Hello everyone, Apologies in advance for a very confusing title. I recently upgraded my wife from a 05 Prius to a 12 Prius plug-in. We love this car. I have a question regarding the charging of her vehicle. the OEM charger it came with states it can handle 110v to 220v. I just had an electrician install a dedicated 110v 20 amp outlet in our garage in addition to it I also had a 240v 50 amp dedicated circuit installed in the garage. The reason I did was due to her car tripping our circuit breaker because our garage was tied in our family room and home office, and if I turned on my work PC while the car was charging or turned on the TV it would trip the circuit breaker. I am just wondering if I need to buy a different charger for her to use the 240v outlet or can her existing charger which is rated up to 220v be able to handle it. I should also mention it's also rated for up to 15 amps so not sure if it would utilize 50 amps available to it. Thanks in advance for your advise.
What this means is the charger you have can work in Europe and America It charges it some insanely slow rate that takes 8 hours to get your 30 mi or something The 50 amp plug you just put in the garage can take a myriad of chargers off Amazon and anywhere else in the world you want to buy them that will work off the 50 amp plug and provide 40 amps maybe 48 amps of charging which is about the equivalent of 47 mi in an hour. I have an 80 amp charger here and I don't even own an electric vehicle yet that 80 amp charger can charge your Prius a Tesla my volt etc at a much higher level 2 rate they call it I'm not sure how a level two charger can be 40 48 or 80 amps but such as life I got the 80 amp hard wired version I have one gauge cable running from the 80 amp charger It doesn't plug in and that goes to 100 amp breaker and my subpanel which I installed right here on my property and I can't remember the name of the charger I'm using It's from Amazon it's $699 and it is an 80 amp hard wired only metal black box with the proper non Tesla j charging cable that's I want to say 25 ft mine may be longer I'm not sure so even on the 220 volts the charger that came with your car is going to still charge at that ridiculously slow speed I do believe you may want to check and look into that further If you get the black box things that can go from $400 all the way up to 2000 they call it a level two charger that should charge your Prius to all the mileage it can get in about an hour versus six or eight. I do believe unless Toyota has done something very special which Toyota USA I seriously doubt.
congrats and welcome! if it is the oem charger (evse, the charger is actually inside the car) that came with the car, it is only 120 volts. if it says 120/240, it may be aftermarket? and should have a separate wall plug attacment that fits a 240v receptacle. plugging in to a 50 amp circuit is not a problem. what is a problem is a device that can draw more amperage than the circuit can provide. there is a way to convert the oem to 240v, and a google search will direct you to it if you're interested. a 240 volt (L2 is the nomenclature) evse on amazon etc is pretty reasonable. 120v (L1) will charge from empty in about 3 hours. plug in prius gets around 10-13 miles on a charge. 240v cuts that time in half. how many miles on her? another thing you should look into is the egr circuit and blown head gaskets. all the best!
I thought I had OEM charger. I am adding photos of it so I know for sure if I am using a aftermarket charger or not. Thanks for your input though.
It's got 165K on it. I took it to the dealership after purchasing the car because I wanted to see what problems they could find with it. All they found were leaking swaybar links, worn-out front brake pads/rotors, and needing new spark plugs (and the cabin filter/engine filter), but if you think I should have the egr circuit and blown head gaskets checked out somewhere else. i will take the car in for a check at a different dealership.
yes, that is aftermarket. i'm surprised there's no name, but it may very well work on 220v. you'll need an adapter and hope for the best!
dealerships aren't generally familiar with problem. i'm no expert, just what i've read here over the years. unfortunately, it is a labor intensive, costly job, and difficult to find mechs who will bother with it. here's a how to video. merv is great, and there's plenty of others: watch
Obviously it is not a DEDICATED line. It is SUPPOSED to be, from what I understand. Just so that doesn't happen. You should call the person who did the work and tell him to do it correctly. It should be on a seperate circuit breaker in the breaker box.
From post #1: "I just had an electrician install a dedicated 110v 20 amp outlet in our garage in addition to it I also had a 240v 50 amp dedicated circuit installed in the garage."
exactly, he now has two dedicated circuits. "the reason i did it was due to her car tripping the circuit breaker because the garage was tied into the living room"
okay, that's one mystery sovled, also would I burn up the charger since it's only rated up to 220v and I got a 240v circuit? How would I know I have a dirty EGR valve, The car runs smoothly. I am no Prius expert but would I be able to notice a dirty EGR valve? I don't mind spending the money to prolong the life of this amazing car. As bisco pointed out I had issues with my wife's car tripping circuit if I booted my PC, turned on the TV or anything else. That is why I decided to call the electrician who advised I should also get a 240v circuit installed in my garage should I upgrade to a Prius Prime in the future or something that will take a long time to change. I know it was a foolish decision but I was "Futureproofing" my house lol.
220v and 240v are basically the same. it won't hurt it any more than plugging it in to 120v hurts it even though the moninal rating is 110v. those are just old fashioned labels from a time when our electricity waas actually 110/220. it's been quite awhile though, and voltage fluctuates within acceptable standards in any power system.
basically, all gen 3 prius egr's are clogged to some extent. the dealerships have a software platform called tech stream which can read the flow through the egr valve. again, i'm not an expert, and you would have to do some research to come to an understanding of the egr system, unless you can find a dealership that understands the concern and is willing to help. there is always a possibility that yours isn't clogged enough to be concerned, but there is no way to know other than taking it apart and looking, as merv does in the video.
here's a helpful thread, at least to see how complicated the problem is: techstream-egr-valve-blockage-data.206024
The battery charger is onboard, and works fine in Europe which is nominally 230V +/-6%. The item you're talking about is the portable EVSE (charging cable, basically), which has been determined to be an aftermarket part. As to whether that needs to be replaced is another thing.
