Anyone use public charging stations for your Prius Prime?

There are outdoor rated level 2 chargers you can install outdoors without a garage. I have one and it works fine in all weather. I only refrain from plugging in during an active thunderstorm.

 

Lot's of discussion here about the economics of public chargers and the fact that plug-in hybrids like the Prime don't absolutely need them. However, some owners want to maximize their EV driving (and minimize the use of their ICE) because they like the "feel" and quiet of EV mode or because they take some pleasure in not spewing exhaust gasses into the environment.

It's for those reasons that I take advantage of public charging stations when and where they're available to me, even if my Prime is substantially charged. (I also make an effort to move my Prime when it's fully charged so that the charging station is available to other EV owners.)

 

I only make use of public charging as a range-extender. In other words, if I have range from home charging to comfortably complete my trip, I don't use public charging.

 

I'm puzzled. I was under the impression that the charging rate was limited by the charging circuit within the car and that the car would accept fewer but not more current, much like a 100 watt light bulb uses 100 watts whether it's plugged into a 15-amp circuit or a 30-amp circuit.

Possibly I misunderstand the J1772 plug but I thought it was designed only to provide a single-phase. That could be 120 volts, 208 volts, or 240 volts (where 208 volts is one pair of a 3-phase supply.)

I know that 3-phase equipment can deliver more power because there is 208 volts between each of two of the three wires. But that assumes that the power is being delivered to equipment which utilizes all three phases.

EV-connectors by Old Bear posted Nov 4, 2017 at 1:27 AM

I know that ClipperCreek makes a "CS 3-Phase" unit but that requires a different connector than the J1772 on the Prime. (The ClipperCreek "CS 3-Phase" can be set up with a J1772 cable, but then it's only supplying a single phase to that cable.)

Someone noted that the blank space used for holding the J1772 protective cover in the North American version of the Prime is used for a CHAdeMO fast-charging connect on the Japanese version of the car. From what I've read, CHAdeMO is a higher voltage DC system which is not widely available in the US.

Could you provide some further explanation of your 3-phase charging arrangement and what kind of EVSE you are using and how you're connecting it to your Prime.

 

My Prime Premium lets you add charging stations as POIs on the nav and a locator is built into Entune - it's not just an Advanced feature.

 

@Old Bear, @john1701a:

My background is mechanical engineering, but I did take some EE courses (fading fast though). My understanding is that traditional 240V in a household is one single phase. The incoming line to the house is single phase and the transformer has a center-tapped secondary, giving two 120V legs with phases that are 180° apart. There is only one way to connect these two wires and calling that "2-phase" is misleading because because the device is really seeing a 240V 60Hz waveform instead of a 120V 60Hz waveform. With 3 hot wires (120° phase-shifted), the peaks of each phase do not align (and are not an opposite phase of one of the other phases). This is the traditional view of what multiple phases entails. I doubt anyone has 3-phase going to their house, unless their house is a mansion.

As for the 3-phase, according to this article and this article and others, I see nothing about 3-phase with regard to the J1772 standard. For the Prius Prime owner's manual, the max amperage for 240VAC is 16A and for 120VAC is 12A. The differences in power that @john1701a lists might be due to differences in the conditions of the car (current battery level, temperature, etc). Here's an example of the Prime being charged at 3.6 kW on a public charger.

 

evse waypoints is advanced only?
Yikes - even the lowly stripped 2010/11 leaf had that as standard. One more exasperation I suppose, on how/why manufacturers package the various goodies they offer.
.

 

No. See my reply two previous.

 

I use public charging stations when I am stopped at place that I am getting a meal, shopping, or have an appointment. Public charging is opportunistic, not a goal by itself. I will choose to eat or shop where there is a public charger, if for free. Otherwise, the usual 'parking fees' make it impractical, which I relearned on my eclipse trip.

To avoid driving into the setting sun, I stopped at a Tennessee Cracker Barrel to try their plug-in station with our BMW i3-REx. The fast DC charger was an unusable, CHAdeMO and the J1772 a Blink, L2. So I plugged in and ate supper while the sun set.

When I came out, $2.74, the cost of a gallon of gas which would have given another 40 miles versus the charge received, 7.2 kWh, ~29 miles of EV range. The slower charge rate of the Prius Prime would have been worse!

Worse, there was a near-by Waffle House without a charger that I could have eaten for less than $10 and bought some gas to get home half an hour earlier.

Bob Wilson

 

Not sure I see the distinction between Prime Apps and Entune? On my Premium, I have two ways to get to charging station information. I can select charging stations as a POI on the nav:



Which will display them on the map. Or, I can get a menu of nearby charging stations via Entune:



Which gives me this:



And selecting a given station will enter it into nav as a destination.

 

Thanks. There's a charging station map on the phone app with Premium, too

 

While the better ½ is having a 90min. medical thing done down here in Laguna Beach, the chargepoint app shows a habit burger joint just down the road, AND a free ( rarity nowadays) ChadaMo. Picked up a quick 175 miles AND a charburger. Woohoo! Yeah - I use public charging.

 

Here's what the phone app looks like, BTW (just for comparison purposes to whatever you see with the Advanced Prime apps):

 

Did you have to pay extra for the ChadeMo adapter? And if so, how much was it?

 

$400 ... a bit pricy, but when we were up in Park City Utah a couple months ago, it was a godsend because realistically there was no other place in town to refill. Here's a snapshot from the other day in Laguna Beach;

.

 

Used a Chargepoint for the first time today. $0.95 for about half a charge in 70 minutes (although it was free due to the promotional card). Would almost always be cheaper to charge at home but we went to a movie which was 25 miles away. If the return trip wasn't steeply uphill I'd have done the whole day on electric.