Posted on 09/21/2022 11:21:13 AM PDT by citizen
I've been musing re home EV charging. I have no expertise beyond common sense but there will surely be practical considerations involved...
Let's say we have a surburban family with mom, pop & children all driving EVs. How many can be charged at once? I am thinking a multi-EV charging system and the necessary electrical capacity to safely power it would both need to be heavy-duty and therefore quite expensive. ka-ching and then you get to pay the electric bill!
If this home only has a minimum power charging system requiring hours to charge a single vehicle, there would be EVs on that charger constantly - and squabbles about "I'M next!" Btw, the insurance companies will note these systems and surely raise their rates accordingly.
Scenario 2: Same residential home but Mom & Pop are travelling for a week. I can envision Junior or Miss Cutie Pie telling their friends "Sure, come on over! My parents are gone for the week, you can use our charger all you want." More ka-ching on the power bill.
On a concurrent note, I've read speculative posts on how once a residential neighborhood reaches sufficient EV saturation, the electrical distribution serving them will necessarily need to be strengthened to handle all the extra required capacity. Someone must pay up for these modifications.
“Doubt seriously that the breakers or $2 a foot wire will constitute the major part of the multi thousand dollar upgrade ... labor!!!!!!!!!!!!”
What is your estimate?
DIY
As most posters here are saying, the masses don’t understand the math and physics involved.
Power is magic. You plug it in and it’s there. It never runs out. And it comes from some magical source.
It’s all just another power and money grab by the connected. They say things that sound good, but reality interfere with making it happen.
I have a 23’ boat. How am I supposed to tow it further than 50 miles to a lake? How about my yearly 800m trip to south Florida with it?
My suburban gets about 400 miles of highway travel without the boat. When towing, I think I get to 180 miles and I twitchy about the nearest station.
My wife and dad had a conversation while we were deep sea fishing this summer. The topic “why can’t the boat be electric like a Tesla?” My son and I (he’s at Georgia Tech and I’m a GT grad) rolled our eyes.
We had to explain things like:
cars don’t push water — there is no coasting.
Our trolling motor wouldn’t last 2 hours at full power and it gets us going a whopping 4mph. Imagine the battery volume needed
Even when planing, the boat is using a tremendous amount of power. It’s at 4800rpm just to keep us at 27mph. Do the math on the joules in that much gas.
But to people who just hear things on tv, it’s all just pixie dust. My magic car will just go go go.
A Tesla 85kWh battery charged from zero to full charge on a home 240V system over 18 hours would draw almost 5000W per hour, assuming 100% efficiency (no losses is cables or connectors). That’s nearly 20A for 18 hours straight! A home AC, by comparison, draws 3000-3500W per hour. At 15 cents per kWh, a reasonable amount, that’s $12.75 worth of electricity.
I hope my math is right, but it really comes down to this: the elites never intend for the masses to have privately owned EVs. Their end game is forced conservation and greatly diminished quality of life for the hoi polloi.
I’ll be dead and gone but in a 100 years who knows what
they’ll be using. Hell they went from wind powered boats
in 1492 to landing on the moon. Things are rapidly changing
in the world today. Hell I went from looking at the rear end
of a mule plowing a garden until today where they are out in
outer space. Motels on the moon, stars, who knows what two
hundred years down the road will bring. I’ll never see it but
neither did Columbus or his boat mates. Have a good evening.
I heard something about ICE cars burning rice. They call them rice burners:)
“The surge would not go away in any event, just cheaper cost for later time periods.”
To times when demand on grid is less.
“vthe 240 home one takes 18 hours per car “
Most people don’t drive 300 miles every day! Much less 900 miles a day.
—”Can he charge more then one EV?”
YES...BUT.
Unsure about the newest equipment.
Usually, one charger is needed for each car. To charge them simultaneously two chargers are needed.. You can charge other cars at different times.
And you CAN NOT exceed the main service rating.
Here in DuPage IIRC, it is 100 Amp minimum residential service required, 200 Amp is common.
Tesla chargers come in different levels that require different circuit breaker sizes.
IIRC 50 amp and 100 amp.
My daughter and family added an addition to the house and while everything was open they added a 100 amp service to the garage. The son-in-law did most of the work and had an electrician pull the permit and check the work.
The wire was the big expense, PVC conduit for underground and disconnect box in the garage. He dug from house to garage by hand.
The material was less than $500, the electrician was a friend.
The Lv2 charger is about $400, draws ~40 amps and needs a 50 amp breaker.
Can anyone speak as the the effects of sub zero temperatures on battery life? Say you live in upstate NY, or Alaska for example, and keep you cars outdoors.
Sub zero temps are tough on a wet cell battery. Can lithium ion batters take on those conditions?
Well to paraphrase the late, great Johnnie Cochran:
If the temp’s too low
the car won’t go
Thanks for all that. I only know what I’ve been told by a couple of folks who had them professionally installed.
L
“Can lithium ion batters take on those conditions?”
Li-ion batteries are being phased out.
“To times when demand on grid is less.”
What I and some other’s are trying to point out is that our current lifestyle here in Texas does not fit in well with the EV model and the ability of the grid to handle everyone having 2+ EVs. I don’t see everyone getting up at 1Am or 2AM or 3AM to plug in. They will do it when it fits their needs.
I guess someone could make some bucks by designing a timer so that even if plugged in charging does not start till a late hour.
I do not see how any of this works for apartment buildings and condos. They would need to start TODAY mandating all multifamily buildings to have enough chargers. Wonder what that would add to rental cost? Worse would be retrofitting existing multifamily.
At 0°C, for example, a lead-acid battery’s capacity is reduced by up to 50%, while a lithium iron phosphate battery suffers only a 10% loss at the same temperature.
https://relionbattery.com/blog/lithium-battery-cold-weather
Great idea, and that's pretty much how they work. It's not like the little box charger you plug in and attach to your 12V battery. There some computer power to let you turn it on when you want and tell it what percentage you want to charge to.
“I don’t see everyone getting up at 1Am or 2AM or 3AM to plug in. “
Everyone knows that the charging times and rates are programmable.
Er, most everyone.
Imagine how many charging stations would be required in a high rise parking garage....and it would require its own transformer....and where would we put the transformer with its required space around it with the no climb fencing required?
In the high rise apartment areas, every inch of real estate is already in use.
Will this be better/cheaper? Who knows. But China and India and a host of poorer countries will be burning coal, oil and nat gas regardless, with little reduction in CO2.
The Save the Planet screed is a whole 'nuther topic.
“I guess someone could make some bucks by designing a timer so that even if plugged in charging does not start till a late hour.”
GEEZ! EV’s already have “timers”.
I you have the most common 100Amp service then you will using 40% of your available power to charge your EV. That is only one RV. So if you have 2 charging circuits charging two cars at one time then it would 80%. So you basically have to go to a “Green Acres” style of power management for the rest of your home.
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