evse recommendations?

I did get a second quote. $8,000.

I’m not done getting quotes, but I think I live in a much more expensive city than y’all. And I do not think my 100amp service is at all uncommon here — rare is the house in this city with air conditioning.

 

For me, all the fancy Amp, Volt, and Kw talk boils down to MRpH (miles range per hour) added to your particular vehicle(s), how many miles you average daily, and how long is available to charge each night.

In Jessie, I drive 65-75 miles, 5 days a week. I am home for about 12 hours on those days, but some are more and some are less (when I'm coaching night soccer games, for instance). 20A/120V adds about 5 MRpH (in either our MINI or Tesla), so even on the long nights, I'd not quite make it to full on average (5×12=60 miles added), and on mornings after games, I'd be way short; so no go. But 20A/240V adds about 15 MRpH, so that is 180 miles per night: GTG.

My wife, in her TM3, only drives maybe 20 miles a day. She could get by, easily, with 20A/120V, or share just a 20A/240V with me.

Naturally, I massively overbuilt. We have two(!) Tesla wall chargers that intelligently share a 60A/240V breaker. That means, when charging alone, either of our car's internal chargers is maxed out, 32A and about 30 MRpH on Jessie, and 48A and about 44 MRpH on the Tesla. Even charging simultaneously, the two cars will go from 20% to their stop points (full in Jessie and 80% in the Tesla) in about six hours.

I did this for a few reasons. In no particular order:

• My wife and I didn't want to have to share a connector. When either of us wants to charge, we plug into our own nozzle. And, they are each physically located in the garage precisely where we don't have to drag cables around or coil them after use; indeed, our cables never even touch the deck.
• I didn't want to worry about simultaneously drawing power and tripping a breaker. No matter what we do, it is impossible for us to draw more than the 48 Amps our connectors are set to share.
• If one of the connectors fails, we have a spare.
• We can host EV guests easily.
• Because of the quick charges, I can take full advantage of the night time electricity rate. I pay about $0.08 per kWh (all hail Texas!) out the door between 0000 and 0600, so setting my timers on both cars to begin at midnight means they are all done inside the window.
• Although the case I presented for 20A/240V is completely doable, it is on the thin side of doable; it requires a bit of foresight and doesn't allow for deviations very well. Having a couple of flamethrowers in my garage means, say, if I forget to plug in one night, catching my mistake at 0630, will give me an hour on the charger at 30 MRpH, enough charge to get to work and home again (including the 40 to 50% already in the tank).
• Having full charging power available is occasionally nice for a weekend Tesla road trip top off. We arrive home after work on Friday, and while we pack and get ready, the Tesla will charge from 75% to 95% or more, before we push out for the trip.
• Similarly, returning from a road trip in the Tesla on a Sunday night at 5% garners no worry for my wife, if we have 48A available to charge her car to full by the morning.

 

I want to take a moment to thank you all for your replies. I was initially all motivated to get the fastest L2 Charging experience I could, but the cost was unreasonable, and your comments have helped reassure me that I won't really notice any difference if I just go with a 30 amp circuit.

Thank you. You guys rock!

 

Motion to adopt "flamethrower" instead of "charger" as our forum's colloquial name for EVSE.

 

Fun fact: That was the colloquial nickname for the Tomcat A's AWG-9, which, at the time was, and may still be AFAIK, the World's Most Powerful Airborne Fire Control Radar . It put out 50,000 watts and could see fighter size aircraft at 125 miles. "Try not to stand in front of it..."

 

It has been pointed out on the Inside EVs Clarity forum that electricians are more likely to give a higher estimate if you tell them you're going to be charging an electric car than if you say you're going to take up welding as a hobby.

 

This is also (probably moreso) true in the Tesla universe. We Tesla folks have more money than brains, after all...

 

I was checking out Inside EVs' Hyundai Kona Electric forum (no, I'm not contemplating trading my beloved SE for a bulky, cumbersome crossover) and saw a reference to a useful website/app called A Better Route Planner. ABRP is not as intuitive to use as PlugShare, but both would be invaluable resources for anyone planning a long-distance trip in their EV--especially a lithe, fun-to-drive EV with 110 miles of EPA range.

 

For the fun of it, I tried to 'exercise' (or maybe call it 'a stress test' of) the ABRP by fine tuning the settings, etc. and then planning a trip from the greater DFW area to Terlingua, Texas, near Big Bend National Park, way out in sparsely populated West Texas. ABRP indicated 'no valid plan' could be found for my MINI SE (and it definitely does get hot, dusty and lonely if one runs out of juice in a BEV in West Texas).

With a little more online investigation, I learned that ABRP is part of a 2 y.o. start-up (Iternio Planning AB, www.iternio.com) with a total of 5 employees, and located in Lund, Sweden, which is a long way from both the US in general and West Texas specifically. Since I have traveled many times on business to Lund and its IDEON tech center (which is also home to Iternio) (and is also home to Lund University), I have great respect for these folks. But their US database may still be a little immature when it comes to available BEV charging locations (where, for example, one may have to use a little ingenuity at an RV park to recharge, for example) or make use of plug adaptors, etc.

This is a great find, as I think it is already useful for folks traveling between cities anywhere in the US or Europe. And, it is a very useful source to double-check your route planning in a BEV (but make full use of their detailed settings feature in order to get reliable results). However, I would still rely on checking more than one source (such as PlugShare) in the US and remember that a good old 115V household-type outlet is never THAT far away for our SE's.

 

I don't know about the AWG-9 radar, but the ground radar for the Pantex nuclear weapon facility near Amarillo, TX is so powerful that it can crisp a car's electronic ignition when traveling on highways in the area and you are unlucky enough to be in the path of the radar beam on a sweep when you drive by. They erected a chain link fence to protect children at a school in the area, too. Lesson: don't drive your MINI on US-60, TX-2373, TX-8, TX-11 or TX-293 in Carson County, Texas. You might regret it.

 

I like ABRP in general, but was disappointed that their CarPlay support is a monthly subscription. Bah. I'd be okay with a one-time "unlock" fee, but no way do I pay recurring charges for software functionality.

On a related note, Plugshare has just added CarPlay support and it's pretty nice. It's likely to be my go-to app until MINI adds support for Apple Maps EV routing to their app.

 

I was considering a home charger for my MINI. Currently I use the 8A 240V charger which came with the car, or a close (free) 50kW charger. The 8A will fully charge the car from 0 to 100% in around 20 hours. A 50% fill is around 10, so for normal day to day I recharge maybe 3 times every fortnight. If we have a big weekend planned, I'll go to the fast charger early Saturday morning for a quick fill.

When thinking about chargers for home, I considered cost and convenience. A 7kW charger was overkill - if I needed to charge quickly, a 10 minute trip to the DC charger plus 30 minutes and another 10 home is under an hour. It takes about 4 hours on the 7kW. If you can plug in after dinner and have a full charge (from empty) in the morning, lets say 6am, then that is all you need. A 15A 240V plug in charger (ie not a wallbox) would charge from empty in about 9-10 hours meaning overnight is an easy full charge. I could leave that one plugged in for convenience and keep the 8A in the boot. Even though our supply here is 10A, a lot of houses were wired with oversized conductors and can handle 15A. Get an electrician to check first obviously. Much cheaper than buying and installing a 7kW box. Even if the electrician has to put a 15A plug and wiring in, it is a lot cheaper. I'm still on the fence though - I haven't wanted or needed faster charging in 4 months - would it be money wasted putting one in?

 

How often do you use up most of the charge in a single day? If it does happen often, then a wallbox would make sense. Based on your usage pattern so far, the 15-Amp EVSE would seem adequate (if your wiring can handle it), especially because you have a nearby DCFC for the days when you need to charge in the middle of the day.

 

Pretty much what I thought too. The most I have done in a day is 120-130km (75-80miles) which is only just over half a charge. Easy to recharge overnight. I think I'll go the 15A for now - it is about a 1/4 of the cost of a wall box.

 

I think this is wise. If you are good with the quick charge near by I wouldn't invest much at home.

 

Do keep in mind there's a $1000 tax credit for installing EVSE at home (assuming US, and double-check it's still valid for 2021), so maybe it is worthwhile to do an install.

Update: I realize now you're likely not US, mentioning kilometers and 240 V cable "coming with the car".

 

Also it's 30% back of up to $1000 in install or purchase costs. So max $300

 

I think the tax credit is the smaller value of (installcost*30%) OR $1,000 max. So, for example:

$750 EVSE + $600 install = $1,350
30% of $1,350 = $405

So a tax credit of $405.

IRS form 8911 instructions:
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8911.pdf

 

We have not done taxes this year to see the number (installed last year). The info I got was second hand and not reading the form. Either I misunderstood or they said it wrong accidentally. I will admit and being dyslexic don't do numbers (flip them) so you are right. I just know it's not the full amount you pay and 30% - also that it was indeed extended.

 

When flying at night, I would sometimes roll my antenna down and point it at cars driving on the highway, trying to trip their X band radar detectors so I could see their brake lights up. I could do it from about two miles up.