Bizarre Lightning Cable Issue

There may be a hardware issue or an issue in the lightning port of you ipad mini. I would suggest that you fix an appointment in the genius bar.

The iPad mini has a much larger battery and requires a more powerful charger.

the iPad mini ships with the same charger as an iPhone 5. 5W. If your car charger can charge the iPhone it should charge the iPad.

However, to rule out the charger, if you use your lightning cables with the supplied iPad charger as a test does it charge with all of them?

If yes then there may be an issue with the car charger itself. There's a possibility the charger is not exaclty providing what the iPad needs, while the Apple chargers do.

This is not true at all. Even though the iPhone 5 ships with a 5W charger, it can be charged with a 1W adapter (the one that shipped with the 4S). The iPad mini probably requires more power.

O.k I'll give you that. Its possible the 5W charger is overkill for the iPhone and just barely enough for the iPad.

In which case other chargers may be underpowered for the iPad while being adequate for iPhone 5.

This should answer your question.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4060?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Thanks for the link. My mini will not allow me to use it even after the 20 minutes. It takes hours before I can play on it. When it gets to around 50 -60 % battery it dies and shows the battery screen. Then I must wait hours before it is usable again. Is this normal?

Do you mean that when you use your iPad mini until the battery has 50% left, it suddenly dies? If so, that is not normal, I would take that to an Apple Store as soon as possible.

The iPhone 4S ships with the same charger as the iPhone 5, 4, 3G, etc, they are all 5W, 1 amp.