What's the best EV home charger for Clarity

I have the Chargepoint and have been very satisfied.

 

I had a dryer plug installed and bought the Zencar 25 ft for 200.00
Perfect and charges in a couple hours.
Megear/Zencar Level 2 EV Charger(240V, 16A, 25ft), Portable EVSE Home Electric Vehicle Charging Station (NEMA 10-30 Plug)

 

Those searching for level 2 EVSE info might want to run some searches and do some reading in other vehicle sections of insideevs. This is a VERY common question that is not restricted to Clarity owners!

 

Agree, I use a Chargepoint, no issues. did the wiring myself. bought the pug in unit and installed a 6-50 receptacle.

 

Sure enough. Some 6AWG wire, a breaker and receptacle, some conduit, and about 45 minutes of quality time with tools. What more could I ask of life?

 

I've had 3 PHEVs and have always used a regular standard wall socket. I usually time the charge to start at off peak 10P. Even with completely drained batteries they're always fully charged by 8A. Have never had any problems and saved on my electric bill.

 

While there is nothing wrong with Level 1 charging your Clarity, a Level 2 evse is actually 5.6% more efficient.

Here's a link to those results: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7046253

Granted, it is a very small difference and would take a long time to recover the cost of installing a 240v outlet and the Level 2 evse itself. In my case, it cost $250 to have an electrician install a 50amp breaker and NEMA 14-50 outlet in my garage. I paid $240 for a Level 2 evse.

I have run into situations where I get home from work with less than 30% charge and find out that I need to run some errands that evening that will exceed my remaining battery charge. With a 32amp Level 2 evse, I put ~ 4 kWh back into the battery in about 30 minutes.

 

I recently read somewhere that charging at Level 2 can lower the life of the battery quicker than charging at Level 1. I use a lot of lithium rechargeable batteries in my work and have found that a quick charge lowers the life of my batteries. When I charge them on a slow charge they seem to hold a charge longer.

 

It's not just whether you are charging at Level 1 vs. Level 2. It is the rate that you charge relative to the battery capacity. If it takes you an hour to fully charge the battery, that is defined as a "1C" rate (1 x capacity). The highest charge rate possible with the Clarity PHEV is 30A @ 240V (7.2 kW). Since the total battery capacity is 17 kWh, this is a charge rate of only 0.42C (7.2 kW rate / 17 kWh capacity). I think you will find that this is considered a low rate, and it will not impact battery life...

In the scenario that you describe (maybe you are referring to power tools?) - Can you quantify your "quick charge" vs. "slow charge"? How long does it take to fully charge a battery in both of those cases? Knowing those relative charge rates could explain why you may experience a degradation while we wouldn't expect to see any with the Clarity even when using the maximum level 2 rate.

 

I’d be interested to know where you read that. The only thing I’ve seen about the question of charge rate vs battery life is related to DC fast charging, something not relevant to the Clarity PHEV.

 

Just included this link in a post in the "Was the battery ever charged..." thread but it also applies here:

https://electrek.co/2019/12/14/8-lessons-about-ev-battery-health-from-6300-electric-cars/

One of the conclusions the article draws from the data is:

"The use of DC fast-chargers speeds up the process of degradation, but there’s not much difference in battery health based on frequent use of Level 1 versus Leve [sic] 2 charging."

 

Sadly, the 'data analysis tool' provided on their link left out (what a surprise!) the Clarity (and every other Honda btw)... I also remember reading somewhere that higher amperage Level 2 chargers could also speed the degradation but a fellow member chastised me for saying that. I can't find any data pro or con.

 

I drain the batteries daily taking it to work and then drain them again by the time I get home. It's nice having a full battery within 2 hours. Although when PG&E starts with their summer rates, I will have to figure out if I want to charge the car before leaving on errands if it's peak or part peak.

Weekends they'll get drained usually once or twice, we're in the mountains, so topping it off is a good way to avoid the angry bees.

 

@MrFixit is spot on.
Anything under 1 C is not harmful to battery health or longevity. Level 2 is limited to 32 Amps, or 7.2 kW into the battery pack on the Clarity and that's less than half of the total 17 kWh battery capacity. That’s even less than 0.5 C and so can’t possible be affecting battery in any meaningful way more than Level 1 charging.
So this is one less issue that we need to worry about.
It would be more productive to concern yourself with time spent at 100% SOC, depth of discharge, and sustained/repeated high power draws at elevated battery temps if you want try to “baby” your battery.

 

We drive a LOT. about 40K/yr will be going on the Clarity. The batteries will get drained twice a day 5x and probably once or twice on weekends. It will be interesting to see how they hold up, but frankly I'm not worried about it.

 

Nope.

Probably a better way to ask this is, "What EVSE's should I stay away from?".

I personally use the 16 amp 240v ClipperCreek unit because it was the least costly unit that could still provide all the juice the car could handle (at the time), fit in my garage sub-panel without $$$ upgrades, had a long warranty (3 years) and good feedback/reviews. It wasn't a criteria for purchase but they are also made in USA. Think about future proofing.