quickfarms
Well-known member
If you can not decide just run the conduit for future use, cheap and easy when the walls are open
Planning for EV charging?
- Thread starter andyvh1959
- Start date
Mr_fixit
Well-known member
They've been making electric vehicles since the 1890's. As an engineer, I think they have a use, just not everywhere across the country. And not so much in cold states like yours. but who knows ten years from now, maybe they'll be hydrogen powered.
jkeyser14
Well-known member
As an engineer, I would hope you would look into the full cycle efficiency of electrolysis and fuel cells before making comments like that. Electricity to H2 and back is only ~25% efficient (and is not going to get much better due to the laws of chemistry/physics). Battery storage is 95% efficient. H2 isn't the future, but batteries will be.
OP
andyvh1959
Well-known member
My take is that to a realtor, they assume ANY home buyer views the garage as an empty space for nothing more than two cars and the kid's bicycles. Yet, here in and around Green Bay many homes in the $175,000 and up price range have at least a three car garage or more. Many many homes just out of town have at least an attached two car garage and a detached two car or much larger garage. So around here there is a definite market for more garages, and more functions for those garages.
Now that I've built my detached garage I think it has improved the instant curb appeal of the property. My house is on a 1/2 acre city lot, but its a contemporary 70's tri-level with an attached two garage under the bedrooms at the driveway end of the house, which is not visible when driving by the house. Made the property look like a commercial building or dentists office (which I have had numerous people mention about the property).
reader2580
Well-known member
My brother is building a new house. He put in 6 AWG cables for two future EV charging circuits. He just ran them to a box with no receptacle installed yet. When he gets an EV he will put in the proper receptacle.
dcg9381
Well-known member
Technology changes are massive. I was into RC aircraft. Used to be everything was gas powered - and the hassles were substantial. Now we have brushless motors (maintenance free) and small batteries that can easily burst to over 100A... It's changing the game in automotive. Even full size (general) aviation is starting to experiment with it.
tdkkart
Well-known member
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
That's only about half as stupid as using a generator to charge you car.
TIL that backup power is stupid.
Kaizen
Well-known member
That's only about half as stupid as using a generator to charge you car.
So you have a full charged car from your solar panels and you lose power. Why stupid if you have it on hand. Even if you paid for the car power same thing as running a generator.
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jkeyser14
Well-known member
That's only about half as stupid as using a generator to charge you car.
My Tesla has a large enough battery pack to power my house for several days. I would love to be able to tap into that power if we had a large outage. It would be dead silent unlike a normal generator and it would be 75% cheaper to run than my backup generator which can **** down 5 gallons in a couple hours.
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Without solar or a backup generator, it would **** to end up with no power at home and a dead car
AntonLargiader
Well-known member
That doesn't sound very challenging to manage through software. Limiting myself to the upper half of a 100kWh battery would give me a full day's normal household consumption, which easily see me through a typical outage here, without even trying to conserve power.
Kaizen
Well-known member
Up here we can have bad storms that put some out for days but a couple towns away there is power. Kinda cool to think you can take a car, go charge it for half hour, then come back and have power during an outage.
Not sure why some are so against this idea?? My original point was to use electric big enough to have this ability as some would not be aware.
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So next question is one charge location in the garage enough ?
Especially if your planning for 20-30 years ahead.
Next question after that is 200 amp service Adequate to handle two charge stations and the rest of the home ? Bigger more capacity batteries are going to demand two 60-90 amp lines to the garage area.
Especially if your planning for 20-30 years ahead.
Next question after that is 200 amp service Adequate to handle two charge stations and the rest of the home ? Bigger more capacity batteries are going to demand two 60-90 amp lines to the garage area.
AntonLargiader
Well-known member
I think it's pointless to try to plan for 20~30 years ahead. And even if you knew what that looked like, it would be pointless to build for it now. The OP is thinking ten years, which - as is reflected by the posts here - is already questionable as future-proofing goes.
slow
Well-known member
exactly. Also use the battery as a localized capacitor for the small inrush current demands of the household preventing the spike from being pulled from the grid. I would happily sacrifice 80% of the range on an EV to have quiet power during an extended power outage and no need to try to keep fuel for a generator.
tdkkart
Well-known member
Seeing that right now, our company has only had WiFi inside the campus for less 6 or 8 years, IT folks are running around replacing all the hotspots for I believe the 3rd time.
This says nothing about how many times the phone system wiring has been changed over the years.
tdkkart
Well-known member
Hmmm? So I wonder why you don't have to google very long to find people that have used Tesla batteries in their solar systems, only to replace them within just a couple years?
slow
Well-known member
to be fair, depth of draw and how the batteries are charged makes a huge difference in how long they live. In the case of using an actual EV with engineered charging routines and just pulling from the battery would be consistent with light use of the vehicle for a long time.
Trying to charge a tesla battery with a limited solar input and then high depth of discharge will kill any battery. You start playing with Time of use peak offsetting and trying to cycle your batteries every day to save money on utility rates, there will be a lot more wear than pulling a small 1-2K watt load off of a 50-100kw battery pack during a power failure situation.
Edit, to be fair, "Tesla’s warranty, using your EV as a stationary power source will automatically void your warranty"
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dcg9381
Well-known member
That's a good question. Best way to answer it IMHO, is setup some sort of power monitoring and look at your peak usage. Generally, EVs can charge in the evening when the house is under low load. Many EV chargers can be "dialed back" too.
I was surprised to see our power peaks at 10KW during "moderate" climate periods - running 2 HVACs. That means we've got a ton of power for EV...
dcg9381
Well-known member
Why? I get it if you mean slow recharge and deep discharge... But my understanding is that Tesla's charging algorithms are very conservative.
Wouldn't slow charge be better than supercharging and high discharge?
slow
Well-known member
I was saying charging by solar, where you have a limited power available to put into the battery pack based on power availability. I agree that the Tesla EV charging algorithms are very conservative, but they are typically charged with grid input, so they can hold a higher or lower charge rate, where a solar charge controller is going to try to use all of the power available, even if under or slightly higher than optimal. In a solar situation, you may be working the batteries from 10-40% capacity or from 100-20% each day. Fortunately modern lithiums are not like lead acid where you really need to go from bulk, to absorption then float charging, where the limited solar input often prevents people from getting into the float stage.
I am not an expert in lithium life cycle, but common logic would agree that slow or medium charging would be better life than supercharging as far less heat is generated, but also the voltage the batteries are charged to makes a big difference in cycles as well, so while each individual cell in the pack may be able to go to say 4.2 volts only charging it to 4.0 or 3.92 will increase cycle count, BUT reduces capacity by a significant amount.
Denwood
Well-known member
EVs have BMS systems that control both charge and discharge. The only issue with quick charging is heat, and the BMS will throttle back charge rate if pack temps are too high.
Best lithium health is maintained by cycling around 50%. 100% is fine, but leaving the packs in that state for longer periods is not advised. I just noticed even Lenovo has an 80% option (so will stop charging at 80% for folks who use their laptops on AC all the time. They do this to extend the cell life. Apple has a similar scheme for battery management baked into iOS.
Btw, every 2020 and newer LEAF has VSC (connect to home) via the ChadeMO charge port built in. This requires another $6K or so of hardware at home though. I think 7 kW is the limit. This is already extensively supported in Japan where the push for sustainable power and grid connected EVs might solve a few problems.
The “right now” approach in US/Canada for emergency power is to just put a 3000 watt inverter (feeding your house) on the EVs 12V battery, leaving the car on. The DC to DC converter on the EV then supplies that 12V power via the 400 Volt pack.
Best lithium health is maintained by cycling around 50%. 100% is fine, but leaving the packs in that state for longer periods is not advised. I just noticed even Lenovo has an 80% option (so will stop charging at 80% for folks who use their laptops on AC all the time. They do this to extend the cell life. Apple has a similar scheme for battery management baked into iOS.
Btw, every 2020 and newer LEAF has VSC (connect to home) via the ChadeMO charge port built in. This requires another $6K or so of hardware at home though. I think 7 kW is the limit. This is already extensively supported in Japan where the push for sustainable power and grid connected EVs might solve a few problems.
The “right now” approach in US/Canada for emergency power is to just put a 3000 watt inverter (feeding your house) on the EVs 12V battery, leaving the car on. The DC to DC converter on the EV then supplies that 12V power via the 400 Volt pack.
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jkeyser14
Well-known member
In that case I would just drive to the local supercharger and top of my car before it dies, or I would fire up my gasoline generator. But in the ideal world I'd also have solar to keep the car topped off during the day.
All of this is a moot point, In the last 40 years I've only had one power outage that lasted more than 3 hours, it was due to a hurricane that took out so many lines/transformers that our dead end street with 10 houses on it was low on the priority list to fix. When that happened we lost power for 5 days, so we just drove to a family member's house.
I am fortunate to live in a state that's not as incompetent as TX or CA when it comes to power grid related maintenance.
dcg9381
Well-known member
Common misconception that solar provides power in the event of a grid failure. Unless you've got a battery system or a specialized inverter (which usually only gives you a single outlet) when the grid goes down, solar goes down and stays down. Works this way because the inverted can't "sync" to the grid and to prevent backfeeding if linemen are working on the grid.
A portable generator could be used to charge an EV... I'd be "ready" for it with the appropriate adapters though.
Noltz
Well-known member
6/6/6/6 THHN all the way from the LC to the plug, no breaks. It was tough but I wanted to be 100% sure it was safe. Electrician laughed and passed my work. Apparently running a 6 gauge ground was a little overkill
I would run a conduit if you don’t know what size wire to run now.
We had a 40amp circuit as the charger we had put out 32a. Now most chargers put out around 48a and need a 60a circuit. We had to change out our wiring for a Tesla charger as ours does 72a output. So a 80a breaker.
Tesla did start limiting the home charging on all their vehicles, so you probably will not need over 60a these days unless they release some special charger later.
We had a 40amp circuit as the charger we had put out 32a. Now most chargers put out around 48a and need a 60a circuit. We had to change out our wiring for a Tesla charger as ours does 72a output. So a 80a breaker.
Tesla did start limiting the home charging on all their vehicles, so you probably will not need over 60a these days unless they release some special charger later.
2 - 50a circuits are more than enough for the generic family home on a 200a service.
thats 9.6kw per circuit. on a 12 hour night of charging thats 115KWH delivered.
when we get into pickups that power job sites a 100a circuit might start to make some sense. thats 230kwh delivered overnight. run an air comp all day long for a framing crew.
jasondavidmann
Well-known member
A lot of good information here! I have similar plans for future proofing as I am building a new shop now as well.
I'll follow along this discussion to pick up as much information as possible. I had a similar question about total power and EV charging, I guess one consideration is the EV's will likely charge at night when I'm sleeping and not using the air compressor and welder at the same time.
200amp House (gas furnace, electric AC)
100amp subpanel shop
-60amp electric boiler shop
-usual electric tools in shop
-2xEV charging
I'll follow along this discussion to pick up as much information as possible. I had a similar question about total power and EV charging, I guess one consideration is the EV's will likely charge at night when I'm sleeping and not using the air compressor and welder at the same time.
200amp House (gas furnace, electric AC)
100amp subpanel shop
-60amp electric boiler shop
-usual electric tools in shop
-2xEV charging
Walkers
Well-known member
It is an excellent idea. My wife and I bought a Tesla 3 years ago. It is the best car we have ever owned, and by far the cheapest to operate.
oh no. you gona upset people around here not saying how good a manual choke is.
acer66
Well-known member
I started to get interested in solar and did not know that.
Thank you.
Stuart in MN
Well-known member
I was watching This Old House last night and they were talking about the next thing in home charging may be non-contact inductive charging, from a pad built into the floor. It's anyone's guess when and if that will become common, but it's an example of how the charging and installation requirements may change in the future.
They also touched on being able to use an EV to provide power to the house in the event of an outage. Of course it wouldn't be practical for a long term outage, and also not for running large inductive loads like air conditioning, but for short term (like a few hours, which is what most people probably face) being able to run a few lights , a gas furnace, and the fridge it would be useful.
They also touched on being able to use an EV to provide power to the house in the event of an outage. Of course it wouldn't be practical for a long term outage, and also not for running large inductive loads like air conditioning, but for short term (like a few hours, which is what most people probably face) being able to run a few lights , a gas furnace, and the fridge it would be useful.
They had bi-directional charges in the works for some EV, but dont think they ever gained much traction. https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/dcbel-home-electric-car-charger/
EHhh the losses on wireless charging will be huge due to physics. its one thing to have 45% losses on charging a phone. doubling your EV charging costs is silly waste IMO.
and V2G technology is really cool. hope it gets expanded on.
James-W
Well-known member
I had a 200 amp service installed when I built the garage so I am ready for whatever needs to be done in order to charge an electric vehicle.
AntonLargiader
Well-known member
And do you basically have to install it with an interlock in the breaker panel? Seems to me that any V2H would need something like that.
Jim_No_Garage
Well-known member
you need an ATS that it talks to. no details on if its a 2 wire hook up or if its something ford integrated more tightly.