Poll: What 240v Receptacle Do You Have ?

My power company is giving away 240V EVSE charge stations (FLO Home X5 or ChargePoint Home 25, 32A) and rebates to customers who buy a Plug-in or BEV starting March 15th. I'm not eligible for the rebate because the lady that totalled my car did so 3 weeks too early. But apparently there is a wee bit of wiggle room on the charger so I'm getting one. The FLO is hardwired, the ChargePoint plugged. Since I'm getting the ChargePoint, I need to put in a 6-50 outlet. WAY overkill for the Prime but if they want to give it to me I figure I might as well get something that could charge a full BEV should I ever get one. Most of the time the normal 5.5+ hours on 120V is fine but there have been occasions when I've gone out, run the battery down and could not fully recharge before having to go out again.

I ASSUME there is no reason to charge slower at 120V if faster 240V is available.

 

I'm surprised they haven't shifted them to the newer plug standard, four wire with separate insulated neutral and ground (14-40R). But, plenty of 6-50's to be found.

 

great deal. ma should be so enlightened

 

Charging slowly prolongs battery life, but I have no idea if it matters in the case of Prius charging 16A @240V vs 120V. But on cars with 60A chargers, yes, fast charging has an impact.

 

The charging station does not NEED the neutral, since there are no components that use 120V, like in a drier, so 6-50 (HOT-HOT-GROUND) is sufficient. The only reason to go to the 4-wire configuration with the neutral would be if that becomes the de-facto "standard" 240V configuration.With the Chargepoint Home station, the wire with the 6-50 plug is a separate item that you have to attach to the station as part of the installation, so they could just ship the cord with a 14-50 plug instead if they wanted to, and just ignore the neutral. No change at all to the charging station itself. Kind of like Toyota does in Europe with the EVSE to deal with multiple European plugs.

 

Got the 8-2 wire run (not fun), double pole 40A breaker and 6-50 outlet installed in the barn (room in the service panel there, not one open slot in the main panel in the house).
Got the ChargePoint station installed.
Tried to set it up with my phone per instructions.
ChargePoint App can find the charging station but can't find my home wi-fi even when I'm sitting 2' from it in the house.

 

As I recall, during the configuration process, the app in the phone talks to the station over Bluetooth, and this is where you configure the WiFi in the charging station. Are you saying that the app reports that the station cannot see your home WiFi? Totally apart from the ChargePoint stuff, can your phone see your home WiFi from where the charging station is?

 

I started the process next to the station which it found easily, then it went hunting for the WiFi. I had a signal on the phone, though weak. I walked toward the house, into the house and up to the router while it was "looking" and it still couldn't find it. I do recognize that I probably need a range extender to get a stronger consistent signal at the charging station in the (OLD and made of wood) barn.

When I tried to register the station online with the power company (required as part of their program so they can choose when to NOT let it charge the car based on overall demand from the public) I got a nondescript error message and no one has responded to the email I sent in regard to that.

 

It is the station that is looking for WiFi, not the app on the phone. During Wifi setup, the app on the phone talks to the station over Bluetooth, and what you are seeing on the app is the status of the attempt by the station to find WiFi. Where your phone is, and what kind of WiFi signal it is getting, is irrelevant, as long as the phone app can talk over Bluetooth to the station.

Once the setup is done, the station talks to the Chargepoint servers over Wifi, and the Chargepoint phone app talks to the Chargepoint servers over Wifi or cellular like any other phone app, and your station show up pretty much the same as a public Chargepoint station, except only you can see your home station. And once the station is "online", as long as you have Internet access on your phone, you can administer the station from anywhere, not just at home.

 

Thanks Charles, very helpful. Looks like I need to get that range extender for my WiFi then.