Hi all, Just received my 2014 plugin. Here's the deal: I don't have a garage. I'll be parking the car in the driveway next to the house. My previous car (a 2004 Prius) was recently stolen out of that driveway. So, you can imagine that I'm a tad paranoid about leaving the $1500 charging cord out at night. Here's my question: I'm soliciting ideas for buying or building an outdoor charging station that attaches to the house. It should: 1) Secure the cord to the house; b) provide some weather protection when the cord is stowed; c) not be a hassle to deploy and stow the cord; and d) last, but not least, not be so expensive that it obviates the car's lifetime gas savings benefit! Anyone seen or done anything like that? Thanks!
Haven't seen anything specifically, but you might consider incorporating a steel cable parallel with the charging cable, which could be locked to the car in some way. There is a small hole in the charging plug trigger which can take a small luggage lock, but it's not good for much more than preventing someone from casually "lifting" the cable. There are threads in this forum which have dealt with this issue. You can search for "charging cable lock." if you wish.
At the risk of making you jealous, here in the UK there was a scheme to install these free, so I got a Chargemaster: Home Units The reason for saying it is that the nearest for you seems to be the ClipperCreek: HCS-40, 30A, 240V Charging, 25 Cord | ClipperCreek EV Charging Station | ClipperCreek Vehicle Charging Station My experience of having the Chargemaster is that it is fine outside on the wall under the eaves without any real additional protection. The safety features built in to the system mean you don't run any risk of electrocuting yourself. If you wanted, you could just screw a little waterproofed ledge over the top of it to keep the worst of the rain off, but mine has coped with everything, and the ClipperCreek looks as if it is built on exactly the same principles. But anyway, I just looked at where you are based. I think if it can cope with our level of rain, it can certainly cope with yours...
Back door (to the house) was unlocked. They grabbed the first thing they saw which happened to be my bag ... which contained the fob :-(
Here's a picture of my charge Station on the edge of my driveway. Been installed now over a year and still looks as the day it was installed. Been rained on , covered with snow and never a problem and no one is going to steal it The 220 volts of juice will see to that
Mine is semi-permanently installed under my carport. I don't have much worry about theft in my neighborhood, but my method was to screw two large eye bolts into a stud of the carport, and use a heavy duty lock through those and the plug end of the charging cord between the box and the plug end. Cheap and effective.
I believe it's "only" $500. Maybe less as people start to total their cars. When I bought my Clipper Creek charger it came with a cord permanently attached to the unit. You would have to saw it off to steal it. My unit is built to be out in the weather. It would not be too hard to build a little closet around it. For me it came to about $1,000 to buy and have installed the unit, however I got a few extras. The wiring is sized for 40 amp service, I had a parallel dedicated 120 volt/20 amp outlet run at the same time, and I got a long cord for the charger. $1k is about 250 gallons of gas, which is what, 12,000 or 13,000 miles?, however I plan to have the car a while, and I am doing most of my driving on electric. "Most" in fact to the point where I had to figure out which button opens the gas door...
This is my outdoor Level 2 charging setup at work. Including the cost of the modified EVSE, no more than $450. I was able to reroute a unused 220v line which saved on cost.
