Don't actually have a Pip, looking at one for my next car. Can I simply have a 120 and a 240 volt outlet run to where I want to park, plug it in like any other appliance?
The prius comes with a plug that you can simply connect to your 120 volt outlet. If you already have a 240 line, then you just need to install a level 2 charger.
To be clear, the charger is on-board the car. What you guys are referring to are EVSEs. The L1 120 volt charging cord set is also an EVSE.
What they said, except you should know the 120v EVSE cord is nice and long. I plug into an 120 plug at the front wall of my garage and can still reach the back of the car where the port is. Given the small battery and relatively short recharge time, there's no real need to spend money installing a level 2 charger and a 240v plug. Highly unlikely to see a return on investment for that.
In summary, the plug in the car itself is a special EV charging connector. The car comes with an adapter called an EVSE which plugs into the car at one end, and a standard wall plug on the other, and contains some simple safety-related logic which communicates with the charger in the car.
A poster named PeeF modifies 120 volt cords to work at 240 volts, almost halving charging time. Toyota : EVSE Upgrade, Your EV Charging Solution
^^^ Yes, pEEf is somewhat well known here and more well known as Ingineer on mynissanleaf.com. There are thousands of satisfied Leaf customers of his.
and his L2 conversion of your L1 that comes with the car is only a few hundred dollars. although, a separate L2 is good if you don't want to pack up your evse to charge elsewhere and they are coming down in price.
I did the L2 conversion on my portable EVSE and I'm very happy with it. I charge up from empty in about 1.5 hours. At work we have old paddle chargers but have 120v plugs added to the paddle chargers. I have the extension from the 240 plug to plug into 120 and the EVSE recognizes that it is only charging at 120v… and so it takes 3 hours to get a full charge. Pretty convenient and a lot less expensive than a 240v hardwired EVSE on the side of my house + permit + electrician install.
It sounds like I can just run a 120 and a 240 V outlet (it's as easy to run two circuits as one) and leave it at that for now. If the next car needs more than the 120 I'm ready. Thanks guys!
On that note, there are adapters from the paddle style to J1772. My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Avcon charging a Leaf! was an example of discussion on this. Probably not worth the $ for a PiP though...
