Level 1 charging

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YellowDog

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Did a test drive of the Mini the other day. Love it.
Since I am only driving short distances, I am thinking of only using the supplied Level 1 cable at home. The amperage draw mentioned on the cable is only 10A. So I think it is safe to just plug into my garage's outlet which supply 120v at 15A.

Any comment is welcome.
 
I think you’ll be just fine. It’s tempting to install a L2 station, but plugging in every time you get home is such a non-event I wouldn’t bother with the upgrade unless you find over time that you want a faster charge.

Plenty of Tesla Model 3 owners use L1 charging too, although at 12A (both cars have a similar efficiency).

Just make sure nothing else is on the same circuit.
 
YellowDog said:
So I think it is safe to just plug into my garage's outlet which supply 120v at 15A.
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That's exactly what the provided cable (EVSE, technically) is for, it works great! I had to rely on it for almost two months after I got my SE and before I got my Level 2 installed.

You need to make sure the draw is 80% of the maximum amperage, and 10 A is 67% of 15 A so no worries. Make sure to go into the charging settings on the SE and set to maximum charging level. It won't hurt because even if the car can draw 15 A the EVSE will limit it to 10 A, as described in the Motorer's Guide.
 
Unfortunately right now we are stuck using the standard L1 charger because a power surge took out our Juicebox 40 along with our electric induction stove, Direct TV box and a couple of power/surge protector strips. A new Juicebox is on its way. While most days charging the Mini overnight is all we need, we did push the range limit Friday with several trips that normally would not have been an issue as the Mini would’ve recharged in a couple of hours mid day.

My wife has range anxiety knowing she can’t recharge mid day which is fair. Don’t have access to any DC fast charges in our area either. A new Juicebox is on its way and we have 2 other ICE vehicles with the Mini being a new addition so we can manage.

Bottom line, Level 1 charging is fine if you don’t need to charge mid day but for us we need more flexibility.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
 
mikeg0305 said:
Unfortunately right now we are stuck using the standard L1 charger because a power surge took out our Juicebox 40 along with our electric induction stove, Direct TV box and a couple of power/surge protector strips. A new Juicebox is on its way. While most days charging the Mini overnight is all we need, we did push the range limit Friday with several trips that normally would not have been an issue as the Mini would’ve recharged in a couple of hours mid day.
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Was you MINI plugged in to the Juicebox when the power surge occurred? I hadn't thought of this, but does the MINI (or EVs in general) protect itself against power surges? If using L1, would there be a benefit to connecting the charging cable to a surge protector?
 
It was plugged in and was worried about the same. Mini is fine thus far. But like you, something I’ve never thought about but concerned. My charger certainly took the brunt of the surge.

Any thoughts from others?



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Wow, the juice box is gone just like that. That really hurts. Guess you need to have a surge protector for each device.
 
I was going to use a 50A GFCI breaker with my JuiceBox 40, but the company told me “We recommend against the use of a surge protector as there is one built in.”

Out of curiosity, does anybody know the maximum amperage the Mini can take for L1? I know the included charger only goes to 10A, but the car can likely accept more.
 
polyphonic said:
Out of curiosity, does anybody know the maximum amperage the Mini can take for L1? I know the included charger only goes to 10A, but the car can likely accept more.
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According to the manual, the supplied L1 cable's maximum amperage requirement is from 6A to 15A, probably depends on the country that the Mini is exported.
 
YellowDog said:
According to the manual, the supplied L1 cable's maximum amperage requirement is from 6A to 15A, probably depends on the country that the Mini is exported.
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I bet it goes to at least 15A based on that, especially since it accepts 32A at L2 (quite high for a 32 kWh battery!)

YellowDog said:
So they are wrong. They should compensate you with a new box.
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Mine didn’t break (yet! Haha), but I agree for the other guy. Maybe their site or documentation also gives this bad advice somewhere.
 
polyphonic said:
I bet it goes to at least 15A based on that, especially since it accepts 32A at L2 (quite high for a 32 kWh battery!)
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Our Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid's 17 kWh battery drinks 240 Volts at 6.7 kW, or about 28 Amps.

In contrast with the MINI Cooper SE's fast-charge 50 kW max, the Honda e offers 100 kW charging, but it starts tapering off from that 100 kW level so early in the charging cycle that its 35.5 kWh battery finishes charging just a few minutes quicker than the SE. I'm too lazy to look up the Honda e's Level 2 charging time.
 
From the Motorer's Guide, 15 A is the maximum Level 1 charging rate in the SE, for North America. Which makes sense, since that would work on a typical 20 A circuit. Of course one would need to replace the provided Level 1 charge cable with one rated for 15 A, and the 10 A cable is likely provided because most 120 V outlets are on 15 A circuits.

I've thought about getting a new charging cable, but not sure it's worth spending a couple hundred dollars for a cable I never use anymore.
 
insightman said:
Our Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid's 17 kWh battery drinks 240 Volts at 6.7 kW, or about 28 Amps.

In contrast with the MINI Cooper SE's fast-charge 50 kW max, the Honda e offers 100 kW charging, but it starts tapering off from that 100 kW level so early in the charging cycle that its 35.5 kWh battery finishes charging just a few minutes quicker than the SE. I'm too lazy to look up the Honda e's Level 2 charging time.
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That's quite fast! Some of those PHEVs have extraordinarily large buffers (I think 40% for the Volt).
Some of the other EVs with ~100 kW batteries are still limited to about 11 kW, which would be much smaller than the Mini's charge speed based on net capacity. Though in fairness, I think 22 kW AC for the same cars is more common in Europe.

Puppethead said:
From the Motorer's Guide, 15 A is the maximum Level 1 charging rate in the SE, for North America. Which makes sense, since that would work on a typical 20 A circuit. Of course one would need to replace the provided Level 1 charge cable with one rated for 15 A, and the 10 A cable is likely provided because most 120 V outlets are on 15 A circuits.

I've thought about getting a new charging cable, but not sure it's worth spending a couple hundred dollars for a cable I never use anymore.
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Yep, that's where I was headed. 16A continuous is possible on a NEMA 5-20. Newer homes typically have 20A wiring and breakers already, so often a simple receptacle switch can change a 5-15 to a 5-20. I think Clipper Creek makes a 5-20 EVSE. That would raise the L1 charge rate from 1.2 kW to 1.9 kW (1.8 kW for the Mini). I used that outlet with my Tesla and it seemed like a larger upgrade than the math shows (possibly due to cooling system overheads).
 
polyphonic said:
Newer homes typically have 20A wiring and breakers already, so often a simple receptacle switch can change a 5-15 to a 5-20. I think Clipper Creek makes a 5-20 EVSE. That would raise the L1 charge rate from 1.2 kW to 1.9 kW (1.8 kW for the Mini). I used that outlet with my Tesla and it seemed like a larger upgrade than the math shows (possibly due to cooling system overheads).
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Is there a way to tell if the outlet in my garage is on a 15A or 20A circuit, without calling an electrician?
 
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