What if you want L2 and your home's not wired for 220?

Did a search and didn't find a specific answer to this.

Does this leave you completely SOL? Or can your local utility get a 220 tap off the utility pole, and if so, how many gazillions of $$ would this cost?

You really have just a single pole main breaker?

Something like this might work. I don't know when or much they will sell for...

http://evsolutions.avinc.com/uploads/products/1_AV_HCA_061010.pdf

smkettner said:

You really have just a single pole main breaker?

Click to expand...

Actually, I live in an apartment, which I know is a huge strike against me. But in poking around the building, I found that the washers/dryers in the laundry rooms are plugged into 110v outlets, which led me to believe there's no 220 coming in. I have no idea where the main panel/breakers are, so I don't have an answer to your question.

Most homes, unless extremely old, have 220 volts coming into the breaker box even if they don't have any 220 volt circuits as such. Your 110 loads are usually split between the two phases (110 volts phase to ground, 220 volts phase to phase). Have you had an electrician look at your service? It may be as easy as adding a 220 volt 40 amp breaker in your box and running the wiring. (Electric stoves, electric dryers, central air conditioners, and even larger window air conditioners run on 220 volts. If you have any of these, you have 220.)

If the property management is receptive, talk to them about getting a couple EV chargers installed. Take care to have bollards to keep people from driving over them and put them in an area that is not likely to get vandalized. The electrical service to the building will have 208V or 240V available in some of the panels. Sometimes you can tap into the lighting circuits. Whatever you do will likely require their approval anyway unless you have a private outlet in your private parking space. Depending on how far you drive 120V charging might work out for you. Charging for 10 hours at 120V will give you over 40 miles of charge each night. more than enough for short to medium commutes. Not enough for long commutes of 50+ milies/day. If you can charge at work, that adds to your daily range. If it's a publicly accessible charger in an EV Project area, the EV Project may fund some or all of it for the equimpment and installation.

Do you have a breaker panel inside the apartment? Probably has a right stack and left stack of 15 or 20 amp breakers. The main is probably out at the meter. If you are serious you will need to talk to your landlord anyway so you may as well ask them to show you around a bit. Probably a double 40 amp breaker out at the meter and so 240v is probably available.

An electrician can pop in a quad breaker at the main and run conduit out to where you would have the level 2 EVSE. You are right that it will probably cost some real money but maybe not as much as you think.

Randmac said:

Something like this might work. I don't know when or much they will sell for...

http://evsolutions.avinc.com/uploads/products/1_AV_HCA_061010.pdf

Click to expand...

Wow... this could be just what I'm looking for. All I'd have to do is talk the landlord into letting me mooch off an existing AC outlet here and there, then wheel the thing out to my car and charge. No muss, no fuss.

Thanks for the heads-up! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

You could use this.
Quick 220
http://www.quick220.com/220_catalog.htm

Bassman said:

You could use this.
Quick 220
http://www.quick220.com/220_catalog.htm

Click to expand...

Not a bad idea. But since my assigned parking space doesn't have an AC outlet, Randmac's solution might be more practical.

I hate to disappoint everyone but its 240V not 220 in the US and 120V not 110V. If you have 120V you likely have 240 and certainly not 220V or you have a voltage sag issue.

EVDRIVER said:

I hate to disappoint everyone but its 240V not 220 in the US and 120V not 110V. If you have 120V you likely have 240 and certainly not 220V or you have a voltage sag issue.

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When they tap the transformer to derive the end-user voltage, a variance of 10% is generally considered allowable. So some might have 220V or something close to it, while others 240. If they see less than 220, they bump it up a tap.

The official US voltage is 120/240 today, some have more and some have less but we do not call it 110 and 220 anymore. Some call an EVSE a charger but I'm not sure what that makes the charger on the car, the second charger or a super double special charger perhaps. But then again the top LEAF tech person at a car show assured me that there was no charger onboard the car

BetaMark said:

Randmac said:

Something like this might work. I don't know when or much they will sell for...

http://evsolutions.avinc.com/uploads/products/1_AV_HCA_061010.pdf

Click to expand...

Wow... this could be just what I'm looking for. All I'd have to do is talk the landlord into letting me mooch off an existing AC outlet here and there, then wheel the thing out to my car and charge. No muss, no fuss.

Thanks for the heads-up! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

I am unaware of pricing having been announced for this unit. But if I was forced to guess ... it won't be cheap (think a couple 1000 or more). But that's not all ... doing it a few times, no big deal, but doing it nightly or even several times per week will become a MAJOR annoyance. And finally, there's the element of theft/vandalism risk ... With all that in mind ... doing the electrical work for any outlet (120 or 240) near your parking spot, or charging only at work, becomes a much more viable alternative.

Additional comments: The brochure says "currently in development"; so ... availability is also unknown. In addition, there's no indication as to the # of kWh the unit stores. Therefore, it's unknown whether it will meet the "real need" from its internal battery (when it's not plugged into 120V).

EVDRIVER said:

The official US voltage is 120/240 today, some have more and some have less but we do not call it 110 and 220 anymore. Some call an EVSE a charger but I'm not sure what that makes the charger on the car, the second charger or a super double special charger perhaps. But then again the top LEAF tech person at a car show assured me that there was no charger onboard the car

Click to expand...

Try and explain EVSE to the lay person... If it's not really important for them to understand the distinction, you can generically say charger, even though that's technically incorrect so they get the idea of "that thing that takes electricity from the building and puts it into my device, like a cell phone charger. Technically, USB based cell phone chargers are more like CPSE - "Cell Phone Supply Equipment" or CPBDCSE "Cell Phone Bulk DC Supply Equipment", since the USB charger converts the AC wall voltage to 5V USB bulk DC voltage. The actual voltage step up / step down from 5V to battery charge voltage, charge control and logic the regulates the charging of the cell phone battery is in the cell phone.

Do we really have EVSE stations and not Charging stations? But if there's a DC quick charger at the location, is it then a Charging station instead of an EVSE station - or not because the DC quick charger has bulk power electronics that provides the charge to the battery, but the brains to control the charge is on the vehicle. And does the average consumer care or need to know the distinction?

One thing that does concern me a little is that we have no name for the current EVSE standard besides J1772-2009 or more formally "SAE Surface Vehicle Recommended Practice J1772, SAE Electric Vehicle Conductive Charge Coupler (REV 2009)". We don't have any catchy name for it like WiFi, that consumers can easily recognize. How about PlugGoEV for Plug and Go Electric Vehicle? We need some catchy name for the standard. ANd when the contactless magnetic coupled EV charging starts to appear, there'll be another riund of competing standards adn we will need to distinguish between standards installed in cars, at charging stations, on Charging Statoin locators or EVSE locators...

No need to explain EVSE, call it a charging cable, a charging cord, charging dock, just not a charger because that is confusing to people who know the difference and to those who are learning proper terms. It's easy.

LEAFer said:

BetaMark said:

Randmac said:

Something like this might work. I don't know when or much they will sell for...

http://evsolutions.avinc.com/uploads/products/1_AV_HCA_061010.pdf

Click to expand...

Wow... this could be just what I'm looking for. All I'd have to do is talk the landlord into letting me mooch off an existing AC outlet here and there, then wheel the thing out to my car and charge. No muss, no fuss.

Thanks for the heads-up! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

I am unaware of pricing having been announced for this unit. But if I was forced to guess ... it won't be cheap (think a couple 1000 or more). But that's not all ... doing it a few times, no big deal, but doing it nightly or even several times per week will become a MAJOR annoyance. And finally, there's the element of theft/vandalism risk ... With all that in mind ... doing the electrical work for any outlet (120 or 240) near your parking spot, or charging only at work, becomes a much more viable alternative.

Additional comments: The brochure says "currently in development"; so ... availability is also unknown. In addition, there's no indication as to the # of kWh the unit stores. Therefore, it's unknown whether it will meet the "real need" from its internal battery (when it's not plugged into 120V).

Click to expand...

All good points, although with my modest commute (20 mile round trip to work on surface streets) I'd probably only have to drag the thing out once or twice a week.

That being said, I would certainly prefer a more straightforward charging method, and to that end, I'm approaching the issue on a variety of fronts. I've already had 'the talk' with my landlord, which turned out to be a mixture of "What happens if we install a charger just for you and then (because I'm a renter and not a lessee) you move out; what happens to the charger then?" and that in turn leads to the chicken-and-egg situation of the property owners not wanting to commit to multiple chargers because the demand isn't there yet. Oh, but he did say that if there were a government mandate that required X number of spaces to have chargers, They'd have to buckle under and do it. Although he never actually said a straight out No...

I've also been filling out various online surveys on EV's/infrastructure issues, both from Nissan and I believe LADWP, wherein I'm trying to plead my case, as it were. I know there lots of folks in the same boat as myself, so I guess we have to do are best to provide feedback and make ourselves heard.

BetaMark said:

All good points, although with my modest commute (20 mile round trip to work on surface streets) I'd probably only have to drag the thing out once or twice a week.

Click to expand...

Why not just install a 120V socket?.. instead of a expensive "charger"..

I would skip on that portable device. I don't think it is going to provide nearly the same as a proper hookup.

Ask the landlord to pay for the 240v circuit and you pay for the charging dock. If you move you take the dock with you and the landlord can cap off the 240 until the next tenant would like to hook up. Since the apartment may have limited capacity for electric expansion, consider a Leviton 160 that only requires a 20a 240v circuit. This will save the landlord some money and still charge the Leaf at full speed. This Leviton 160 should be available in the next couple months.

Well ... it sounds like the landlord might be open to the idea. Let him mull it over for at least a few days or week. How big is the apartment complex ? Is it large enough that he has golf carts for some of the staff (maintenance, management, etc) ? If yes, it probably uses a 120V outlet you can share. If he uses gas-type vehicles for this purpose, he might be open to the idea of converting to electric. In that case, let him install at least a 120V outlet at your spot and his "new EV" can share "your" outlet Just thinking creatively here ... for a positive outcome ...