Home L2 charging

My setup installed fairly easily ten years ago

 

This is another hidden advantage of a PHEV.

Our little PHEV averages 30 miles on EV per full charge.

I installed a Level 2 in our garage for our PHEV. The car's max draw when charging is 16 amps so an ordinary outlet would do, but I installed a dedicated hard wired 240-amp Level 2 charger. It will fully charge our empty battery in 2.5 hours but since we use it around town 95% of the time the car stays plugged in when home and constantly topped off.

No need for a huge circuit and none of the headaches that come with installing a 40/50 amp charger or even more amps. For our everyday needs a vehicle with more than a 30-mile range is an unneeded extravagance.

If we do need to take a long trip our PHEV has a 600 mile range when fully charged and filled with 12 gallons of gas.

The longer I own this PHEV the more I appreciate it.

 

The other side of that could be more hidden.

If you are only driving 25 to 30 miles a day. A plug in with greater total range will take about the same amount of charging time to recharge that as a PHEV with just that range. Give or take. The miles gained per time of charging depends on the car's efficiency. The direct BEV competitors to a PP are pretty close though. The PP is actually an exception; many PHEVs are lower efficiency in EV than BEVs in their segment.

Oh, onboard charger rating is also a factor. For current plug ins, the ratings are pretty close, with things with bigger batteries tending to have a faster unit.

Granted, putting Level 2 in that many BEVs can take full advantage of is more cost and hassle. The cars aren't going to draw more energy from a lower power EVSE though. So if you don't need the maximum charge speed of a particular car, then don't install the fastest EVSE needed. Even with a lower power EVSE, it might be prudent to put in the higher amperage cables and breaker. You might want to replace the PP or Niro PHEV with a bZ4X or EV6

 

I worked as an electrician and the wire run was a short one. Very easy to upgrade if I wanted to - but a waste of money with a car that's on board charging system is capped at 16 amps.

Most people will buy cars that fit their lifestyle and I'm no exception. PHEV = perfect fit for our lives and travel.

We also keep our cars for over 10 years - traded in a 12 year old 08 Prius for the PHEV and a 16 year old 04 Sienna van on our other vehicle. Will be very disappointed if we have to buy another vehicle before another 10 years have passed.

At our age I could care less about the image my car projects or having to have the newest fanciest model.

 

i put in 30 amps for future proofing, but it hasn't panned out

 

Original owner keeping a car for 10 years isn't the norm.

The point is that a long range EV doesn't need a faster charger at home. A person coming from a shorter range EV will end up charging the new car for about the same amount of time. They only need to up grade their EVSE if they are also increasing the number of daily miles.

 

My point was simply that a PHEV can take care of many peoples driving needs with its electic range and most pertinent to this dicussion - can be charged up from a regular wall outlet with none of the problems metioned in the starting post. In many cases forget even a Level 2 charger, a Level 1 may do just fine for your lfestyle.

So you can completely forget about the concerns the gentlemen were discussing in the original post if you have a PHEV.

You do not need to invest in an electrician or upgrade and in many instances can begin enjoying EV driving with a simple wall outlet if you have a PHEV and use a Level 1 charger.

We chose to install a Level 2 because during the day we are constantly driving the PHEV and plugging it it to recharge. In that way we maximize the availability of the vehicles electric range for our lifestyle.

Why buy a vehicle with a 200 mile or more range and then upgrade to the necessary charger to maximize it (or not) - if your lifestyle and driving patterns don't exceed 40 miles in a day? What possible good can it do to pay the price for all that electric range if you never use it? (Bolt and Leaf excluded they are common sense electric vehicles made and priced for common sense individuals). For some it is a lifestyle choice to do that exact thing - more power to them. For others focused on value and utility the numbers don't add up -and so what, big deal. Buy what suits you and your lifestyle.

It is always interesting to post and discuss, sometimes frustrating when an individual refuses to recognize simple points and turns things into discussions that have nothing to do with the original post, reply or content.

I hope this post clarified what I was trying to convey. I will leave it at that as the more I try to understand the replies the more confused I get. Probably a reflection on me rather than the replies.

 

For future proofing, while installing a second ductless heat pump to cover the far side of the house, I also put in a 40 amp circuit for 32 amp L2 charging. At this age, my DIY capacity will trend down, not up. While my household's first intended plug-in will be a PHEV, that is a stepping stone to a full BEV, and I wanted to be ready for that too. Actually, we expect to eventually have both kinds.

I had intended to put in a 50 amp circuit to support 40 amp BEVs. But after having some problems fitting heavy gauge wire into the intended space on the other part of the project, I considered slacking off the L2 circuit to 40 / 32 instead for ease of installation. A review of available vehicles found plenty that charged at 32 amps, that particular listing showed just a few models, mostly already old, at 40 amps. So the choice was made.

But the socket looks exactly like those shown in the OP video. Will have to keep following this topic to see if an upgrade is warranted.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for a suitable PHEV to achieve a reasonable supply here.

 

And I am saying the same is true of a BEV for many people's needs. Most of the BEVs available will regain 30 to 40 miles of range with 8 to 10 hours of charging on Level 1. A Level 2, and potential concerns, is not needed for those people with a BEV. It is only needed if the daily miles is greater than what the Level 1 can replenish overnight. Even then, the individual's specific situation could mean Level 1 still can work.

My commute is 60 miles round trip, Monday through Friday. Assuming a BEV can get at least 30 miles recharged each night, the car's range will be down 180 miles on Friday when I get home, then there is over days to fully charge the battery to full. There is now a good selection of BEVs with 200 or more miles of range. I would pick something on the more side. One of those would work for me with just Level 1.

Now, if my BEV options were under 200 miles, I'd need a Level 2.

The point is that home Level 2 need depends on the miles the plug in is driven in a day, not what letters are before the EV.

You could do the same with a BEV.

I think many Level 2 installations are more for the lifestyle of cabin preconditioning.

Why pay for an engine and attending maintenance if you never use it? There are still BEVs available with less than 200 miles of EPA range. Or get a used one if the goal is to maximize value and utility.

I understood your point with Level 1 charging. I just don't see it as an advantage limited to PHEVs in this situation. Forget to plug in, and maybe needing to use a public charger is probably is likely more of a hassle for most people than having to get gas a day or two earlier.

 

Looks to me like the burned up parts did what they were designed to do, which is melt without sustaining a flame. It's also why code requires all electrical connections to be made inside a certified electrical box. When installed correctly a L2 charger won't burn down the house even if it fails.

Sandy made a good point when he said at the end of the video that connections must to be torqued properly. It's a lesson in I^2R, any resistance from a bad connection or undersized wire will generate a lot of heat under a high current load. Swapping out to a higher amp breaker and outlet in the garage, without pulling the proper larger gauge wire, can also cause failures like what was shown in the video. I don't think the problem is from parts not being commercial grade, but it's best to use quality name brand parts installed by a someone familiar with high voltage household wiring.

 

I think the best case to be made for L2 home chargers is off peak hour charging for both PHEV or EV. My i3 takes about four hours to fully charge using my home charger, so I can set it to start after midnight and it's ready to go long before I wake up. The power companies like it too.

 

Just because my oil change today at my local dealer was $84.16 for a Avalon hybrid.I didn't need to but I like to sell my cars with lots of documented maintenance as they sell for more.

On the dealer's lot I found 2 hybrids for sale, both used. Every new car had a sold sticker on it.

 

"Many cases" and "many people" for "some" applications ..... sorry - but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of cases and many people with all the other applications.
For instance, many people have different rates during different times of the evening, day, or seasons.
If I can't charge at 6 kw, 7 kW, 10 KW, but only 1kW .... that means the electric cost to recharge will have have run into higher cost rates - & increased 2x, 5x, or in our instance, more that 10x as much for juice - because my painfully slow charger is now running during the high rate time of use. Sure - I could keep running out to the garage and plugging in - and unplugging based on time of use - but how stupid, extra slow & incomplete of a recharge would that be.
.

 

Doesn't your charger have a timer that allows you to tell it to start charging at a given time? Say get home at 6PM and delay 3 hours till rates drop. Or does the car has the ability to be hooked up but not use electricity until a set time?

 

Admittedly I did not catch EVERY sentence on the VIDEO. Still ..... the fix - seemingly unmentioned was unrelated to the host's suppositions of unsecured wire fasteners. Since too many areas' electrical codes don't require this - contractors don't necessarily bother to install AFCI (arc fault circuit interrupting) breakers. Lack of ground fault breakers may kill you - sure. An arc fault may burn down your house. Earlier version AFCI breakers protected against a parallel arc fault of hot to ground or hot to neutral. Modern combo types, protect against both parallel & series arc fault conditions.
L1 or L2 .... it'd be worthwhile for folks to know what type of safety mechanisms their contractor installed.
.

 

His post was about the use of Level 1 charging to avoid potential issues with Level 2. If a plug in takes over ten hours to fully charge the daily miles, charge timers aren't going to help.