Semi OT: EV Charging

What's the possibility of paying the block owner to install a weatherproof metered feed at his parking space from the nearest suitable location?

Knowing the complex in question, probably somewhere around 0%, unfortunately. And they may be moving in say, a year or so, so it's not really something I'm sure they'd want to invest in.

Maybe EVs are only good solutions for someone who owns their own home with a garage, but I'm going to keep working on figuring out a solution.

It says you can charge an EV like the Leaf in about 4 hours from a 220 volt 30 amp fixture, yes? The laundry building has a bunch of outlets of that type. Couldn't they roll the vehicle up to the building and just plug into one of those for a few hours? If it's not enough amperage, can one run off multiple outlets in parallel? Unfortunately I just don't know enough about EV chargers to have the answers to these questions for him.

Level 2 chargers are 4 hrs, Level 3 are 20-30 minutes:

Car may need upgrading.

Possibly - the building owner might not like it though.

If it's not enough

I know little of the USA's (I assume) wiring regs but no, that's a very bad idea from a basic POV (you either overload the circuit of both sockets are on one wire, or the loads do not share equally or you bridge

Even if you find 2 sockets on the same phase but different circuits - bridging them is a danger to anyone who might have isolated one to work on and now finds it unexpectedly live.

Not to mention to do this, you'd end up with a variation of a "Jesus cord" (a cable with 2 male plugs on).

So no - forget that...

Unfortunately I

Well - another option is to see if he could live by a mixture of charging at work (using an on street charging post - London has a few of these and you see small electric cars hooked up during the day) - and the odd boost at a supercharging station if there are any in town.

With careful planning and a bit of luck it ought to be possible to run an EV without a home charger, but it will take discipline as well as a certain amount of luck in finding local charging posts and stations.

Gasoline.

Far lower carbon footprint that an EV powered by a coal-fired generating plant!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Imagine what the grid would do if 30 million people wanted to charge their cars all night. Of course, they'd prefer to park for half an hour or so at a free public recharge station... if they can find an empty slot at one.

In this particular case, the other residents of the apartment will be annoyed when they can't do their laundry because the Leaf is sucking up all the available amps.

Recent news suggests that the Leaf may be on its way out. Tesla is doing fine except for losing a couple hundred million a year.

Is petrol still cheap in the US?

One of the things that is making EVs more popular in Britain is the

though that does get me about 500 miles.

California is expensive, around $3.50 a gallon. My Audi (11:1 compression ratio) needs premium, closer to $4, so it costs me about $50 to fill up. That's good for about 250 miles or so. Still, on the highway, a car full of people would pay more for meals than for gas.

It costs me about $65 to fill my truck[*] and it gets me about 450 miles. The problem is obviously the GBP! ;-)

About $6.30 / US gallon here if my conversions from litres to imp.gallons to us gallons worked(!)

OK - the US is not as cheap as I thought...

Well it's better than the Euro (cf Greece and Portugal!)

:->>>

I did some more research, and found that there is at least one supercharging station at a supermarket about 3 miles from the complex.

Yes, I'm sure it will be north of $3 here in Massachusetts pretty soon as well. I don't blame people who do only local driving and would rather spend $10 a week on "fuel" instead of $100. I'd kind of like to do the same myself.

There is a charging station at the local Walgreen's up the street. It takes a credit card for the payment. Unfortunately, some one cut the cord off and it is not in service. I guess it was recycled for the copper. At least it was a green theft.

Last time I was in Europe, I saw a lot of things that looked just like VW Rabbits, only half the size, like they'd been left in the clothes dryer too long.

On Mon, 06 Jul 2015 17:59:12 +0100, Tim Watts Gave us:

Except they do not even have the cash on hand to stop and fill up. The riots come next.

ut

Some others I've seen, you have some choice of chargers, ie long time on 20A, much faster on 50A, etc. It's not just apts where this is a problem. Even in some garages, depending on where the garage is located vs the panel and what's in between, it can be a big problem. Garage on opposite end of the house from pane and finished basement in between, being an example.

IMO, electric car can be an OK solution for a second car, when you know it's going to be used for commuting to work or a commuter lot, just around town, etc. It sure wouldn't be my only car or main car. It wouldn't be long before you need to go somewhere and the battery isn't charged. Then you have the agony of what do you do? If it has enough to go one way, now you have to figure out if you can somehow charge it when you get there, etc.