Post by dr.girlfriend on Jul 20, 2023 11:55:07 GMT -5
Sorry, figured a separate thread might be good for this one. If you installed an EV charging station for your house:
1. How expensive was it and what kind did you go with? 2. Is it attached to your house (e.g. on the exterior wall) or kind of free-standing? 3. Did they have to run a line from your main electrical panel or how does that work? I have a regular plug on the porch and I'm wondering if that can get adapted somehow. 4. Any other recommendations or tips? We also need our driveway redone so not sure if I should do that first, or after, or try to get it done all at the same time?
Post by dutchgirl678 on Jul 20, 2023 12:42:28 GMT -5
We have it in our garage. We got the Emporia charger because it got really good reviews and we got it on sale for $299. It cost about $800 to get it installed, but we got 30% refunded when we did our taxes. The price depended on how far from the electrical panel it was installed. They had to add a circuit to our panel because of the voltage so I'm not sure if a regular plug can be adapted. There is a cable that came with the car that we can use and it plugs into a regular outlet but I'm not sure how slow that would be. If you want them to run wire underground, I would do that before redoing your driveway.
Post by goldengirlz on Jul 20, 2023 13:01:23 GMT -5
The plug ours uses is called a NEMA plug, which I was told is similar to (or even the same as?) what our dryer uses.
We had a Tesla-recommended electrician install it. It did require him to use a dedicated switch on our electric panel but we had enough capacity with our current box (which is ancient and currently in the process of being upgraded.) The electrical box is all the way on the other side of the house, but that was no issue at all.
Installation cost $600 and it’s in the garage, on the left side because the charge port is on the left hand side of the Tesla. I have no idea if that’s standard across car manufacturers so you’d want to double check.
We have a Juicebox for our J1772 plugs. I don’t remember the exact cost, $700(?). But we got some kind of state rebate that I think that really helped lower that such that it may have been close to free. The installation quote was several hundred on top of that so my husband Youtubed it and actually did the whole thing himself. I was a little nervous about that as he is not an electrician but he did a great job. It is attached to the front wall of our garage in the middle with a long cord so that either car can reach. He did have to run a big thick line from our basement electric panel on the far side of the house (there was just enough room on the panel) up to the garage. As for your current plug, you could trickle charge (level 1) with a regular 110v plug (we do that overnight at my in-laws) but you’d likely want a 220v plug to give you level 2 capabilities.
We have a Juicebox for our J1772 plugs. I don’t remember the exact cost, $700(?). But we got some kind of state rebate that I think that really helped lower that such that it may have been close to free. The installation quote was several hundred on top of that so my husband Youtubed it and actually did the whole thing himself. I was a little nervous about that as he is not an electrician but he did a great job. It is attached to the front wall of our garage in the middle with a long cord so that either car can reach. He did have to run a big thick line from our basement electric panel on the far side of the house (there was just enough room on the panel) up to the garage. As for your current plug, you could trickle charge (level 1) with a regular 110v plug (we do that overnight at my in-laws) but you’d likely want a 220v plug to give you level 2 capabilities.
We have a juice box as well. With a 220 outlet. No problems with it. We charge the car once or twice a week.
We had a major issue with the install. Our house’s electrical panel was just about full. The house is very old, so a clever electrician was able to see what we weren’t using anymore and use that to clear up space. But the first few electricians wanted to charge about $5,000 to add a panel etc.
We came in around 1k for the install. It works great.
1. Rivian branded level 2 charger. We had to run very expensive wire about 100ft to our garage so it wasn't cheap. I think the charger, plus labor and supplies was around $3k. ($500 for the charger)
2. It's mounted on the inside wall of our garage.
3. Yes, they ran a line from our electrical panel. If you want more than a trickle charge (1-2 miles per hour) you're going to need a more powerful line I'm guessing. Ours is a 60 amp wire.
4. We ran our wire from panel to our crawlspace and up into our garage so we didn't need to go underground.
I have the juice box as well. My electrical panel is near the corner of my house by the driveway so good location for the install. We had to have a mini second panel added though because the main breaker box was out of room. About $800 for the install.
My only issue, and I don’t know if it’s the car or the charger; is that if I try to charge now at full amps the breaker can support, the car stops charging after about an hour. No breaker trip, no signs of an issue on the app, just the car saying an error that according to the dealership is a “charging infrastructure error”. I turned the amps down a tiny bit and it’s been working since.
I have an Autel charger at our beach rental, but I haven’t used it near as much to be able to talk about longevity. That install was a bit more because they had to lay conduit under a deck and under a small concrete slab to get to the location for the charger.
1. How expensive was it and what kind did you go with? we went with chargepoint and it was around $200 for the charger and $800 for the labor/materials 2. Is it attached to your house (e.g. on the exterior wall) or kind of free-standing? inside our garage 3. Did they have to run a line from your main electrical panel or how does that work? they ran a line from our main electrical panel 4. Any other recommendations or tips?
Has anyone calculated what the additional expense of charging an EV has done to your electric bill?
We have an EV rate plan so we pay less for off-peak charging. I calculated that it’s about $100/month extra for us or about 60 extra “units” (looking at our energy usage report.)
It’s definitely not cheaper than a gas car. Worth noting that we pay very high rates for both gas and electric (we’re in CA.)
Has anyone calculated what the additional expense of charging an EV has done to your electric bill?
In Seattle, our electricity rate is $0.1307/kWh. Our leaf has a 30 kWh battery and we get about 90 miles on a full charge if we don't run the A/C, so we get about 3 miles/kWh. So if we drove 1200 miles per year we'd spend (1200/3)*.1307 or a little over $52/month. That's a big increase in our electricity bill, but a lot cheaper than gas (at 30mpg we'd spend over $200 a month).
In states with expensive electricity -- the northeast and California -- I think a Prius (not a plug-in hybrid) or really fuel efficient gas car might be cheaper in terms of gas costs.
Has anyone calculated what the additional expense of charging an EV has done to your electric bill?
We have an EV rate plan so we pay less for off-peak charging. I calculated that it’s about $100/month extra for us or about 60 extra “units” (looking at our energy usage report.)
It’s definitely not cheaper than a gas car. Worth noting that we pay very high rates for both gas and electric (we’re in CA.)
I am also in California and have found it a lot cheaper, assuming I’m doing the math correctly.
Our EV estimates we average about 4 miles per kWh. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the weather and time of year. But 4 is a good number.
We are on a special EV rate plan that costs $0.26 per kWh during off peak hours. We charge only during off peak hours. At 4 miles per kWh, that’s 0.26/4= $0.065 per mile cost.
Our other gas powered sedan averages 30 miles per gallon, so the EV equivalent would be 30*0.065= $1.95.
Our current gas prices are in the $4.xx per gallon. $1.95 for 30 miles is not too bad.
We charge at home when needed but also utilities level 2 chargers at places that we visit. You get 2 hours of free charging and that usually adds about 30-40 miles for our vehicle. But we need to charge once or twice a month with normal driving and it probably added about $50 worth of electricity usage to our bill. We were spending $60-70 on gas but that was when gas was $3.30-3.50 per gallon and now it's $4 or above.
I can see my detailed usage but I don't have the mental bandwidth to figure it out exactly. I just know what our bill increased (on average) after we took ownership of the vehicle, lol.