Burnt 240V outlet

[Ngkgb]

Charged my R1T today around 11 and around 1 my wife said she noticed a burning smell from the garage. Noticed the charging cable was extremely warm. Checked the outlet and saw the pic below.

For reference, I had an electrician install Siemens 240V/30A charger in 2018. Charged a clarity EV, Etron, Mach E, and R1T fine until today. Though I Should, i dont know the amperage of the breaker. Thats my fault. I just assumed a licensed electrician would choos the right amperage. What does everyone think the most likely culprit of this is? What Shoukd be my next steps?

Thanks

Edit: just checked the panel and it’s a 50 Amp breaker

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[Dark-Fx]

Poor connection at the melted terminal.

 

[Polar]

Most likely - bad outlet.

That melting is indicative of heat caused by a poor quality connection between the outlet and the plug.
Replace with a Hubbell and carry on - also observing the 80/20 rule (only use 80% of your breakers rated capacity).

 

[rkalbiar]

Agreed. Poor quality outlet. It happens, sadly.

 

[rkalbiar]

You can go Hubbell, the best. Or you can go Bryant 9450FR for virtually equivalent quality, also owned by Hubbell, but for much less moola.

 

[evguy]

Yep, bad connection in the outlet (possibly resulting from years of plugging and unplugging chargers), happened to me in my old garage. Hardwired EVSE is the way to go if you want to avoid this in the future.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

This is why I always recommend a hardwired installation for a permanent home EV charger. The contactors inside of these outlets wear out, especially if you plug and unplug it frequently. It's an additional failure point and hardwiring allows you to eliminate that failure point as well as a GFCI breaker. It also has the added benefit of charging at 48 amps versus 40.

If you can, I would replace that with a hardwired EV charger. Preferably a 60 amp circuit as well. If not, you can just hardwire up a charger to the 50 amp circuit and eliminate that receptacle.

There are some folks that insist on having The 14-50 outlet and in that case an industrial grade outlet is highly recommended.

When these outlets were first designed, they were never designed for the very long continuous loads of electric vehicle charging. Electrician s usually put in cheap off-the-shelf outlet and those just aren't up to the task.

 

[Zoidz]

What was the charging rate set at? For a 30A circuit you should be charging at no more than 24A.

 

[HaveBlue]

Check the wire size and type. From the look of that BX cable I'll guess it's only #10 which is to small for that 50A breaker. If was rated for 50A then now would be a good time to put in a 14-50 or better yet hard wire a unit and set it to the correct amperage. Likely the other cars with smaller batteries never charged as long also.

 

[Hercules10]

I have a Rivian charger with a direct connect to a 240 box. The approved wiring gets warm at 48amps, so I backed it down to 38 amps charging at night. Constant expansion and contraction of the wiring can loosing the wiring nuts. So good to check them every so often.

 

[Proxy]

Probably did not get installed correctly. I have the proper tool to torque everything correctly. However, I have never seen an electrician use anything other than plain old tools using their “calibrated” forearm.

 

[YouKnowWhatsUp]

Even on my hardwired Tesla charger I needed the wires tightened after a year. It’s good to check the connections on the charger and the breaker yearly and tighten them. Breakers and outlets are relatively cheap until they melt and damage wires.

 

[azbill]

I had this exact thing happen. When I took the cover off and pulled the plug out, one of the wires just fell out. It was due to a loose connection, the electrician obviously did not torque it correctly.

 

[Ngkgb]

What was the charging rate set at? For a 30A circuit you should be charging at no more than 24A.

The circuit is 50. The charger is 30.

 

[Ngkgb]

Should I have lowered the amperage in the truck? From my understanding, the charger and the truck work together to figure out the maximum it can charge.

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