Lets see your Charge station Photo

so i dont get what the different is between all of these charging boxes and just getting a 220v outlet installed?

 

Given the 240V outlet, you still need an EVSE of some kind to interface with the car. The one provided with the car in the U.S. will only work with 120V. It's mostly a safety thing, to make sure that high voltage is only on the wire when it is plugged into the car and the car is accepting a charge.

 

ohhhh i thought they gave you one that worked with the higher voltage as well. guess thats another way to get some money out of you.

 

It's mostly a matter of cheap. And the lawyers; 240V outlets here are generally rated only for things like driers. Somehow, the 240V that is the standard residential supply for almost all of the rest of the world must be a lot more hazardous for Americans than for those other folks.

 

I went cheap, not stupid. LOL

I made sure they used 12ga wire even though the run was less than 10' in total wire length. We used a 20amp breaker. I won't be living here long enough to worry about charging a Tesla.

 

You planning on moving in a few months?

(you served it up...I had to go for it)

 

I wish! Hahaha

I live 49 miles from work. I'd love to have a short commute again. I keep trying to get my girlfriend to work at a different hospital. We need a new house to mod anyway. I'm not doing solar on this one.

 

I went the cheap route and upgraded my 120 to a 240. Had my electrician install a 240 outlet outside. The year prior to him doing that, I did a complete upgrade on the electricity on the house. New circuits were run to a majority of the house with grounded outlets. When he did the 120 initial install, he checked the watts that the 240 upgrade would be pulling and said that the upgrade was fine based on the evseupgrade. In the future if someone decides to do a true 240 with higher watts (for the new leaf or a testla), they will need to upgrade the circuit.

 

Is this portable? I'm looking for one that I can move around and just plug into my in-laws 240v dryer outlet when I visit.

 

240 and 120 voltage is no more or less safe then the other. Why do you think both Europe and Asia run both small & large house appliances on 240. See, both voltages will kill. Both can be used safely. As for the portable evse only working at 120v - that's only partially true. There have been over 1000 evse's safely mod'e so they can run/charge @ 208 and 240v as well as 120v.
.

 

Sorry, I guess I was a bit ambiguous. The safety aspect is not 120V vs. 240V; it is that an EVSE only presents high voltage (whether 120V or 240V) on the plug that goes to the car when it is plugged into the car and the charger in the car has done the proper handshake with the EVSE. The stock EVSE only supports 120V. I know about the mod to get it to also support 240V (and I am tempted to get it myself).

 

Why isn't the EVSE also built into the vehicle? Is it impractical/impossible? Then you'd be able to plug into any kind of plug available?

 

The whole idea is that there is no high voltage in the power cord to the car until it is plugged in to the car and the charger in the car has negotiated with the EVSE. The EVSE also includes ground fault logic in case there is a leak somewhere between the EVSE and the charger. This is also why the power cord to the utility outlet is so short, and is one of the reasons why they say you shouldn't use an extension cord, since that run is not ground fault protected unless your utility outlet itself has ground fault logic.

 

...plus the EVSE tells the car how much current is available on that circuit so it can limit itself to an appropriate charging level. The car can't possibly know this, so a device "on the outlet" has to tell it.

 

The photos of mine are in this post.
I also went 'cheap but safe' plus I can take the portable EVSE with me to charge elsewhere.

 

I build an Open EVSE and it guards my driveway.
240 VAC 60 Amps and 120 VAC at 20 Amps.

 

Ours is your run of the mill Aerovironment hard wired 40amp breaker, 240v EVSE, capable of delivering 7.6kW @ 100% duty cycle:



Our claim to fame is that we got it installed in September of 2010 ... months prior to any of the 1st plugins of ANY manufacturer that utilize the J1772 even being sold/delivered. Still - we DID get to use it on the PiP test mules. Aerovironment told us that ours was the first EVSE that they installed in our entire county (of 3,000,000).

Below is a shot of a prototype Mercedes using our EVSE - pulling 7.5kW's:



Good thing we got a roof covered in PV solar ... or all this charging we let folks do would cost us a fortune.



End of this year, our 7.1kW (ac rated) system will have paid for itself - so from here on in - our power is "on the house" ... pun intended
.

 

hill -
I wonder if this PV installer on your roof is obeying the code of working high off-ground??

 

I would assume that one "smart" proud home owner. Obviously he survived to post his reply.