Comment by Brendinooo
1 day ago
For me it's cost. I'd have to sink a couple of grand into getting my home electric up to speed most likely, and then I'll be paying a bunch of extra money to get the car. Turns into a math problem about paying for electric now or gas over the next n years and electric usually breaks even or loses.
Trickle charging overnight on standard AC is more than enough for a standard commuter, of course YMMV ;)
Depends whether they have access to 230V power. I’d want at least a 3.5kW charger, charging at half that would be miserable.
3.5kw*12=42kwh. That's like half the capacity of a fairly decent range EV.
How many people are really driving 240~ miles per day? Practically nobody...that's like 3.5 hours at motorway speeds.
Inb4 the typical response of "every American commutes 99999 miles per day!!!"
Charging at 1kw at home would be perfectly fine for average use cases.
19 replies →
Why do you care how long home charging takes? It’s not like you have to hang out in or around your car while it’s charging, the way you do when filling it at a gas station. As long as your car charges enough overnight to make up for your average daily usage, you’ll be good.
8 replies →
I have used exclusively a 120V charger for the past ~3 years of EV ownership. It takes a while, but we aren't using the car when we're asleep anyway.
If you can plug your car into a standard 120v 15a outlet that will give you about 35-45 miles of range overnight. Unless you have a really long commute, that's probably enough on average, and if you have a week where you're driving more you can supplement your charging by going by a public fast-charger. 240v 15a gives you twice as much charging and probably doesn't require very expensive electrical upgrades, just finding a circuit you can dedicate to the car and swapping the breaker+outlet.
We had PHEVs that could do this <checks notes> ten years ago. All whilst looking like and driving like normal cars and not iPads on wheels.
If all you need (and all you're capable of charging) is 35mi of range, buying an EV is incredibly stupid, and you are continually placing yourself at risk of running out of battery. If the threat of an unscheduled errand would leave you stranded, you bought the wrong car.
EVs are impractical unless all (frequently unsaid) prerequisites are met.
You can drive hundreds of miles, but you'd only be able to charge 40-50. If your typical daily use is within that, you can go further at the weekend, or make an unexpected trip, and catch up over a few days (or at a fast charger)
1 reply →
You might not need a L2 charger at home depending on driving habits?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0
I own an EV while living in an apartment building with only an outside parking spot and with no EV charger at my spot, and it’s so fine. Granted I only do 1000km per month on average, but still - every other week I just leave my car parked overnight at an AC charger near my apartment complex and I’m covered, while the cost of ownership is much lower than a typical ICE car
Just a heads up, you don't need an electric panel upgrade anymore for charging. There are UL-certified systems that monitor the power use for the whole panel and load shed the EV charger if needed.
I installed one from Emporia, for about $500.
plus there devices where you can even share a dryer outlet dynamically (turns car charger off when dryer is running) - if your dryer outlet is near at garage.
Can your board run a hairdryer 12h? If you can you can produce 24kwh or basically 100-150km driving per day.
At least you have a charger option. The non-rich of us who rent appartments have none. The four chargers in my biulding would cost more per-mile than buying gas... if they were working. They are currently down for some random reason (new cell provider, no connectivity in our carpark.)