My charge from last night on a 30A charger (7.2 kW at 240V).
This is why I'm always harping on the "stop installing giant charger circuits" thing! Even this is a luxury - I only charge about weekly or if I make a long trip.
For USians, a 10 gauge run of wiring will deliver 5 kW sustained. You'll only ever think that's slow if you drive a TON and/or have a really big vehicle.
Especially if you're thinking of DIYing an install, 10 gauge is so much easier to deal with.
@TechConnectify another thing to consider (but I haven’t done a fact check) is the efficiency of chargers (the thing in the car) at various loads. When prices are high (Europe) a constant „loss“ of 10% matters.
@TechConnectify European perspective: it can makes sense with renewables since they are cheap/available during limited time. You want to charge as much as possible when the sun is shining.
@TechConnectify funny awg10 :)
Did a conection with double 4x50/25 last night. That's about AWG0/ AwG3.
Both cabls parallel can carry about 170KW on a 230/400V 3phase connection :)
I prepared both cables but wired only one as the fonal distibiutinbox is not made jet.
@TechConnectify In italy we are limited to 16A, unless you ask for a non domestic supply or a wall box.
Home charging is limited to 10A, which is enough to charge while at home for the next day.
I charge once a week, but commute on an e-bike.
@TechConnectify in my case, I have free electricity during 11am-2pm each day - but I’m only able to charge on weekends for free as I’m at work all week. So charging quickly lets me have $0 charging sessions. Otherwise it’s really not worth it. (AUS)
@TechConnectify I never use my charger over 15A (3.6 kW), and that is only during the day, when I have excess solar power, night charges are always done at 6A (1.4kW). So I agree, there is no need for huge dedicated circuits.
@TechConnectify We have a lot of “Time of Use" tariffs in the UK specifically for EVs. This gives us a short window of a very low price (say 7.5p/kWh) with the rest of the day penalised (at 29p/kWh vs a normal 24p/kWh). When you have these faster charging at home becomes more important. On the flip side, I drive my Model Y so infrequently I barely need to charge, and so I have the luxury of gaming a tracker tarrif, where the price changes every half hour. 24h window announced the day before.
@TechConnectify
That kind of KW at 240V is fairly typical of domestic electrical shower units popular in the UK. Having said that those circuits only need to operate for the length of the shower as they are instant hot water (after about 30 secs).
Lots of older properties have retrofitted and it is not a particularly expensive addition even if you get a tradesperson in to do it.
@TechConnectify Absolutely. I went for a larger charger when I got it installed because i had the space on the panel and my supply and it's ridiculous overkill, especially because I need to charge at most once a week.
@TechConnectify I have a Chevy Bolt and I charge it twice a week, once on Wednesday and once on Sunday. I could probably get away with charging once a week but I want some emergency range available. When I only had L2
1 I'd plug it in for an additional night.
I think my L2 EVSE is setup for 40 which is excessive for me.
There are a lot of factors to consider if you are able to install a charger circuit, but you can open up many headaches if you insist on running a 50 amp circuit. Especially if you've got limited electric service.
5kW chargers deliver roughly 15 miles of range per hour. So in an 8 hour overnight charge you can expect 100 miles easily.
My personal opinion is that unless you have an extreme commute or a big truck of an EV, 5kW is plenty, 7kW is luxurious, & anything above is probably not needed.
@ironiridis at level 2 speeds I doubt there's a difference. The battery pack is so big that even on an 11kW charger it's more of a trickle charge than a phone on a 5V 1A USB brick.
@TechConnectify I've never actually lived anywhere here in the UK with a feed over 100A. I have seen a 200A feed.. but as it was an 8 bedroom/6 car garage house, I think we can class it as "not tipical"
Our electric code is designed to make tripping the main breaker almost an impossibility. So when load calculations are done, they are assuming someone will be cooking a meal, using the dryer, running hot water, and blasting the heat all at the same time.
This rarely ever happens, but the code presumes people aren't smart enough to manage their power draw. Unfortunately I think that's correct.
@TechConnectify Meanwhile in Germany 11kW is common because it's just three-phase 16A at 230V and you can get that over 2,5mm² wire (which apparently is AWG 13 or 14). Of course the car needs to be able to charge from three-phase but I think this is the case for most cars.
@TechConnectify I went 50A more for future-proofing than for current needs. We don't really know what EV's will need in 10-15 years and I didn't want to have to redo it if I switch cars later.
@TechConnectify
There’s no point to sizing the circuit larger than 1.25 (1.0/0.8) times car charging current. For my Model Y, it will draw up to 32 amps. So a 40 amp circuit is sufficient. Anything larger is added cost to no purpose. Almost always, the battery charger is in the device, in this case your EV.
@TechConnectify I’ll second this. I have a 30A circuit, running 24A charging (80% circuit limit) which is 5.6kW. With my driving habits, I could charge maybe twice a month if I push things. I only charge more frequently than I really need to because I occasionally take weekend trips over 100 miles.
And this is way cheaper than most public charging. Especially DCFC.
Pretty sure my $600 EVSE has paid for itself at this point.
@TechConnectify I love the ability to spontaneously go on a trip. Last week I got off work, noted that sunset isn't for a long while and drove 100 miles to a national park on a whim.
Having to add a charging stop, while not a deal breaker at all, is less fun than just going.
Maybe I'm just a weirdo. Or maybe California just has too many attractions of this type.
@TechConnectify assuming the "3 miles per hour on a 15 amp 120v" figure holds, my old commute when I went to an office would be entirely served just off a boring outlet. Not even 240v.
But as someone that occasionally wants to weld things: yes, please weirdos, don't do math and install huge welder-friendly outlets in all the garages!
@TechConnectify I absolutely appreciate all your videos on the topic. They have educated me a ton on how this all works. Besides the need for power/storage infastructure, education on EVs is paramount. It's gonna take decades to break old conceptions on how we "fill up" our cars. No one cares about fast charging their smartphone while they sleep for 8 hours at night.
@TechConnectify We have a variable tariff where the cost per kW changes every 30 minutes based on wholesale price. So a 7kW charger might make more sense for us as it would allow us to pull as much charge as possible during the low periods.
@TechConnectify Seriously. Even if I manage to run the battery all the way down, simply plugging in to the 30A charger overnight does the trick and I get a full tank while I sleep.
@TechConnectify not to mention how much more strain it puts on the grid if everyone wants these fast chargers and then only uses them for short unsustainable peaks rather than a marginally slower charge that allows for literally 10x the people to charge at the same time without issues