Electric Vehicles: General topics

Update: I followed @Eric ‘s advice and rebooted (I think, I held the volume button for about 30 or 40 seconds until the car went silent and the instrument panel went from almost black to black. Since the entertainment screen went black immediately, I wasn’t clear on how long to hold it.)

Anyway, then I tried charging again. The red light on the wall connector flashed again - no discernible pattern (6 flashes, then 8, then green, then 3, then green, etc.) But within about a minute the car started charging.

We’ve charged the car successfully now three times. The first time, I was there, and it did the red/green flash dance. The second time my wife did it on her own, and she sent me a video of the normal green pulsing, but it is quite possible that it flashed red at first. And now we have this time.

I’m still going to replace the charger with a Tesla Universal. My Gen 1 is 13 years old, almost, and other than supporting 80A/22kW, the modern wall connectors have advantages. If that doesn’t work, I’ll replace the wall connector with a 14-50 socket and we’ll just use the mobile connectors.
 
Update to update: so I just watched two official BMW videos, and read an official BMW FAQ, and all three disagree about how you reboot the car, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually reboot it.

I asked my wife, and it *did* flash red the time she successfully charged it herself. So it’s quite possible we just didn’t wait long enough last night for the charging to start.

In any event, this ain’t no way to run a charging rodeo, so once I receive the new connector I’ll decide whether or not to have it installed based on how reliably charging works on her car.
 
Cmaier said:
Update: I followed @Eric ‘s advice and rebooted (I think, I held the volume button for about 30 or 40 seconds until the car went silent and the instrument panel went from almost black to black. Since the entertainment screen went black immediately, I wasn’t clear on how long to hold it.)

Anyway, then I tried charging again. The red light on the wall connector flashed again - no discernible pattern (6 flashes, then 8, then green, then 3, then green, etc.) But within about a minute the car started charging.

We’ve charged the car successfully now three times. The first time, I was there, and it did the red/green flash dance. The second time my wife did it on her own, and she sent me a video of the normal green pulsing, but it is quite possible that it flashed red at first. And now we have this time.

I’m still going to replace the charger with a Tesla Universal. My Gen 1 is 13 years old, almost, and other than supporting 80A/22kW, the modern wall connectors have advantages. If that doesn’t work, I’ll replace the wall connector with a 14-50 socket and we’ll just use the mobile connectors.
Click to expand...
store.ui.com

EV Station Lite - Ubiquiti Store

Weatherproof, 11 kW Level 2 electric vehicle charging station with flexible access control designed for scalable deployment.
store.ui.com store.ui.com

I would go with the UI EVSE, but that is probably because I already have a UDMP. It looks like it could support 12kW (50A) charging. It would be more of a no brainer (for me) if the plug was NACS, but a J1772 adapter could work.
 
diamond.g said:
A chargepoint home flex could also work.

Loading…

store.chargepoint.com


EDIT: Car and driver said it is the best. https://www.caranddriver.com/shopping-advice/a39917614/best-home-ev-chargers-tested/
Plus you don't give Tesla any more money even if the latest Universal WC is a good deal.
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call me a snowflake, but as long as I’m still driving a tesla (probably be September before my new car arrives) I want the little button on the handle that opens my charge door. There’s no other way to open it other than going through a couple screens on the touch screen or using the app. Same with unlocking the charge port. I’d have to climb over the wire to get in the car, etc. A minor annoyance, I guess, but an annoyance just the same.
 
Cmaier said:
call me a snowflake, but as long as I’m still driving a tesla (probably be September before my new car arrives) I want the little button on the handle that opens my charge door. There’s no other way to open it other than going through a couple screens on the touch screen or using the app. Same with unlocking the charge port. I’d have to climb over the wire to get in the car, etc. A minor annoyance, I guess, but an annoyance just the same.
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Does tapping the chargeport door not open it on your older S? I think unlocking works with the adapter, but I'm not 100% sure (I haven't had to publicly charge on J1772 in a few years so I don't remember).

I guess you guys can suffer through the handshake errors until you get your iX.
 
diamond.g said:
Does tapping the chargeport door not open it on your older S? I think unlocking works with the adapter, but I'm not 100% sure (I haven't had to publicly charge on J1772 in a few years so I don't remember).

I guess you guys can suffer through the handshake errors until you get your iX.
Click to expand...

LOL, no. Tapping the door won’t open it. It also doesn’t have the motor to close the door like the modern S’s.
 
Cmaier said:
call me a snowflake, but as long as I’m still driving a tesla (probably be September before my new car arrives) I want the little button on the handle that opens my charge door. There’s no other way to open it other than going through a couple screens on the touch screen or using the app. Same with unlocking the charge port. I’d have to climb over the wire to get in the car, etc. A minor annoyance, I guess, but an annoyance just the same.
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I figure I have to be there to plug it in anyway so it's no biggie for me to push to open the door. I think I'm regressing when it comes to this stuff, opting for simple manual control for basic functions.
 
Dissected out all of the non Musk Nazi posts and put them here to keep things in order, let me know if I missed anything and carry on.
 
Getting the new wall connector installed tomorrow. only $350 for the install, so it’s worth a shot. I briefly considered flipping the dip switches in my current charger tomorrow limit the current to 48A (I finally found the old instruction manual), thinking maybe that will cause the handshaking with the car to go better, but for $350 install, and given the wall connector is 13 years old, I may as well replace it anyway, and get some wifi functionality, etc. Only thing I give up is 80A charging, and only until the new car arrives. Heck, if this works well, I could always install a second charger on the house exterior and allow both cars to charge at once at 40A and not have to upgrade my panel.
 
Cmaier said:
Getting the new wall connector installed tomorrow. only $350 for the install, so it’s worth a shot. I briefly considered flipping the dip switches in my current charger tomorrow limit the current to 48A (I finally found the old instruction manual), thinking maybe that will cause the handshaking with the car to go better, but for $350 install, and given the wall connector is 13 years old, I may as well replace it anyway, and get some wifi functionality, etc. Only thing I give up is 80A charging, and only until the new car arrives. Heck, if this works well, I could always install a second charger on the house exterior and allow both cars to charge at once at 40A and not have to upgrade my panel.
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I'm actually surprised you are sticking with Tesla for your ESVE.
 
My car charges slowly. I get about 20mph at level three, which means it may be drawing as little as 20 amps. That is more than 150 miles overnight, which is more than adequate for my needs, most days. 80A would be serious overkill, even if we had two EVs in the garage.
 
diamond.g said:
I'm actually surprised you are sticking with Tesla for your ESVE.
Click to expand...

I didn’t want to, but here’s the thing. I don’t want to change again in 3 years when we will undoubtedly replace both BMWs with cars that have NACS chargers (and I don’t want to use adapters forever), and at least through September we will have one NACS and one J1772 car.

Moreover, my Tesla is very old, and you can’t open the charge door or unlock the charger at the charge door. You have to either do it from the touch screen or the charger handle. If I have a non-tesla connector, that means every morning I will have to remember to go into the car to unlock the charger before I can disconnect, and every time i get home I will have to remember to open the charge door before charging, etc. It’s a first world problem, but it’s a nuisance I don’t need.

I also don’t think Elon is pocketing much money charging $500 for the universal connector.
 
Yoused said:
My car charges slowly. I get about 20mph at level three, which means it may be drawing as little as 20 amps. That is more than 150 miles overnight, which is more than adequate for my needs, most days. 80A would be serious overkill, even if we had two EVs in the garage.
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80A has saved my bacon a couple times when I’ve forgotten to charge. I can go out to the car, realize my mistake, charge for 15 minutes and have plenty of miles to run my errands or whatever. (Sometimes when I get home I get distracted by some shiny object on the front stoop or whatever, and forget to plug in).

My wife’s BMW charged from around 30% to 80% on Saturday and it took around 4 hours (at 48A). To me that felt very slow :-) Those old Tesla’s had an option for a second on-board charger (which I paid for) so we could charge twice as fast. Nice feature. Not sure why that didn’t catch on.
 
Also just noticed that the tesla connectors support power sharing, so you can designate one as the “leader” and it will ensure that if you have multiple connectors in use simultaneously, that the total power load stays under your circuit breaker limit. If my wife and I can’t share nicely, I may go that way - there’s a nice place to stick a second connector on an outside wall just a couple feet away from the first one (both within a couple feet of the main panel).
 
Yeah, as much as I don't want to give Elon money, the Universal Wall Connector has been pretty good to us so far and it's the only home EVSE where you don't have to think much about how to use it with NACS or J1772.
 
Cmaier said:
I didn’t want to, but here’s the thing. I don’t want to change again in 3 years when we will undoubtedly replace both BMWs with cars that have NACS chargers (and I don’t want to use adapters forever), and at least through September we will have one NACS and one J1772 car.

Moreover, my Tesla is very old, and you can’t open the charge door or unlock the charger at the charge door. You have to either do it from the touch screen or the charger handle. If I have a non-tesla connector, that means every morning I will have to remember to go into the car to unlock the charger before I can disconnect, and every time i get home I will have to remember to open the charge door before charging, etc. It’s a first world problem, but it’s a nuisance I don’t need.

I also don’t think Elon is pocketing much money charging $500 for the universal connector.
Click to expand...
Yeah but Chargepoint EVSE also has the NACS connector. I don't recall if CP has anything for power sharing. At one point that was "all the rage" because it would help save posts and breakers in a destination charging situation, but that hasn't really panned out.

Don't get me wrong, I actually like Tesla's stuff (their chief executive could DIAF for all I care). It just seems weird to me for everyone here to hate on the brand, but keep using their products (and buying new ones).

Has anyone reported here the the CEO of Lucid is stepping down?
 
diamond.g said:
Yeah but Chargepoint EVSE also has the NACS connector. I don't recall if CP has anything for power sharing. At one point that was "all the rage" because it would help save posts and breakers in a destination charging situation, but that hasn't really panned out.

Don't get me wrong, I actually like Tesla's stuff (their chief executive could DIAF for all I care). It just seems weird to me for everyone here to hate on the brand, but keep using their products (and buying new ones).

Has anyone reported here the the CEO of Lucid is stepping down?
Click to expand...
Having a nacs connector is great in 3 years but doesn’t solve my problems until then. No button on the connector to unlock my charge port or open my charge door. No j1772 connector for the BMWs.


There simply is no other product currently sold, AFAIW, that can both fully support my Tesla until September and also seamlessly support the bmws. No adapters necessary. No having to climb over the charge cable to get into the car to use the dash to unlock the charge cable.
 
BTW, the i4’s software update did indeed cut the volume of the back-up chime by quite a bit. It’s gone from “wake up everyone in the cul de sac” to “that’s annoying”
 
Cmaier said:
BTW, the i4’s software update did indeed cut the volume of the back-up chime by quite a bit. It’s gone from “wake up everyone in the cul de sac” to “that’s annoying”
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Yeah it’s not so bad once you get used to it. My neighbor drives a Cadillac Harmony (something like that) and it plays a musical sound as it drives normally, beyond ridiculous, wonder if it can be turned off.
 

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