Take my on-board charger...PLEASE!

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edatoakrun

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Location
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Please use this thread to post you opinions on the benefits or drawbacks from eliminating the installation of on-board chargers and "AC charging" from BEVs/BEVxs/PHEVs.

edatoakrun said:
RegGuheert said:
edatoakrun said:
I hope that in ~five years BEV drivers (and those who are not) will finally understand there is no reason to have a charger in your BEV at all.
No, thanks! I want a charger in my car if for no other reason than the convenience of being able to plug in anywhere...
Having the charger in-car is really not a convenience, it imposes multiple limitations. on BEVs.

Where kW rates are available at the charge site at higher rates than the on-board charger, the slower onboard charger is only a bottleneck preventing faster charging. It often prevents the desirable kW rate for anyBEV/BEVx/PHEV at any charge site, which is either the maximum the grid infrastructure at that location supports, and (far less frequently) the maximum the battery will accept (~48 kW for A ~24 kW pack like the LEAF's) both subject to kW cost/rate considerations.

An on-board charger can not be used to charge other BEVs/BEVxs/PHEVs (yours, or other drivers') while you are not using it, making its use extremely costly and inefficient, by requiring us to collectively pay for many more chargers than are necessary to service all BEVs public charging requirements.

An on-board charger adds large additional costs, weight an complexity to BEVs/BEVxs/PHEVs, and almost all of them probably will have to be thrown away, after the rest of each BEV/BEVx/PHEV reaches the end of its useful life.

An on-board charger will never allow vehicle-to-grid or vehicle-to-home kW transfer, which a two-way DC device will be able to, which can add additional value to the significant investment (the bigger the pack, the greater the benefit) every BEV/BEVx/PHEV owner has made in their battery pack, and in the case of BEVxs and PHEVs, add value to their on-board ICE as well.

The "waste" heat produced from the on-board charger is not recoverable, while, if the on-site charger is properly located, this heat can be recovered to meet the needs of the human passenger's activities, while they are charging.

As I mentioned before, before the transition to on-site chargers is complete, you may want to carry a portable charger with you, especially when driving in remote areas.

At some point in the future though, I expect that notion will probably seam about as qaint as carrying your own fuel pump and hose with you, just in case the gas station you are headed to doesn't have any fuel pumps on-site.

Continuing from:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19945&start=20" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
I could see an advantage in cost to keep a lower KW AC charger on board for emergency use and DC charging being the primary charging method down the road.


Say some day a 50 kWh battery is considered the minimum capacity for a compact car. We have 3 possible strategies for the two charger attitude.

1. Go for the fastest AC charger possible and consider DC for occasional use on trips or to alleviate range issues.
1a 10 KW AC charger with J1772 plug or equivalent (less than 5 hours to a full charge from nearly empty)
1b high powered DC charge port of the day (Tesla Supercharger or ChaDemo or whatever)

1a and 1b are equally usable for daily use but the cost for the more expensive AC charger is both dollars and weight that might not be needed if there is enough DC charging around.


2. Go for the cheapest L1/L2 AC charger possible and consider DC for semi-regular use.
2a 2 KW AC charger capable of doing 120V@12A, 208V@10A, or 240V@8A or better targeting the cheapest / lightest part they could spec
2b high powered DC charge port of the day (Tesla Supercharger or ChaDemo or whatever)

2a is usable for some, others would consider it emergency use only. DC charging would be preferred but this car could still trickle charge almost anywhere. Sure it'd take about 24 hours for a full charge from near empty but if you needed a boost to the next DC station you could stop anywhere for 30 to 60 minutes to grab 1 or 2 KW and make it the extra 5 or 10 miles to the DC charger.


3. Go for no AC charging at all. DC or bust
3a high powered DC charge port of the day (Tesla Supercharger or ChaDemo or whatever)
3b high powered DC charge port alternate (whichever wasn't used for 3a but is still common enough to find)

3 might require a new charger for home use to be designed/sold but maybe the user doesn't care since they live in an area with ample public DC chargers and besides they have a 50kWh or better battery so range isn't that much of an issue.


We are seeing a lot of cars currently reaching for 1. They have 7.2 KW or 6.x KW chargers and wish a 10KW charger was cheap enough to shoehorn into the car.

We haven't seen anyone reaching for 2 or 3 yet. But do you really see an advantage with 3 over 2? Is there a reason to not have even a tiny rudimentary AC charger on board so you can preheat and precool on shore power at work and at home?

the DOE plug locator website (http://www.afdc.energy.gov/locator/stations/?fuel=ELEC" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) shows in the US there are

1,663 public electric stations L1
6,319 public charging outlets L1 (beware the default search lists 14-50 outlets as L1, I had to filter these to get them in my L2 count)

8,950 public electric stations L2
22,801 public charging outlets L2 (beware the default search lists 14-50 outlets as L1, I had to filter these to get them in my L2 count)

9,126 public electric stations (L1 + L2)
23,425 public charging outlets (L1 + L2)

That's a lot of public infrastructure to ignore and that isn't counting all the private plugs and chargers that businesses and homeowners already have.

I can see you arguing for lighter cheaper weaker AC chargers in the car if DC charging gets to be more common in public chargers but I can't imagine a reason to kill them off entirely.
 
My goal is to never charge in public. It's not an achievable goal, but it is nearly so in my circumstance. I would much rather charge in the comfort of my own home or in the home of a friend. And that's exactly what we did when we went out of town a week ago in our LEAF. We charged at home and again at a friend's house. No public charging.

Heat is not likely to be an issue for future EVs with L2 charging. Batteries are about 99% efficient today when charging, so there is no need to cool them during L2 charging which is what the LEAF already does. It is not uncommon for DC/AC inverters at 98% today, even with single-phase power, so we can expect similar efficiencies for L2 chargers in future EVs. The result: no pumps will need to run in future EVs for L2 charges and efficiencies will be around 97%. The result will be very little wasted heat. Save the cooling pumps for DC quick charging.

If you saddle me with only a Chademo at home, that means $2500 JUST FOR THE PLUG today. Since complete L2 EVSEs are available for $500 today, it makes no sense to limit charging to only locations with expensive chargers. That removes one of the great benefits of EVs.

The DC plug is very nice for fast public charging, but don't take away my on-board AC charger which provides most of the energy for my EV.
 
When I saw the photo at the link below of the prime with the AC port installed and the DC port location blank, my immediate thought was that gave the Prime the wrong port.

With the redundant ICE to fall back on, it makes even less sense to add the expense, weight, and complexity of an on-board charger to a PHEV, than it does to add it to a BEV.

The Toyota Prius Prime Hints At The Electric Future Of Toyota (CleanTechnica Exclusive)

The second version of the plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius, dubbed Prius Prime, is a step change improvement for the leader in hybrid vehicles and makes an impressive statement about where the brand is going. My curiosity was first piqued when I opened the charging port at the rear of the vehicle and noticed that it was built with plenty of room for a DC fast charger. For a vehicle with an 8.8 kWh battery delivering around 25 miles of all-electric range, a DC fast charger would not normally add much value, but its inclusion hints at what I believe is an all-electric future for the Prius...
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/08/13/the-toyota-prius-prime-hints-at-the-electric-future-of-toyota-cleantechnica-exclusive/

Drivers of series hybrid ICEVs, like the Nissan's e-Power Note, might also be pleased to find that if given a CHAdeMO port and a charge/discharge device, they could use their car as a home or mini-grid generator when parked, not just for traction power when on the road.

Nissan's e-Power Note series hybrid ICEV
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=22166&p=502165#p502165
 
The cost difference between onboard L1 and L2 is almost non existent

The cost of higher L2 rates vrs slow L2 is also low from the integration point of view.

Leaving an onboard charger out would move the charger from a bundled oem cost to the higher 3rd party pricing we see with EVSE extension cords.

It would be a bad idea overall

That said I would love to see a standard 110vac inlet on the EV removing the need for the special extension cord
 
rmay635703 said:
The cost difference between onboard L1 and L2 is almost non existent

The cost of higher L2 rates vrs slow L2 is also low from the integration point of view.

Leaving an onboard charger out would move the charger from a bundled oem cost to the higher 3rd party pricing we see with EVSE extension cords.

It would be a bad idea overall

That said I would love to see a standard 110vac inlet on the EV removing the need for the special extension cord


True, but a 120V inlet would not make sense and that topic has been beat to death here previously.
 
rmay635703 said:
...Leaving an onboard charger out would move the charger from a bundled oem cost to the higher 3rd party pricing we see with EVSE extension cordsl...
Are you serious?

Does Nissan still charge ~$800 (list) for an OEM L1?

Every BEV manufacturer would be expected to offer OEM chargers as options, but of course you'd probably find lower-cost options elsewhere.

Once you don't need to take the charger the BEV manufacturer want to give you, you can take your pick, from single car chargers to multi-car charge/discharge V-to-H/G devices, at whatever kW rate you choose.

The difference being, you would only have to pay for the option once, for your garage, which could offer quite a savings over time, as you would never have to send a perfectly good charger to the junkyard, just because the BEV it was stuck to crashed or wore-out.
 
I have never charged in my garage, always via 110vac at my apartment or at work, the charger would need to fit onboard not on my wall for me to use it.

Also
Having owned an EV long before the leaf existed I can say cheap 3rd party chargers and even downright unholy priced ones are usually garbage. You can't predict how long they will work and the warranty is never over a year.

The OEM chargers have to last 8 years under warranty, GM only pays a bit under $200 for the one in their cars but it's failure is extraordinarily rare.

Removing something as cheap and reliable as the battery charger from the EV will only move the charger into niche retail pricing, the EV itself won't be reduced in price and the result will be overpriced garbage that might damage your car when it randomly fails.

It seems 3rd parties can't even build overpriced EVSEs correctly, the L2 Voltec chargers all failed in three to five years and an EVSE is one of the most simplistic devices made, a charger is several orders of magnitude more complex by comparison.

This would be just as boneheaded as the battery rental schemes, a solution looking for a problem
 
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