Embarrasingly short level one charger. WTF Honda!?

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Naughtysauce

Member
Is it just me or is the charger that comes with the Clarity laughably short? I backup into my garage and my previous GM charge cable made it to my car with about 2 feet of cable to spare while the Honda charger barely makes it to the front door and this is why I dislike the charge ports being place in the front instead of the rear. Picture shows my current setup, I might start using my spare Volt charger so it can actually reach my car. Would the charging times change as the Volt chargers I believe had to amp settings 8/12?

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The "charger" is a mostly dumb physical plug converter. The Volt's 8/12 amp thing is part of the vehicle, not the external brick. It would charge the Clarity at 12A, too. No UL-approved L1 charger with a 5-15 plug is going to give you more than that as it would be breaking NEC specs.
 
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petteyg359 said:
Take it to a Goodwill instead. Or find an electronics recycler. That's a lot of copper to be tossing in the garbage...
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That's a good idea. I wasn't literally going to throw it in the bin, just an expression on how crap I thought it was. But yes, I'll def find it a new home.
 
I got a chuckle out of your set up. The brick hanging from the plug. The cable twisted in a knot on the floor.

Can you add an outlet on either side of the door? Problem solved.

It’s probably more common for people to pull forward into a garage. And many garages may only have an outlet in the ceiling for an opener and one or two near the “front” inside wall. In a typical 20x20 garage, it would only require a 12-15 foot cable to reach an outlet from the charge port on the Clarity.
 
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Landshark said:
I got a chuckle out of your set up. The brick hanging from the plug. The cable twisted in a knot on the floor.

Can you add an outlet on either side of the door? Problem solved.

It’s probably more common for people to pull forward into a garage. And many garages may only have an outlet in the ceiling for an opener and one or two near the “front” inside wall. In a typical 20x20 garage, it would only require a 12-15 foot cable to reach an outlet from the charge port on the Clarity.
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Not without having an electrician come out to put one in. I'm not going to invest in such a trivial purchase if I already have a solution which is my old Volt charger. But I just wanted to confirm here the charge rates would be the same as the included cable.
 
Naughtysauce said:
Would the charging times change as the Volt chargers I believe had to amp settings 8/12?
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The 2011 and 2012 Chevrolet Volt "Chargers" had settings on the EVSE to set to either 8 or 12 A. So these would change the charging time if you set it to 8A. These EVSEs had orange cords and orange accents on the EVSE body. Later models were all black and behaved like @petteyg359 said (were not switchable and charging amps are controlled by the car at 8 or 12), and the new generation models look like the charger in the Clarity.

You can sell your old Honda Clarity EVSE on Ebay for a reasonable amount since it has the capability of easily adapting to 240V use.
 
Robert_Alabama said:
The 2011 and 2012 Chevrolet Volt "Chargers" had settings on the EVSE to set to either 8 or 12 A. So these would change the charging time if you set it to 8A. These EVSEs had orange cords and orange accents on the EVSE body. Later models were all black, and the new generation models look like the charger in the Clarity.

You can sell your old Honda Clarity EVSE on Ebay for a reasonable amount since it has the capability of easily adapting to 240V use.
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I already have a base time for the Honda charger from 0-100 which was around 11.5 hours and I'll test the Volt's charger once I'm done with my HV range test that I started today.

I don't really want to go through the hassle of selling it, will most likely recycle or give away to anyone willing to pickup once I'm done testing the Volt cable.
 
I find the Honda OEM evse to be quite useful... especially since with some basic skills you can make a 240v adapter and double the speed of the charging from the OEM evse. It is made by Panasonic and is used in the Toyota Prius Prime as well.
 
Naughtysauce said:
That's a good idea. I wasn't literally going to throw it in the bin, just an expression on how crap I thought it was. But yes, I'll def find it a new home.
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Looks to me like the issue is your terrible electrical plug situation in your garage, you should never have the brick dangling from the plug.
 
Mowcowbell said:
I find the Honda OEM evse to be quite useful... especially since with some basic skills you can make a 240v adapter and double the speed of the charging from the OEM evse. It is made by Panasonic and is used in the Toyota Prius Prime as well.
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I've seen the conversions and I'm not going to risk my family's life to save $200. If I wanted to go 240v, I would buy a 240v.
 
Landshark said:
Do you have a 240V outlet in the garage?
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No, I don't see the need for it, especially for a battery this small. My daily commute is 20 miles top so if I charge everyday, I can usually top the battery off in 5-6 hours while I'm sleeping. Also there are soo many free level 2 charge points in my area, if I ever need faster charging I have options.
 
I agree the plug is annoyingly short. I park outside my garage door and even with a outlet right next to the door, on the driver's side, I have to pull in instead of backing in for it to reach. Its about a foot short otherwise.
 
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