Dead on roadside

My daughter bought a used Nissan leaf two days ago, and today its dead on the side of the road. Can I plug the inverter into the cigarette lighter in my Highlander with the three prong adapter, and charge it that way?

That lighter socket, if you mean the one in the Highlander, may only be rated for 10A. The one in the Leaf definitely is rated for 10 amps. You can "jump start" a Leaf the same was as with a ICE car, with jumper cables. Attach the Negative clamps to metal parts of the vehicles, away from the batteries. Give it 5 minutes before trying to start the Leaf, in case its battery is in really bad shape.

OneAndDone said:

My daughter bought a used Nissan leaf two days ago, and today its dead on the side of the road. Can I plug the inverter into the cigarette lighter in my Highlander with the three prong adapter, and charge it that way?

Click to expand...

Are you asking if you can use the inverter to run the EVSE? If so, then as far as I remember, those plugs can't handle that kind of power.

Are you trying to charge the LEAF 12v battery or the traction pack ?

If this is a presumed LEAF 12v problem and it died while being driven then you have bigger problems than an old 12v battery

If the battery pack is depleted to empty, tow the car to a public EVSE (or DC FC if the car supports that type of charging.) Use the plugshare App for your phone to find the most convenient EV charging nearby.

The problems with using your ICE as a 120v source are multiple:
1. You need an EVSE. Those are wired with two hots and a ground
2. You need a female -- female adapter wired correctly
3. At best you might add a couple miles per hour of charging
4. The EVSE will choke on an AC signal that is not a good sine wave and expected frequency. You can bet that the cheapo inverter you have provides a dirty signal.
5. The EVSE may expect a minimum amperage that your hack is incapable of supplying.

---
If this turns out to be a simple case of running the battery pack to empty, your daughter needs to buy an OBD2 bluetooth adapter, put the LeafSpy App on her phone and to learn to use it. It is not difficult but most people are not familiar with electricity units of measurement.

---
You have an adventurous daughter; Good for her ! Try to be supportive as she learns what she needs to understand on the fly.

Yes, if this is a car that has just been run out of charge then you have a few options, but none of them involve a lighter socket.

* Have the car towed to a charging station. This is assuming that the car has enough charge left to start and be shifted to N.

* If it's completely dead, then look for a roadside assistance/towing service that offers roadside charging via a generator.

Then there is the tow-charge option, but I don't think you have the experience for that...

Please read this as well, lots of good info. The used Leaf buying guide:
https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=26662&p=538030

Sounds like the typical first-time drive by a new EV owner--having so much fun blasting around with all that torque and not notice the bars dropping on the "fuel" gauge. Call a wrecker/towing service and get it towed home; add their phone number to your cell phone contacts list.

There is no way to "jump start" an EV that has a depleted main pack battery; you will need to get near a 120VAC mains outlet to plug in the charging cable, aka an "EVSE"

You would need a much larger inverter than could plug in to a cigarette lighter outlet. The charging cable device/EVSE needs 120VAC with at least 10 Amps which is about 1200 Watts; to supply 1200 Watts from a 12V battery would be over 100 Amps and that's before losses in the inverter.

I doubt we'll ever know details so I'll call this a 'GOM strikes again' story

SageBrush said:

I doubt we'll ever know details so I'll call this a 'GOM strikes again' story

Click to expand...

You mean you don't think a guy who creates an account called "OneAndDone" will ever make a second post?

nlspace said:

You would need a much larger inverter than could plug in to a cigarette lighter outlet. The charging cable device/EVSE needs 120VAC with at least 10 Amps which is about 1200 Watts; to supply 1200 Watts from a 12V battery would be over 100 Amps and that's before losses in the inverter.

Click to expand...

Nailed it