{"id":82,"date":"2017-10-23T22:39:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T02:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/?page_id=82"},"modified":"2018-09-09T13:20:37","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T17:20:37","slug":"getting-started-with-your-ev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/2017\/10\/23\/getting-started-with-your-ev\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Started with your EV"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Picking up Electric Alice at our dealer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Too Long Didn’t Read (TLDR):<\/strong><\/div>\n
If you have an EV, buy a 240 volt\/30amp home charger.<\/div>\n
For a PHEV, the charging cord that comes with the car might be fine.<\/div>\n
Get accounts and cards for the main charging networks in areas you plan to travel. Install Plugshare on your phone to find chargers away from home.<\/div>\n
Enjoy road tripping at a relaxed pace<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

When you buy your EV you may find that your dealer does not know much about charging and how to make life easy with your EV, here is what we have discovered over the last 3-4 months and 11,000km of ownership.\u00a0 This page does not cover Tesla’s cars and charging because Tesla has this packaged really well and Tesla has their own resources to help.<\/p>\n

About EV Plugs in North America:
\nYour EV and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) will have a plug known as a J1772 EV Plug. \"\"This universal plug is used for level 1 and 2 charging, all public Level 2 stations support this standard.
\nYou may also have an L3\/DC fast charging with either a CCS connector, where the EV Plug has 2 extra pins for DC fast charging \"\"or a CHAdeMO plug.\"\"The vast majority of Level 3 chargers support both CHAdeMO and CCS, but there are sites with either one or the other.<\/div>\n

\u00a0Home Charging<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charging at home is perhaps the biggest advantage of owning an EV, no more getting up to leave on a cold wet morning to find your S.O. has brought the car home with the gas light on. There are 2 options for charging at home, Level 1 using the cord that came with the car or Level 2 using a charger wired to your house.<\/div>\n
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Level 1 charging uses a normal 110v plug and charges the car at 10-12 amps.\u00a0 This will add about 7km\/hour to the cars range, slow but usable.\u00a0 Lots of EV owners only ever charge this way and for many it works well. There are some disadvantages, it takes a long time to fully charge the EV, for an e-Golf this could be up to 30 hours. Level 1 charging is less efficient as the EV’s charging system losses are a bigger percentage of the load.\u00a0 Level 1 makes it harder to take advantage of Time-Of-Day rates from your electricity provider as the time to charge might be longer than the cheap rate times. If you have a Plug-in Hybrid EV, Level 1 could be all you need.<\/p>\n

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Level 2 charging is more convenient as most EVs will charge at 40km\/h so the charging time is much shorter – 3 to 5 hours.\u00a0 The cost of charging at level 2 is cheaper as the loss in the EV’s charging system is less as the charger runs for less time.\u00a0 Level 2 is much easier to use with Time-Of-Day rates.<\/p>\n

The disadvantage of Level 2 charging is the start up costs.\u00a0 You need to run a 40 amp circuit to your garage or parking spot, you need to buy a charger.\u00a0 Installed this can run $1500-2000.\u00a0 Some jurisdictions provide subsidies for EV chargers.<\/p>\n

We have a ChargePoint Home<\/a>\u00a0charger that we are very happy with.\u00a0 There are quite a few manufactures with a wide range of prices.\u00a0 You need to decide between a basic charger or a “smart charger” that connects to the internet for control and energy monitoring.\u00a0 \u00a0If you are going the smart route, take a good look at the app and website for controlling the charger before buying.<\/p>\n

There are other options for home charging such as kits and lower power units that can reduce the costs, we will cover these in a future post.<\/p>\n

Public Charging<\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple of days after we picked up our car we headed out on a road trip to Maryland.\u00a0 We had some book smarts from researching on the Internet, but we really did not know what we were doing. That said, by the time we got back we were pros and we had a list of things we could have done to make life easier.<\/p>\n

Finding Chargers:<\/p>\n

Plugshare<\/a> is the best app for finding chargers.\u00a0 Most of the information is crowd sourced and they have a check in and scoring system that highlights chargers with poor reliability, if the score on a charger is less than 10, check the comments to see if there is a problem.\u00a0 Checking in on Plugshare when you are charging allows you to be contacted if someone is waiting for you to return and you can use ChargeBump<\/a> to help too.\u00a0 Having a pad and pen to leave notes – requesting to be plugged in for example is also handy.<\/p>\n

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Types of Public Chargers:<\/p>\n

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Public Level 2 chargers, most are 6-7kW (40km\/h).\u00a0 They are often installed in pairs as the picture on the right shows. Costs for charging range from free to $1-2 per hour or fixed session prices around $4.<\/p>\n

Public Level 3 chargers (CCS and\/or CHAdeMO) can range from 20-50kW, providing 100-250km\/h charging.\u00a0 \"\"\u00a0Costs vary from free to $10-20 per hour, some networks also charge a connection fee of $4-6. Fast charging can be quite expensive,\u00a0 particularly if the charging rate is restricted, perhaps ending up costing more than buying gas, but it is quite a small portion of the charging most people do that it does not impact the overall costs too much.<\/p>\n

Paying for Charging:<\/p>\n

One of the big issues with the EV world is the large number of separate charging networks that all seem to require their own accounts, apps and cards.<\/p>\n

We discovered that using a card to start a charger is far easier than using your phone so we now have cards for all the networks we will normally use on trips.<\/p>\n

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If you live in Ontario or Quebec and you plan to travel, we recommend getting accounts with FLO<\/a> or Electric Circuit<\/a>, myEVRoute,<\/a> ChargePoint<\/a>\u00a0and Greenlots<\/a>.\u00a0 In other areas, take a look at the chargers in Plugshare to see if which accounts you might need.<\/p>\n

With FLO<\/a> or Electric Circuit<\/a>\u00a0you only need one or the other, they are both brands of the same company,\u00a0Addenergie<\/a>.\u00a0 FLO and EC provide the vast majority of charging stations in Quebec.\u00a0 They are growing their Ontario network under both brands.\u00a0 FLO and EC accounts also work in New Brunswick on the\u00a0eCharge Network<\/a>, There are a few chargers branded Reo Tinto or VER these are all on the same AddEnergie network and work with the same cards.<\/p>\n

An account with myEVRoute,<\/a> KSI’s charging network is required for travel in Ontario, they are installing over 90 Level 3 stations in Ontario, all west of Ottawa.<\/p>\n

A ChargePoint<\/a> account is handy for a number of free stations at VW dealers (CCS only) and free stations at various other locations.<\/p>\n

Greenlots <\/a>have some stations in Canada including a handy free one at Veridian Corporation in Ajax, I have their app, I have not bothered to get a card.<\/p>\n

For our trip to the US we used EVGo<\/a> at some stations and at the time we had to phone in and use a credit card which added to the cost.\u00a0 We now have an account and card and this should simplify matters with them.\u00a0\u00a0 ChargePoint<\/a>\u00a0 and\u00a0Greenlots<\/a>\u00a0have lots of chargers in the Eastern US.<\/p>\n

Sema Connect<\/a> Level 2 chargers are very common but you can use Plugshare to activate and pay, avoiding yet another set of accounts.<\/p>\n

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Road Tripping<\/strong><\/p>\n

Enjoying heading out on the open road in an EV is all a matter of attitude. A bit of planning and a relaxed schedule can make for a great trip.\u00a0 It is much like travelling in the early days of the car, you go where the chargers take you and the journey is richer for it.<\/p>\n

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The wonderful Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Vermont – We found this because there is a fast charger in the parking lot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Views: 426<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Too Long Didn’t Read (TLDR): If you have an EV, buy a 240 volt\/30amp home charger. For a PHEV, the charging cord that comes with the car might be fine. Get accounts and cards for the main charging networks in areas you plan to travel. Install Plugshare on your phone to find chargers away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ev-ownership"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1313,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/1313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/electricalice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}