Journal chill's Journal: EV Real World Charging 2
My electricity costs of $0.11 per kWh plus tax (say, $0.01 per kWh) are my residential rates. That's what I pay at home, and WV doesn't have time-of-day pricing, so I get no discounts for middle-of-the-night usage versus during the day. Things may be different where you live.
The cost calculations I've done are based on that, though I'm still waiting on the permit to get my home charger installed so I'm not charging at home, yet. My county, where building permits are regulated, is running about a 21-day delay in issuing any sort of permit. This isn't unique to electrical or EV-related requests, that's just how overworked they are. As I'm DIY and not hiring a licensed electrician for the install, they're applying a little more scrutiny and it is taking a little longer.
Hyundai has a deal with Electrify America (EA), a nationwide charging network owned by Volkswagen, for 2 free years of charging on a new Hyundai EV. I get a free 30 minute session a day of DC fast charging. The nearest EA fast charger to my house is 22 miles away in a Walmart parking lot, but free electrons are free electrons and I can do my weekly shopping while charging. There are closer chargers than that, both Level 2 and DC fast, but free electrons.
There are basically three types of chargers -- Level 1 (AC), Level 2 (AC), and Fast DC which is sometimes (erroneously) called Level 3. Again, I'm in the US and our home mains comes in at 120 V, single phase AC. If you're in a country that doesn't use wimpy circuits, Level 1 may not exist for you at all.
Level 1 is simple run and extension cord from your car to your wall and plug in. Trickle charging. The car comes with an adapter for doing this and mine will supposedly pull up to 18 Amps this way, charging at a rate of 3-5 miles per hour. Unfortunately my house is over 100 years old and some of the wiring is still what they'd call "pre-War" in the UK, so the closest plug to my driveway was only giving me 6 Amps, or about 1 mile per hour of charging. Almost, but not quite totally useless. Trickle indeed. I have a long-term project to upgrade the rest of the circuits in my house, but this is a bit better than nothing.
Level 2 is what we in the US use for electric clothes dryers and ovens, 240 volt circuits. That's what a "home charger" is if you buy one. They are configurable to a variety of amperages, from 12 on up to 48, giving you upto 19.2 kW of charging power depending on your actual circuit. Circuit breakers are supposed to be rated 20% higher than the amperage draw of the devices on the circuit, so my 40 Amp Electrify Home charger needed a 50 Amp breaker. That's a fairly common size for L2 chargers you see out in the wild. They're often referred to as "destination chargers" and can be found at many hotels, universities, and office buildings. They add about 30 miles of range per hour of charging. In may of those places they are free to use for a couple of hours while you're at work, in class, or staying at the hotel.
DC Fast Charging are those chargers that look like gasoline fuel pumps. They commonly range from 50 kW to 350 kW for charging, though the amount varies based on what your model of car can handle, temperature, number of cars charging at once, phase of the moon, you name it. The ones closest to me are 150 kW and with my free 30 minutes I can go from 20% to 80% in my car. Unfortunately that's because the damn things usually cap out at around 75 kW for some reason. There is a set of 350 kW chargers a little further away at a mall, and I've used those with rates of 280 kW for my car, meaning 20% to 80% in like 10 or so minutes. They are nice. 10 mintues is simply me plugging in, going in the store to take a piss and buy a drink.
But let's talk reality. Where I live in WV is as close as you can get to not WV. I could just release my brakes and roll down the hill into VA and then keep coasting right on into MD. There may not be a lot of EVs in WV, but the Greater Washington DC area has a bunch, which means there can be lines to charge. So far the longest I've waited for a spot is 30 minutes. This is very much due to two factors: lack of enough chargers and free electrons. There are other chargers I could pop off to, but...free electrons. I'm not really in a hurry so the only DC Fast Chargers I've used are those belonging to EA. The Nav in the car (as well as Google Maps) shows chargers as POI, just like gas stations. If I was back in my always-in-a-hurry days, then I'd be checking out other charging stations. But, just like my grandfather would only full up at Shell stations, I'm only using EA for now.
That being said, their rates are NOT $0.12 per kWh. The EA rates are between $0.36 and $0.48 per kWh depending on prime vs non-prime times. So 3x to 4x what I'd pay by filling up at home, or standard big-business fuel rates comparable to gas prices.
The EPA window sticker says I am expected to save $4,500 over 5 years in fuel costs. The fine print around that is "Actual results will vary for many reasons, including driving conditions and how you drive and maintain your vehicle. The average new vehicle gets 28 MPG and costs $8,000 to fuel over 5 years. Cost estimates are based on 15,000 miles per year at $0.14 per kW-hr. MPGe is miles per gasoline gallon equivalent." Adjustments to their numbers based off of my local electric rates and driving habis should get me to $5,000 over 5 years -- almost DOUBLE that compared to the beast of a truck I was driving prior to this, which was getting about 15 MPG.
Finally, I've had one instance where the charger that I pulled in to didn't know the car that was there before me had left. It was still sitting there racking up idle time and I couldn't convince it to stop and let me charge. I called the EA support number (Sunday early afternoon) and it took 17 minutes on hold before they picked up. Once support answered they were able to quickly reset the charger and I was able to charge. For the record the charger was running Windows 10 and they just remotely rebooted it. Sadly, some things never change. I waited because the other spots were in use, and I just waived other people ahead because I wanted the experience with EA support. There were also other brand DC Fast Chargers around the corner, so if I was actually in a hurry, I wouldn't have bothered. Free electrons.
It Helps to Read the Manual (Score:2)
The portable charger that comes with the car supports 6, 8, 10, and 12 Amp settings. It defaults to 6A and has to be manually changed. My old wiring isn't to blame to obscenely slow charging, my not knowing what I was doing is. 12A is still a trickle, but now we're talking 6-8 miles per hour of charge. Or, leaving the car plugged in overnight will get me 48-64 miles of additional charge from a simple wall outlet.