Electric Vehicles: Home charging, DC fast, standards, recommendations

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I thought the Tesla_to_J adapter locked on the Tesla side if your car is locked[?] So if they unplugged the charger it would just be the J connect (and your adapter would just be handing in the port ...)
Learning something!

So yes it does look to lock to the Tesla. The app saying the port door is closed is simply saying it was commanded closed, but doesn't mean it was closed! Adapter was still plugged into the port with the door trying to close, but adapter obviously blocking it.
 
Learning something!

So yes it does look to lock to the Tesla. The app saying the port door is closed is simply saying it was commanded closed, but doesn't mean it was closed! Adapter was still plugged into the port with the door trying to close, but adapter obviously blocking it.
When it is cold outside*, and the car isn't charging, the locking pin moves to make sure it doesn't get stuck. So it is possible, if someone timed it right, to take the adapter.

*not sure of the exact temp
 
I guess there are assholes that will figure out a way to steal, regardless of security measures.

I've left my adapter connected several times, but in paid parking garages at like Universal, so I guess the odds are someone isn't going to take it, though I suppose they might be inclined to remove the charger.
 
So I bought a new EV (VW ID.4 AWD Pro S) now I am looking for the best home charger out there. i know my box definitely has 60Amps available, maybe more. I was looking at the ChargePoint model but their network has been flakey last night unto tjis morning. Anyone have recommendations?
 
So I bought a new EV (VW ID.4 AWD Pro S) now I am looking for the best home charger out there. i know my box definitely has 60Amps available, maybe more. I was looking at the ChargePoint model but their network has been flakey last night unto tjis morning. Anyone have recommendations?
I use the NEMA 14-50 (50 amp) for my Tesla and it works great, it was relatively cheap to get installed into my garage. They'll surely have adapters that will work with your car.
 
So I bought a new EV (VW ID.4 AWD Pro S) now I am looking for the best home charger out there. i know my box definitely has 60Amps available, maybe more. I was looking at the ChargePoint model but their network has been flakey last night unto tjis morning. Anyone have recommendations?

Just some general FYI. :)

While we commonly refer to that box (the Level 1 or Level 2) as a "charger", it's technically not, it's an EVSE which is basically a smart AC switch, the actual charger is in the vehicle, that's the component that converts the AC power from your house to the DC power used to charge the battery. The Level 3 DCFC, (DC Fast Chargers) don't use this onboard charger, they go directly into the battery with DC power (and as you know, are rated for much higher charging speeds). The onboard charger has a max rate specification, it's actually that component in the car that determines max Level 2 speeds (looks like your ID 4 supports 48a (i.e., 11.5kWh), awesome :) )

Your VW uses CCS1 which is a combination of a DC fast implementation, and the AC portion, that is the Level 1/2 the "home charging" uses a connector spec called J1772 (if you look at your port, that's the top, round portion, a DCFC connector also uses the bottom two larger high power connectors). The "charger" can be purchased with this as the "native" connector, so there's no adapters, etc., at home, just plug in, you're charging!

Due to the continuous loads, EVs charge at 80% of the rated circuit spec, so a 60a breaker and outlet will provide 48a (50a provides 40a, 30 > 24, etc)

You don't have to set anything really, the EVSE will provide up to the max power requested by the vehicle, so it's set for max, and each vehicle gets what they need (like our iX gets 40a and the 4xe gets 32a, its max).

50a circuits and lower can end at a receptacle (aka, outlet), not unlike your clothes dryer, or oven. This means you can easily swap out the EVSE, or potentially use the plug for something else - note that continuous plugging/unplugging from these high power outlets can cause an issue as the clamps wear out, increase resistance, cause heat, and yikes :D But really, most people plug in, and leave it.

Above 50a you have to hard wire, that is, the EVSE end isn't an outlet, but wires that are directly connected to the harness/wiring post on the EVSE. This does remove an extra component, and allow for that higher rate, removes the need for a GFCI breaker (which is a whole separate can-of-worms / conversation). Obviously if you have a situation where you need to replace it, it's a rewire, or if you needed to take it with you for some reason like a long vacation stay, you'd want a second, portable EVSE.

Smart chargers aren't really needed as the car software generally will handle scheduling, limit rate, have some kind of data/analysis options in the app (to determine use and cost), some are pretty neat if you're into that, but it's not really needed.

One of the best rated, comes up on the top of many lists, excellent bang-for-the-buck is the Emporia:


They offer both a plug option (for 50a) and a hardwire (for 60a), smart features, etc., $399 is a steal. Lots of folks using these, will probably be what I use when I move to 48a charging.

I have/had a Grizzl-E, which is another solid brand, built in Canada, beefy metal chassis, huge cables, very weather resistant, umm, I guess my recommendation is lower now since ours started to crap out, but that's about 4 years, moderate salt air exposure, but like I said, I will switch to Emporia for the next perm wall mount.

Definitely get one with the longest charging cable option, usually 24', some have shorter cables and you lose some parking options depending on your port location.

FWIW, we're currently using the BMW mobile that came with the iX, it supports up to 40a, works great for both rides, actually running an 6-50 > 14-50 adapter (don't ask :D ), but I'd like to keep that IN the BMW and it has a painfully short cable.
 
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Oh, one additional bit of amps this and kWh that :D

Your charge speed is amps x volts of the circuit minus that 20% continuous load buffer.

So a 60a circuit provides 48a max, and that's 48a x 240v = 11520 / 1000 (for kW vs. W) and that's 11.5kW

Then look at that per hour of charging and you get a sense of time it takes to charge/recover. For example, it appears your new ride has an 82 kWh battery, so at peak home charging, that's a little over 7 hours 0 - 100%. It's actually a little more as there's some lost power (that's used to run the car), as you go over 90% charging slows way down - that being said, you mostly won't want to charge to more than about 80-85% daily anyway, and you'll likely not drop under 30-40% day-to-day since you can charge every night! That's the really killer thing about EVs, and something I had to learn, ICE you tend to fill up, drive to empty, EVs you drive, charge, drive, charge incrementally, it's the idea of ABC (Always Be Charging). Though funny enough with our use case, I just kind of charge the BMW whenever, since we used the Wrangler daily and charge it twice most days to 100% :)

So like I'll run the iX up to this client office, it's about 70 miles round trip, if I'm driving relaxed, in efficient mode, I'll use about 1kWh per 3.3 miles, so that trip takes ~ 21kWh. Back at home, I'll plug in, and the juice required for that trip is recovered in about 2 hours and a few minutes :) i.e., 40a / 240 = 9.6kW and 21kWh used / 9.6kWh charging speeds = 2.2 hours :)

FWIW, when we're planning one of our trips, like down to Orlando, I always "top off" to 100%, it's totally fine, the recommendation for some battery chemistry is to not go over 80% or so daily, that's cool, it's not needed, but when I'm looking to go the 270 miles round and not even think about charging, I go to 100% (the iX will do a solid 330-340 miles on a single charge at my highway speeds :D )
 
… you mostly won't want to charge to more than about 80-85% daily anyway, and you'll likely not drop under 30-40% day-to-day since you can charge every night! That's the really killer thing about EVs, and something I had to learn, ICE you tend to fill up, drive to empty, EVs you drive, charge, drive, charge incrementally, it's the idea of ABC (Always Be Charging). Though funny enough with our use case, I just kind of charge the BMW whenever
My car has well over 200 miles range WCS (for my area), a tad over 300 BCS. If I still had my old job, my daily commute would be around 40 miles RT, on roads that go up to 60mph posted, and I generally would not be driving about much more than that. Hence, I would be charging twice a week or so, maybe less in summer, because, why bother to charge if you are confident of your range?

FWIW, when we're planning one of our trips, like down to Orlando, I always "top off" to 100%, it's totally fine, the recommendation for some battery chemistry is to not go over 80% or so daily, that's cool, it's not needed, but when I'm looking to go the 270 miles round and not even think about charging, I go to 100% (the iX will do a solid 330-340 miles on a single charge at my highway speeds :D )
I try to keep it under 80%, over about 30% as much as possible, but when I have a trip ahead, I will run it up, as you say. My understanding is the battery has a lot of headroom, so going over 80% is fine. One thing I observed, though, on my last trip, there was a long downhill at the beginning, the car was at 95%, and it did not want to give me much regen, which was kind of disappointing. One of the points to a BEV is that you can claw back some juice on a downhill or if you brake judiciously, but when you have near a full charge, you lose some of that.
 
So I bought a new EV (VW ID.4 AWD Pro S) now I am looking for the best home charger out there. i know my box definitely has 60Amps available, maybe more. I was looking at the ChargePoint model but their network has been flakey last night unto tjis morning. Anyone have recommendations?

If you want a “dumb” setup, Enphase still sells the old Clipper Creek stuff which is built for public/commercial use, and is quite easy to open up and repair down the road if needed. Autel Energy has some reasonable “smart” chargers which are also built for commercial use, and Enphase has jumped into the space recently built on top of their home energy platform and Clipper Creek’s EVSEs. I also hear good things about Empora.

If you want something “future proofed” for NACS, then it gets a bit more interesting. ChargePoint is setup that the cable can be swapped, which is nice. But the only dual-connector unit I’m aware of is the Tesla Universal Wall Connector.

I’d look at local rebates that might be available.

My EV circuit is setup with a 50A breaker, and a 40A EVSE, which is honestly overkill for my driving. A little over 30mi round trip per day for commuting, plus another 10 or so if I run errands. If you are running a new circuit, may as well go for overkill, but even 20A at 240V is enough to keep you topped up if you plug in daily overnight.

If you are going the 14-50 route, get a good outlet. These things pull a lot of current for a long period of time, and I just see too many stories of the cheaper ones melting. Go for a commercial-grade outlet like Hubble. Mine is installed outdoors, so it’s hardwired.
 
My car has well over 200 miles range WCS (for my area), a tad over 300 BCS. If I still had my old job, my daily commute would be around 40 miles RT, on roads that go up to 60mph posted, and I generally would not be driving about much more than that. Hence, I would be charging twice a week or so, maybe less in summer, because, why bother to charge if you are confident of your range?

If you're on a good cadence, that's great, and like I said, now we just kind of charge whenever, I monitor the SOC, our use is pretty known, so very few surprises. Any long-er-ish range use I know about way in advance.

That being said, if you do just plug in when you get home, leave it charging, always sitting at that 80% (or whatever target), you'll always be on deck IF the need arose where without much advance notice you needed to drive 250+ miles or something with like a really tight schedule. I used to be much more about the ABC, but I think that's more to avoid people who just forget about it, wake up one morning at 8a, with a 10a flight, a 50+ mile airport drive and 5% charge :D

We also have two vehicles (one being a PHEV) so I'm a little more laxed knowing we have a backup if needed.
 
Oh, and I haven't seen any posted, so I guess I'll call out @rdrr here :D

WHERE ARE THE PICS!?
 
@rdrr

Oh, I'd also mention that most (all?) manufacturers are onboard with providing access to Tesla Superchargers, this requires a CCS1 to NACS DCFC adapter, but ALSO the manufacturer to integrate with Tesla's backend, account, auth systems, so you can't just buy and adapter and plug in. There are special superchargers that have a built-in CCS adapter called a Magic Dock and these you can use, today, but they are few and far between (there's ONE in Florida ...)

BTW, I'm not sure where VW is in the queue, only that they've committed to being able to use the Supercharger network. We got a letter from BMW at the end of the year, saying it's coming, here's the adapter info, no idea if it'll be a freebie, paid, whatever, but we're in line so to speak.

OK, so that's DCFC, however, for the most part, you can use a J1772 adapter with a Tesla (NACS) L2 charger, which is very handy at a lot of hotels/resorts, where there tends to be quite a few Tesla chargers. For this, companies like A2Z make an excellent adapter (supports 80a, metal construction, even has a lock), here I am using it on a free charger at a Universal resort (you can see the Tesla sign behind the car):

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That's this product:


You can usually find a coupon for 10-15% off too :)
 
@rdrr

Oh, I'd also mention that most (all?) manufacturers are onboard with providing access to Tesla Superchargers, this requires a CCS1 to NACS DCFC adapter, but ALSO the manufacturer to integrate with Tesla's backend, account, auth systems, so you can't just buy and adapter and plug in. There are special superchargers that have a built-in CCS adapter called a Magic Dock and these you can use, today, but they are few and far between (there's ONE in Florida ...)

BTW, I'm not sure where VW is in the queue, only that they've committed to being able to use the Supercharger network. We got a letter from BMW at the end of the year, saying it's coming, here's the adapter info, no idea if it'll be a freebie, paid, whatever, but we're in line so to speak.

OK, so that's DCFC, however, for the most part, you can use a J1772 adapter with a Tesla (NACS) L2 charger, which is very handy at a lot of hotels/resorts, where there tends to be quite a few Tesla chargers. For this, companies like A2Z make an excellent adapter (supports 80a, metal construction, even has a lock), here I am using it on a free charger at a Universal resort (you can see the Tesla sign behind the car):

View attachment 33614


That's this product:


You can usually find a coupon for 10-15% off too :)

Sadly VW is one of the last to commit to the Tesla adapters. They say 2025, but speculation is that it is at the end of 2025. Who knows! I have a few ChargePoint chargers at work, and some EA fast chargers in areas that are at areas that I travel to to visit family.

I had BMW i4 on my list but sadly there was a 20k difference between what we got and the BMW I had my eye on. If I wasn't forced to make a quick decision, due the accident I would have had more capital saved up.

Interestingly enough Hyundai pulled back their offer in my area for the AWD models and said that the company rebates will be going entirely away around the end of Jan. The VW folks said that they expect the same decision to be coming from on high. I never got around to testing out a Volvo because I couldn't wrap my head around the EX30 Scandinavian minimalist design.
 
deleted, couldn't verify the information. :(
 
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If I wasn't forced to make a quick decision, due the accident I would have had more capital saved up.

Oh, sorry to hear, I wasn't aware you had been in an accident recently! Yeah, sometimes the universe forces you into a decision.

I never got around to testing out a Volvo because I couldn't wrap my head around the EX30 Scandinavian minimalist design.

The EX30 is pretty neat, it's _very_ small, but I love the exterior design. The interior is neat in that the different colors/themes are different material types, textures. I put one on reservation the day of the reveal well over a year ago, but it wound up not looking like the timing was going to work out and honestly, that's not really a car for us.

One issue was exactly what you pointed out, the interior without any driver's facing display, too much in the center display, no HUD, heck, they even made the window controls overly minimalist (there's only one pair of up down switches plus a front rear toggle of some sort).

I see in the US the single motor and base config is gone too, so it's only a dual motor (which is supposed to be a little hotrod, like mid-3s sort of 0-60 quick if you're into that) and the configurator lost a wheel option too. Huh.
 

My car has HUD. It has been off since the day I drove it home. Perhaps someone does good HUD, not Nissan.

The speed sits right in the center of my line of sight. FTN. I need to be looking at what is right in front of me, not some floating number that is vaguely useful to me sometimes. It is an annoying distraction: if they put gauge info closer to the far edges of my line of sight, that would work a lot better.

Beyond that, the other downside to the HUD plagued me on a long drive southward last week. The projector is in a large enclosure in front of me. Natually, it is a large dark surface, but there is a shade surrounding it. The shade is the color of the dash – a medium grey – so I had a dark rectangle (as in, not visible) in front of me, surrounded by the bright sun's reflection of the frame of the enclosure. It was almost as annoying as having HUD on.

You can tell I am getting old. I used to complain about important shit, now it is all trivial stuff. Wait, what are you doing on my lawn???
 
My car has HUD. It has been off since the day I drove it home. Perhaps someone does good HUD, not Nissan.

The speed sits right in the center of my line of sight. FTN. I need to be looking at what is right in front of me, not some floating number that is vaguely useful to me sometimes. It is an annoying distraction: if they put gauge info closer to the far edges of my line of sight, that would work a lot better.

Beyond that, the other downside to the HUD plagued me on a long drive southward last week. The projector is in a large enclosure in front of me. Natually, it is a large dark surface, but there is a shade surrounding it. The shade is the color of the dash – a medium grey – so I had a dark rectangle (as in, not visible) in front of me, surrounded by the bright sun's reflection of the frame of the enclosure. It was almost as annoying as having HUD on.

You can tell I am getting old. I used to complain about important shit, now it is all trivial stuff. Wait, what are you doing on my lawn???

My wife's Toyota has it. Eh... the novelty wore off 30 seconds after getting the car a year and a half ago. Hasn't been on since.

I also see the frame's reflection onto the windshield when the sun is in front. :(
 
The BMW sounds like a much better implementation, full color, has turn-by-turn, notifications, track listings and is easily adjusted to be low enough to not look through, but still be visible with just a slight eye adjustment. I think of it sort of like an Apple Watch, it's sort of an extension of the primary device.

Oh yeah, that comment was in the context of an EX30 that has only one, center display, if the car has no primary driver facing display, then at the very least a HUD would make up for that, give the driver some sightline basic info like speed, a few status indicators, maybe a TBT from Navigation. Like I'd be OK without the HUD in the BMW since it does have a driver's display :)
 
When I first drove the car, the HUD was set for speed + Speed Limit sign (which she reads using the upper front camera – lords help me if I have to replace the windshield). It can be set to include nav info and other stuff, which I could see being useful at times, for some folks (I never use nav, because I have well-developed personal geo-sense). But, one reason I chose this car is for the gauge-style speedo and power meter, so having the number floating out there just defeats my preference. (The gauge puts a little red line where the speed limit is, and a little green arrow on the cruise control setting when it is on, which is much nicer than vanilla numbers.)
 
I had a Hyundai Kona with a hud that I loved. It also had the option shut it down and it would retract into the dash.
 


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