[ericgagnon]

Since we bought it in January, we've kept our Volt parked outside, with the plug end of the charging cord exposed to the elements while the car's plugged in, which is whenever it's parked.
When I unplugged the charger, I put the plug end on the grass, thinking we'd have a clear night and no worries.
During yesterday's sunny afternoon, we unplugged and left the house for a several hours. While driving back home he hit some major thunderstorms, and when we got back in the downpour late last night, my wife and I ran into the house and went to bed, forgetting we had left the charger sitting on the grass overnight (I didn't plug it into the Volt because we were getting soaking wet), with the other end plugged in to an outlet inside the house.
Glad to tell everyone that this morning everything was fine--no shorts or malfunctions. After cleaning out a few pieces of wet grass from the end of the charger plug, I plugged in and the Volt's charging fine.
In doing my pre-purchase research I read info from a GM engineer on this subject saying you could literally put the hot end of the charger in a bucket of water and nothing would happen. I'm glad to tell everyone that this pretty much happened to me last night and no problems--however, I'll try to be more careful from here on in!

 

[Loboc]

There's a big difference between dunking an inactivated plug in water and activating a wet circuit. Fortunately, the EVSE contains a circuit interruption fail safe (GFCI). No matter how safe the design, I would not deliberately test it. Nobody want to be a Darwin Award winner.

Hopefully there won't be future corrosion issues.

 

[Dave C]

Glad to hear everything held up OK

As I'm sure others will chime in too, the SAE standard for charging is intended to not allow AC voltage beyond the electronic box part of the cordset unless it is able to communicate with a vehicle at the other end - just in case something like this were to happen!

 

[ShannonVolt]

Great engineering on GM's part.

 

[Steverino]

This is one difference between an extension cord and an EVSE. The end of the EVSE is not live until it communicates with the car.

 

[pcunio]

Next test, grab the 110 white and black wires while standing on wet grass.if you survive that, we will move on to 220. Does Sing Sing still have an electric chair?