Electric Vehicles?

[haraldo]

Do you have spot-pricing on electricity?
Some smart-charging stations understand this and will charge the cr at optimal points in time from a cost perspective

 

[haraldo]

I talked just yesterday to a guy who bought a new Tesla, unsure which model, there was a chassis defect at the door meaning rainwater was flowing straight into the back seat.

Tesla refused to fix this on warranty and handed a $7000 bill to their customer, nice Elon Musk. I believe this is legislation matter now

 

[ryanosaur]

Do you have spot-pricing on electricity?
Some smart-charging stations understand this and will charge the cr at optimal points in time from a cost perspective

In the US, we call it Time Of Use (TOU, or some other variant) Pricing. For example, where I am in California, from 12AM to 3 PM is Off-Peak and the lowest rate. From 3PM to 4 PM and 9PM to 12AM is Mid-Peak or Mid-Tier.

From 4pm to 9Pm... get the lube out!

This applies to home charging as well as Superchargers in the Tesla network, here.

Pricing will of course vary by location.

 

[ryanosaur]

I talked just yesterday to a guy who bought a new Tesla, unsure which model, there was a chassis defect at the door meaning rainwater was flowing straight into the back seat.

Tesla refused to fix this on warranty and handed a $7000 bill to their customer, nice Elon Musk. I believe this is legislation matter now

Strange. I had some "water ingression" issues with the rear hatch and it was "fixed" no questions asked. Of course, since the repair, I haven't had a serious storm to verify their work...
*facepalm.
...so we'll see what happens this winter (rainy season for us).

 

[j_garcia]

Electrify America chargers are free for me for 2yrs, so I don't really look at their rates (it is about $0.51 kWh at an average of 140 kW). At work it is fixed at .21/KwH on level 2 chargers, which is where I tend to charge most often since the car is literally just sitting there all day.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I recently installed a Level 2 charger in my garage. I've Applied for NJ EV charger rebate programs: the first to get up to $1500 for charger installation and the second for the off-peak EV charging cost rebate.
Charging speed is so much faster than level 1 charger (ie: 120v AC 12amp)

 

[mtrycrafts]

I talked just yesterday to a guy who bought a new Tesla, unsure which model, there was a chassis defect at the door meaning rainwater was flowing straight into the back seat.

Tesla refused to fix this on warranty and handed a $7000 bill to their customer, nice Elon Musk. I believe this is legislation matter now

He is lucky it wasn't the front axle that is 5 figures.

 

[Swerd]

Charging speed is so much faster than level 1 charger (ie: 120v AC 12amp)

There must be a few who use a level 1 charger on their EVs. But I’d be surprised if there were many.

My EV came with the usual portable charger that could work at level 1 or 2. I’ve only used it for level 2. I always thought of level 2 charging as essential to have at home.

 

[ryanosaur]

There must be a few who use a level 1 charger on their EVs. But I’d be surprised if there were many.

My EV came with the usual portable charger that could work at level 1 or 2. I’ve only used for level 2. I always thought of level 2 charging as essential to have at home.

Ya, those things are really only worthwhile as an emergency solution. If one is fortunate to find a 30-40 amp outlet, you are in pretty good shape, otherwise you are sitting put for awhile and letting your car sip on some juice.
It might make the difference in a bad situation, but you certainly can’t count on it for regular usage.

I used mine once or twice while getting my wall charger up and running. Fortunately, my landlord had installed a 40amp outlet in his workshop for his EV. I got to plug in there with my little charging kit.

There is no replacement for having a dedicated 60amp line so you can get a full 48amp charge, however. That is the max the Tesla Wall Charger supports, at least. With that, my usual top up is about 60-90 minutes.

 

[Swerd]

Ya, those things are really only worthwhile as an emergency solution. If one is fortunate to find a 30-40 amp outlet, you are in pretty good shape, otherwise you are sitting put for awhile and letting your car sip on some juice. It might make the difference in a bad situation, but you certainly can’t count on it for regular usage.

I used mine once or twice while getting my wall charger up and running. Fortunately, my landlord had installed a 40amp outlet in his workshop for his EV. I got to plug in there with my little charging kit.

There is no replacement for having a dedicated 60amp line so you can get a full 48amp charge, however. That is the max the Tesla Wall Charger supports, at least. With that, my usual top up is about 60-90 minutes.

For the benefit of readers who don't have an EV, and may not get what difference there is between portable (Level 1/2) and wall chargers (Level 2), here's what these various chargers look like:

Volvo included this Portable Charger with my EV. It easily converts between Level 1 (120VAC, 15A) or Level 2 (240VAC, 50A). I always keep it in my car:

In addition, I purchased a wall mounted Level 2 charger to hang in my garage. Volvo offered a discount from ChargePoint for a standard wall charger. I recharge with it most of the time:

 

[highfigh]

Electrify America chargers are free for me for 2yrs, so I don't really look at their rates. At work it is fixed at .21/KwH, which is where I tend to charge most often since the car is literally just sitting there all day.

What is the rate of charge in KW/h?

 

[ryanosaur]

For the benefit of readers who don't have an EV, and may not get what difference there is between portable (Level 1/2) and wall chargers (Level 2), here's what these various chargers look like:

Volvo included this Portable Charger with my EV. It easily converts between Level 1 (120VAC, 15A) or Level 2 (240VAC, 50A). I always keep it in my car:
View attachment 69943

In addition, I purchased a wall mounted Level 2 charger to hang in my garage. Volvo offered a discount from ChargePoint for a standard wall charger. I recharge with it most of the time:
View attachment 69944

Just for kicks: the Tesla Mobile Connector:

This is the current offering with just the nema 5-15 and 14-50 adapters. (The one I have has 4 different adapters.) It can output max 32amps which would add 30 miles per hour.
The 5-15 is 3 miles per hour!

 

[Swerd]

What is the rate of charge in KW/h?

The charge rate of EVs is not linear with time. It varies with how far along the battery is in the recharging process, as well as air & battery temperatures, among other things.

It’s kind of like rating a speaker’s impedance as one fixed value … such as 8 ohms … when it varies widely with frequency.

 

[Trell]

The charge rate of EVs is not linear with time.

It varies with how far along the battery is in the recharging process, as well as air & battery temperatures, among other things.

It’s kind of like rating a speaker’s impedance as one fixed value … such as 8 ohms.

Yeah, typically charging is a constant current followed by constant voltage when cell is nearing full, assuming LiIon and similar chemistries. But there are variations depending on actual chemistry of the cells, age, environmental factors, fast charging and so on.

In the end it’s worth recalling that the cells are consumables and the various charging algorithms tries to strike a balance between charging time, capacity and useful lifetime of the cells. There are also various discharging algorithms that also tries to strike a balance, and that includes reducing performance. Apple did reduce performance on iPhones with cells nearing end of useful life, as an example, as they’ve problems giving sufficient current. A discharge current could also be reduced so that the cell does not get too hot, especially when the cell is part of a battery.

 

[Swerd]

@highfigh

When I said "the charge of EV batteries is not linear with time", I was thinking of a sigmoid curve, instead of a straight line. In the example below, imagine the horizontal axis is Time, and the vertical axis is Percent Battery Charge. As charging progresses, a plot of that is best shown as a sigmoid curve, not as a straight line.

For the various reasons described above by @Trell this is due to the electrochemical nature of charging batteries, and also a deliberate choice by the manufacturers to maximize battery life.

The middle part of the curve (labeled Exponential phase in the example below) is close to a straight line, but above & below that the sigmoid curve deviates from a straight line. The slope of that middle part of the curve (roughly half charged) may resemble the slope of a straight line, but with limits.

So, if you ask "what is the rate of charging", it depends on where on the sigmoid curve you are. (Sorry for the high school math lesson .)

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Ya, those things are really only worthwhile as an emergency solution. If one is fortunate to find a 30-40 amp outlet, you are in pretty good shape, otherwise you are sitting put for awhile and letting your car sip on some juice.
It might make the difference in a bad situation, but you certainly can’t count on it for regular usage.

I used mine once or twice while getting my wall charger up and running. Fortunately, my landlord had installed a 40amp outlet in his workshop for his EV. I got to plug in there with my little charging kit.

There is no replacement for having a dedicated 60amp line so you can get a full 48amp charge, however. That is the max the Tesla Wall Charger supports, at least. With that, my usual top up is about 60-90 minutes.

I ran hard into this issue: I used my head and decided to pay more and go with a charger that plugs into a high voltage outlet so I can easier replace the said charger in the future (spoiler alert - EV charger despite their simplicity and relatively high cost - typically built using barely acceptable parts, and will break sooner or later)
Plus the charger that qualifies for the NJ charger rebate of $1500 is one that is sold by a large company, and not a small open-sourced one. My plan B was to swap to an open-source charger later on once the original charger goes feet up and past warranty.

Here is one issue: According to a recent NJ building code change, ANY AC outlets installed in the garage MUST BE behind the GFI breaker. In the case of EV charging, for some car brands this is generally not a problem or a rare one, but with my KIA EV9 - it flipped that GFI breaker for EVERY SINGLE charge attempt. So I wasted around $200-300 unnecessary for a more expensive EV charger model and extra electricians' work time, but in the end, we had to roll back the GFI breaker and wall outlet, to go hardwired EV charger.

 

[lovinthehd]

FWIW my electric vehicle, the Surron Light Bee X with some mods, has remained a great bunch of reliable fun. I do have a much more powerful battery on order, but that's several weeks off (and more probably as builder is in Tampa)

 

[Verdinut]

FWIW my electric vehicle, the Surron Light Bee X with some mods, has remained a great bunch of reliable fun. I do have a much more powerful battery on order, but that's several weeks off (and more probably as builder is in Tampa)

The supplied Panasonic battery isn't sufficient? I guess you want to do more distance with it?

 

[lovinthehd]

The supplied Panasonic battery isn't sufficient? I guess you want to do more distance with it?

Actually I have the Samsung cell 38ah battery with a bit extra output :0

ps the new battery is superior in every respect, will boost performance greatly

 

[ryanosaur]

I ran hard into this issue: I used my head and decided to pay more and go with a charger that plugs into a high voltage outlet so I can easier replace the said charger in the future (spoiler alert - EV charger despite their simplicity and relatively high cost - typically built using barely acceptable parts, and will break sooner or later)
Plus the charger that qualifies for the NJ charger rebate of $1500 is one that is sold by a large company, and not a small open-sourced one. My plan B was to swap to an open-source charger later on once the original charger goes feet up and past warranty.

Here is one issue: According to a recent NJ building code change, ANY AC outlets installed in the garage MUST BE behind the GFI breaker. In the case of EV charging, for some car brands this is generally not a problem or a rare one, but with my KIA EV9 - it flipped that GFI breaker for EVERY SINGLE charge attempt. So I wasted around $200-300 unnecessary for a more expensive EV charger model and extra electricians' work time, but in the end, we had to roll back the GFI breaker and wall outlet, to go hardwired EV charger.

I don’t know if it’s technically to code, but my landlord had us install a sub panel in the garage, then run conduit to an outlet. While the Tesla wall charger is meant to be hardwired, our landlord said once we do that it becomes his. So my electrical buddy and I connected it to a 60amp rated plug inside the garage to pair with the outlet, and we made a “whip” with flex conduit between where the wall connector penetrates the wall and enters the garage.
If I need, I can kill the local breaker and unplug the wall charger.
Helluva lot of effort, and we had to pay my buddy a good full days work, but it was worth it.
Everything is to code enough that my landlord is happy.
And it works!