuse. After you finish using a Supercharger if you go into your account settings in the Tesla app you can view your recent Supercharger session data. There is an option to provide feedback on your recent Supercharger session. This is how you can report a worn or broken Tesla charging connector or Supercharger stall to Tesla. (It helps Tesla if you can provide Tesla with the Supercharger stall number and letter, i.e. "2A".)