Please help! Will L2 charger use less kwh/energy than the Trickle charge?!

[RockyNv]

I just received my Charge Point Summary for September and its shows that the average EV driver in Florida uses 60 kwh per month which only comes to $6.60 based on local daytime power rates.

That's how much ChargePoint's average customer consumes away from home in a month. In fact Our LEAF uses about 200 kWh of electricity each month, and that is for traveling only about 8000 miles per year, which is well below average. 12,000 miles per year would require about 300 kWh per month, or about $36/month at $0.12/kWh. That's with a 3300W L2 charger.

If you drove the same 12,000 miles using an L1, you would pay $36*0.91/0.78=$42 per month, or $6 per month or $72/year more for electricity.

Someone living in Hawaii driving the LEAF an average number of miles would save over $200/year by charging from L2 rather than L1.

That's still over a decade just to break even for the 12,000 mile driver however sub 100 mile per charge electric car drivers are more likely to drive the EV only 5,000 to 6,000 miles per year. Like I said still no major bleeding that would justify dropping $1,000 installed for an L2 charger at home mainly because it uses a little less electricity than an L1.

I believe the L1 would only cost 13% per month or $4.60 more based on the well above average Leaf driver since most that I see coming off lease around hear are 3,000 to 5,000 mile per year cars and not 12,000 mile cars. Its fairly rare to see even a 2011 leaf after almost 6 years on it with much over 32,000 miles.

If I told my wife that I needed to install an L2 because the L1 used too much electricity she would immediately ask when we would break even on the investment and then at what rate would the payback accrue at after that (she was a staff accountant and accounts payable specialist for a major corporation). If I told her break even in 10 to 15 years if I drove double what I do now to commute to work and 30 or so years if I just drove whats been the norm and then after that we would see a $36 to $72 annual dividend she would rightly consider having me committed.

[RockyNv]

... A viable portable pop up solar charger may be a bigger gain for me than spending money on an L2 at home. It would be very convenient if the car could gain some charge sitting their parked while I am fishing, hiking, photographing a garden, etc where there is no public charging available.

Where have you found one of those that is very practical?

Takes a pretty big panel area to do much.

Holy Grail but one can still wish for a practical breakthrough or a viable personal Mr. Fusion device. How about coating the cars with photo-voltaic paint? Someone would just have to invent the paint and we'd have it made.

NASA is making great strides using waste heat and smaller reactors to generate power on the fly using Sterling Engines. In the Eastern Europe they are building these into small water heaters to spin Sterling Generators from the heat bleed-off from the water tanks and pilot lights,

Maybe even a modification of the Prairie Generator could be worth while for mobile charging.

[cwerdna]

If you drove the same 12,000 miles using an L1, you would pay $36*0.91/0.78=$42 per month, or $6 per month or $72/year more for electricity.

Someone living in Hawaii driving the LEAF an average number of miles would save over $200/year by charging from L2 rather than L1.

Similar to the Hawaii case, electricity is very expensive in PG&E land. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.p ... 19#p155519 was a calculation done for me long ago.

Now we have fewer tiers and our rates are even higher. See page 1 of https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf for our non-TOU rates.

I'm in area X, code B of https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/s ... ities.page. So, in "summer", on E-1 baseline is 10.1 kWh/day or 10.9 kWh/day in "winter". So, for 30 billing days in "summer",
- every kWh below 303 kWh is at the tier 1 rate of 18.205 cents
- every kWh above 303 is at the tier 2 (101% to 200% of baseline) rate which is currently 24.081 cents
- every kWh above 606 is tier 3 at 39.99 cents/kWh

If household gets pushed into tier 3 due to an EV, the marginal cost per kWh is very high at 39.99 cents/kWh. The CPUC lets (forces?) PG&E to set crappy baselines so that most people aren't able to stay within baseline/tier 1.

From https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/s ... ities.page

The amount assigned to the first tier is called a "baseline" and represents the minimum level of usage needed to satisfy a substantial portion (50 to 60 percent) of the electricity needs of the average customer in a specific service area called a "baseline territory."

[RockyNv]

Average US power usage per residential customer is around 900 kWh per month and at 12 cents per kWh that comes to around $100 for me except for during the worst of the summer. I installed a dual compressor straight cool AC unit at the house to keep cooling costs to a minimum (heat pumps are not a worthwhile investment at this latitude), have gone LED for most interior lighting, put reflective roofing on the house, thermo-pane windows all around with shades to limit heat intrusion, use a clothes line instead of the dryer and changed cooking along with water heating to gas.

At work its 7 cents per kWh which my employer does not charge for so I do 99.9% of my charging there. I vetted all this out before purchasing the Leaf and save about $40 per month on fuel over driving my 40/50 mpg Diesel Fiat 124 Spider which I was driving daily but really is not the best choice as a daily commuter. Since I needed another more reasonable car for commuting anyway a used 2014 Leaf came up for me as a viable option to commute cheaply to work within the budget I had already set for this purpose. The next level would be when the roof next needs a re-do to consider solar hot water and electric with a subsidiary and use that to defray the cost of replacing the roof since it will need to be re-done in part during the conversion anyway.

When I suffered a crippling disability from a ladder accident I had to move from New England to an area with a more stable barometric pressure. San Diego California was one of the candidates however utility rates were too high there so I passed and chose a location where the utility rates and taxes were more reasonable.

Yes there may be a few areas in the country where due to insane electric rates you may break even on electrical savings on an L2 over an L1 in about a decade but even that is not good enough on its own to justify the costs.

Its still mostly a convenience upgrade unless you live in an area where the utility company or State basically installs the L2 for free or pretty close to it. Then of course it makes perfect economic sense. Where I live the rates are so low that they do not provide free L2 chargers however a bit South of here the rates are a tad higher and the power company does basically give away the L2 chargers and subsidize their installation if the person telling me this is correct.

[TimLee]

... I installed a dual compressor straight cool AC unit at the house to keep cooling costs to a minimum (heat pumps are not a worthwhile investment at this latitude), ...

OT, but not sure that is necessarily correct for Tampa Bay.
If you have enough passive solar and do no heating it could be correct.

But there has been huge improvements in efficiency with the mini split heat pump units in past 15 to 20 years (Been available in Japan and Europe for 30 plus years.)

Some of those aren't a lot more than central AC only.

And you get markedly better humidity control plus heat in winter.

[RockyNv]

... I installed a dual compressor straight cool AC unit at the house to keep cooling costs to a minimum (heat pumps are not a worthwhile investment at this latitude), ...

OT, but not sure that is necessarily correct for Tampa Bay.
If you have enough passive solar and do no heating it could be correct.

But there has been huge improvements in efficiency with the mini split heat pump units in past 15 to 20 years (Been available in Japan and Europe for 30 plus years.)

Some of those aren't a lot more than central AC only.

And you get markedly better humidity control plus heat in winter.

Yes OT a bit but I use heat maybe 5 days a year and so the added cost of the Heat Pump and general loss of efficiency on AC makes it an unwise investment compared to the likes of a 19.5 seer Trane with dual compressors mated to the variable speed air handler with its dehumidification cycles. Even if the efficiency ratings were equal the added cost of the Heat Pump for those very few days or most years just hours of running the heat to take the chill off during the morning shower cycle is not worth the extra expense. Just like the Leaf purchase it had to have a certain cost benefit related to it. A heat pump for the house for me was a loose/loose proposition with 0 benefit at the time I purchase my system especially since the more expensive Heat Pumps were only 15 to 16.5 seer at that time.

[TimLee]

... A heat pump for the house for me was a loose/loose proposition with 0 benefit at the time I purchase my system especially since the more expensive Heat Pumps were only 15 to 16.5 seer at that time.

Agreed with those #s.

But the #s are changing a lot.

I put in a Mitsubishi mini split three unit system for my mother-in-law's basement apartment.

Markedly higher SEER.
Pleased but still probably should have put in outdoor air makeup unit.

I'm in ASHRAE.
Amazing how imcompetent the standards were until the last ten years.

In the southeast the key is make the house air tight and provide makeup air system that removes the incoming humidity from the incoming air that you need for good air quality.
Most of the AC load is latent heat (humidity removal).

Don't do that and you build cold but miserable mold infested buildings.

[Durandal]

I'm in area X, code B of https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/s ... ities.page. So, in "summer", on E-1 baseline is 10.1 kWh/day or 10.9 kWh/day in "winter". So, for 30 billing days in "summer",
- every kWh below 303 kWh is at the tier 1 rate of 18.205 cents
- every kWh above 303 is at the tier 2 (101% to 200% of baseline) rate which is currently 24.081 cents
- every kWh above 606 is tier 3 at 39.99 cents/kWh

If household gets pushed into tier 3 due to an EV, the marginal cost per kWh is very high at 39.99 cents/kWh. The CPUC lets (forces?) PG&E to set crappy baselines so that most people aren't able to stay within baseline/tier 1.
]

Man, if I was paying $0.399/kWh for electricity, I would have gone 100% solar already. Fortunately electricity is extremely cheap here for residential use, roughly $0.10/kWh for me, but I charge at a spot nearby work that is free, being sure to move my car as soon as it's charged up.

I've been pondering setting up an independent semi-offgrid system, where most of my 120v usage comes from solar, and then using the mains power for 240v and for topping up the batteries if the solar panels aren't keeping up. I would prefer this to net-metering, to provide for off-grid power in case of grid failure power outages.

[RegGuheert]

That's still over a decade just to break even for the 12,000 mile driver however sub 100 mile per charge electric car drivers are more likely to drive the EV only 5,000 to 6,000 miles per year.

The average Nissan LEAF is driven nearly 10,000 miles/year, not 5,000 to 6,000 (but also not 12,000).

[cwerdna]

Man, if I was paying $0.399/kWh for electricity, I would have gone 100% solar already. Fortunately electricity is extremely cheap here for residential use, roughly $0.10/kWh for me, but I charge at a spot nearby work that is free, being sure to move my car as soon as it's charged up.

Sigh... I just checked https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf again and now our new tier 3 (every kWh beyond 606 kWh in a 30 day month) is 40.307 cents/kWh!

The baselines are unchanged.

Average US power usage per residential customer is around 900 kWh per month and at 12 cents per kWh that comes to around $100 for me except for during the worst of the summer.

Per the current E-1 schedule and my area and baseline, 900 kWh would cost ~$247 here, likely not including any additional taxes and fees.

The only saving grace is that in April and October, every household gets a $28.14 "California Climate Credit" on their bill.