OT. EVs For Rural Drivers

Which one would that be? A plug in hybrid? I picked a Leaf as a typical "small EV" and it is 24 KW/H.

There are about 280 million cars in the US. If half were EVs that would be 140 million. If they were charged every 3 days that would be 47 million. You can, with many of them, schedule the actual charge time so that would reduce it considerably.

I would think the utilities would come up with some time of day rate savings from say, midnight to 6 AM or similar. They would certainly want to get them off peak cooking times in summer.

That is exactly why I said Pete's idea that a plug in EV would be perfect for the poor falls on it's face. Do you think the slumlord who owns their apartment building is going to put in chargers, assuming they even have a parking lot.

There are also new batteries in the works. This was Ford and Purdue University so there is some reality to it. The Leaf though, will still require the Lionel train transformer for optimum.

People thought you would die breaking the sound barrier. Guess they were right, Chuck Yeager dies last year.

"Applied for a new cable that allows charging in five minutes"

They don't claim 5 minute charging, just that the cable will allow it in the future.

Battery technology improves every year - new materials and innovative designs promise short charge times in the near future.

Old neighborhoods in Philadelphia? Let me fix that for you.

"You would be lucky to find a spot on your own sidewalk". ;-)

The load calcs are what will get you if you pulled a permit. They don't give you near enough credit for load diversity but I guess you do need to build for the Griswald Christmas with a house full of people and at least one might be driving an EV (or Cousin Eddie's RV). Electric load is one of those "what is it right now?" things, not what did it average out to at the end of the month. BTW the welder is far from your highest load. My 230a buzz box computes about like a dryer. My MIG is more like a hair dryer.

I have been looking at my FPL dash board and my hourly usage is all over, some I don't even understand. It might actually be hard for a lot of people to time their charging unless there was an input from the smart meter watching the load and adjusting the charge time accordingly. I suppose the technology is available tho if the chargers were linked with the meter. It is an RF connection in my case. Some use power line data transmission. Either could talk to the charger if they wanted to add that hardware. That might also make it easier to separate car usage from household usage for the tax man.

Even so, when he's welding it plays hob with the lighting in the house. I sometimes just give up and turn them off or I'll get a headache from the flickering.

Cindy Hamilton

A friend owns a house dedicated as an Airbnb. He's planning on installing a charging station because he's getting more and more requests asking if he has one.

Luckily he's able to say "No" and still stay booked most of the time, but he says that the request trend is accelerating. He wants to be able to say "Yes" (actually list it as an amenity) and get the booking right away, instead of saying "No" and hoping that someone else books for that period.

Like I said, so far, saying "No" isn't really hurting him financially, but the quicker he gets his place booked, the better it is for planning his cash flow. That's peace of mind is worth the cost of the installation.

There are even ways to charge (NPI) for it's use and/or prevent it's usage.

For pollution fire up one of the 2 stroke 700 or so watt Harbor Freight generators. I have one and it smokes like the old mosquito fogging machine for several minutes.

Irrigation wells are usually under some sort of load control. Wells here range from

Broadly speaking, there are three charge groupings for common electrical vehicles.

a: "Level I". This is designed to plug into a standard 120VAC household outlet, and is usually provided with the car and you can drive around with it. It's typically a two foot cord from the wall, then a Black Box, then 25 feet of "hook up to the car" cord. Plugs right in.

Since it's designed for a regular outlet, which is rated at 15 amps, these are generally spec'ed at 12 amps, or about 1,400 watts (1.4 kw).

That's very roughly the power draw of a toaster over.

These will provide (very roughly/rule of thumb) five miles of "charge range" for every hour they're plugged in.

So kind of ok for short commuuters who can plug them in overnight and get 50 miles of use. (And, of course, if there's a charge location at their work or commuter rail station, etc., for "topping off).

b: "Level II". These are usually hard wired into a 240V circuit and left there. Depending on design you can either use a plug and outlet or do a hardwire.

Typically they'll be used in a 40 amp sircuit and pull 30 or so amps (remember that derating deal for coninuous use...) so... about 8,000 watts (8 kw).

That's about 25 miles of range per hour of charge, making these pretty popular for semi permanent home installation.

Note that the "plug in" version of these usually use a "NEMA 14-50R plug" which goes into the, yeah, you guessed it, "NEMA 14-50R Outlet".

These are _common_ in houses with electric dryers and electric stoves, so electricians are pretty well acquainted with them.

ALSO!!! these are the standard outlets used over in RV parks, so yes, you might be able to swing over to one of them...

c: The various "superchargers" (differnet brand names).

Yeah. Tesla started this one but lots of others are now out there. They pump insane amounts of electricity through the connection (but only to cars designed for them...) so that instead of the 5 miles or 20 miles/hour of charges, you can get up to 200 or even more.

These are the ones you'll see in more and more shopping centers and highway rest stops, for some quick (by EV standards) charging.

So again:

a: Level I : standard househole outlet, 5 miles/hr of charging b: Level II: high capacity 240V outlet, about 20 miles/hr of charge c: the super duper stuff...

Note there are tweaks to both Level I and II. Since a dedicated but common 120V outlet might be rated at 20 amps, yes, you can find Level I chargers at 18 amps. Other tweaks abound.

That's what I did in college. I had a 6 volt car and the Chicago winter was cold enough that it would not start most winter mornings. I ran an extension cord from the pantry where I lived to a sign. Had a small charger in a corner under the hood with the cord and plug coming out the grill.

Set it on 12 volts for the 6 volt battery and the breaker would trip every 30 seconds, and reset on its own after 20 seconds. Ran that way for about 3 to 4 months.

Part of the time the cord from the house was under the snow.

The breaker looked like a thin glass neon bulb, like an Xmas tree light, and I guess it tripped over 150,000 times during that winter, but the charger still works 50 years later. I had to replace the diodes several years later.

Something like this but mine has fewer parts.

Self serve mini-mart type gas bars make a lot more on gas than the full service pumps made in the seventies. When I had the service station we made 3 cents a gallon when we were selling for about 89 cents a gallon. ANd I was paying pump jockies $3.50 or more per hour. Had to sell about 10 tanks full an hour to pay his wages. The front end lived on TBA sales and I lived off the shop labour and parts sales.

My '64 Karmann Ghia was like that. I brought the battery in the house at night after I parked it.

We converted it to 12 volts with a Chevy alternator. My brother took the alternator to work and had the shaft counter-bored with the metric side of the fan belt shaft and screwed it on. Then made a mount to keep it from spinning. The 6V starter really cranked!

One minor correction. Dryer plugs are 30a Either 10-30R or 14-30R (4 wire) You might be able to switch your charger to work on 30a.

The RV outlet is an idea but I bet the RV park owner would charge you the overnight rental rate for a pusher to plug in there. How bad do you need a charge ;-)

Interesting article but it glosses over the fact that charging at work is putting that extra load on the building and the grid at what is already peak time. Maybe if the building owner could work a deal that you charge there at night it might work out but how do you get home if you are not working off <day> shift? The author does seem to have a good grasp on most of the issues tho.

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Probably a local regional thing. In our home both the electric stove outlet (although we use a gas one...) and the electric dryer outlet (and ditto...) are the 14-50Rs.

However, the circuit breaker for the dryer is a twin 30 amp and for the oven/stove isa twin 40. (I don't know what the actual wiring is)

Anyway, my point was more that... the local electricians, and more importantly, their assistnts who are likely doing the work, are familiar with these wiring arrangements.

In my case I just asked them if I could plug in for an hour to make sure my semi portable charger was working (I had just bought it used...) before I went to the trouble of doing all the rewiring at home...

Gave her a $5 bill for her trouble. (The electricity I used was very roughly $1.50)