Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Electric vehicle charging?

Our plug in hybrid pacifica charges about 12 hours on 120 volt for a full charge. We haven't bothered to add a 240v charger yet. Ours only runs about 30 miles on a charge and the rhetoric gas V6 kicks in. We usually just make one trip to town a day so we do the slow overnight 120v still. If it had a bigger battery or we used it more we'd have to have a 240 charger.

I have a 7.6 K watt solar system that was already a bit smaller than we needed vefore the van. With the van we get a power bill ever month now because our solar system just isn't large enough. I figure it cuts about $100 a month off of our bill on average. I wish I had at least a 10kwatt solar system. Our old hot tub uses some power.

Bb

........... You sure that thing is free ? Sounds kind of unbelievable. Besides; I've heard that those things won't do anything until you stick your credit or debit card into them. But then, I know absolutely nothing about that stuff.

I see you are in Montana. It gets cold in Montana, at least I've heard it does. Cold is the enemy of battery vehicles. The batteries have to have heaters to get them warm enough to work. Teslas can lose 40% of their range in cold weather, and that's their actual range, not the phony range they advertise. It will be a long time and a lot of convincing before I'll ever buy one.

There are a number of businesses around here that have charging stations customers can use for free while shopping or whatever.

Those of us who use vehicles for something other than getting groceries and a ride to the office are SO f'ckd.

I charge my Telsa with a Tesla brand charger I had installed in my garage. It puts out 48 amps, and I charge a few time a week for around 2 - 3 hours (I usually have around 40% left before I plug it in). I've programmed the car to only charge between midnight and 7:00 am, when my electricity rate are lowest. Before I installed the Tesla charger, I just plugged the car into a 110v outlet in my garage, but that does take a long time to get the battery charged. This might not be a problem if you just using your EV to do all the short car trips (which is how most people use their cars, most of the time). I've got a solar system (~7.5 KW) and "net metering" with the power company, so that helps.

I love that less of my money goes to the Sheiks in the middle east, and right now where I live gas is around 4.95 a gallon for regular. So I would think that for most people having one of their cars be electric makes sense.

The new Chevy truck coming out that is all electric is supposed to have around 565 hp and 410 ft lbs of torque and 450 miles max range on battery. Supposed to be able to tow a 10K trailer for 200 miles. Even if all that is true, I wouldn't buy one...

Keep in mind if you have the urge to buy an electric vehicle and you think you can install a fast charger or a super charger to make it worthwhile you might as well forget it. A fast charger will help, but will take an awful lot of power and add substantially to your electric bill- even if you have the capacity to install it on your electrical service. Remember, you need more than a few empty breaker spaces to have the capacity for a load that large- the service has to be designed and installed with the load in mind, all the way to the utility

. Depending on what part of the country you live in, this could easily be more than a gas bill for a gas powered vehicle for the same miles. A super charger isn't feasible in a residential setting. The cost of setting up a 480V charger that can put out the kind of amperage needed for a super charger would take a stand alone generator of probably 140-150 KW running at practically full load for the duration of the charge, which would probably take 1-2 hours for a full charge....

Using a residential solar set up to charge your electric vehicle? Impractical is the nicest thing I can say about it.... even if you only have to drive a few miles a day....

At this point in history, electric vehicles are a smart thing if your lifestyle allows it. The tax breaks alone make them attractive.

But the real world doesn't work that way. Not yet. Not even close.

They leave most of us in fly over country without any options

Your only option is to pay the taxes they aren't or get on the welfare.

Or not

Buying an electric vehicle can make sense in some applications. A commuter car would be one if them. I just installed a fast charger for a buddy. His commuter bill went from $200 a month in fuel to $45 extra on the electric bill. He bought the car used for $25k. It’ll take 14 years to pay for itsself via energy savings, but he needed a new car anyway so he considers it a win.

The recently awarded Montana “Fast Charge Your Ride” grants paid for with money from the Volkswagon Settlement Fund were awarded to four successful applicants:

GBP Enterprises, Gardiner: One fast-charging station at the Gardiner Travel Center

Missoula Electric Cooperative, Seeley Lake: One fast-charging station and one Level 2 charger at the Seeley Lake Community Foundation

NorthWestern Energy, Big Timber, Billings, Conrad, Deer Lodge, Dillon, Great Falls, Hamilton, Hardin and Helena: One fast-charging station and one Level 2 charger at a Town Pump in each community

Town Pump, Eureka, Kalispell and Libby: One fast-charging station and one Level 2 charger at a Town Pump in each community

The funds awarded focus on establishing fast-charging locations for Montana’s key travel corridors including Interstate 15, Interstate 90, U.S. Highway 2 and U.S. Highway 93.

“For that $3.40 [per gallon of gas], instead of getting 25 miles of range, you would actually get 180 miles of range with the average electric vehicle that's out there," Link

I have a friend in New Mexico that has solar panels and loves the savings (smart guy and really studied the topic)... I considered the same for my WV place... and the "math" was about 45% of his success.

Bottomline, study the benefits of solar and the quality of the panels (i.e. there are various efficiency grades) before you begin. Have a couple of contractors advance your knowledge/understanding... IMHO.

As for the car... I really have no opinion. We bought a Prius in 2010 and it has been brilliant... we also got big tax breaks... It will become free at 235k miles.

Will there be tax breaks on EVs? Probably... When?

Personally I doubt I will ever own an EV... my life simply does not support a need... but I am kind of the opposite of an urbanite.

Good luck in your search and decision.

Some of the charts posted here have some of the info in them but there is a lot of noise.

For a Tesla this is pretty straight forward: the fastest charging option for your home that you can buy from them right now is a Wall Connector and you'd put it on a 240v 60a circuit.

You can't buy a Supercharger, at least not from Tesla, even if you could feed it. We have 480v to the shop but put 2 Wall Connectors on distinct 60a circuits, because Tesla doesn't sell anything bigger right now. The graphic above that refers to "up to 80a" is for multiple Wall Connectors on a single 240v circuit and they can decide among themselves how to share that 80a. A single one on an 80a circuit will charge no faster than it will on 60a. Obviously you have to have the available capacity on the service coming into the site or at least be able to schedule the charging when your demand frees it up. Don't charge the car while the electric melt furnace is running.

At the moment we don't even own a Tesla. It might be they never deliver the ones we have on order, who knows. We have friends who charge when they visit us and the mileage they get per hour of charging varies by which car they have. 35 miles of range for each hour hooked up, is pretty typical.

Dear Millenials, I gots me a 600 amp Lincoln welder powered by a Detroit diesel, should I buy an electric car since it looks like I got the charging problem under control?

That is hilarious and I'm just a carpenter.

The irony of this is that my wife says yes, go ahead and buy an electric car. But....I ain’t driving it! She will not give up her 300hp Nissan Maxima Platinum for a frigging roller skate car. She loves her nice ride and on occasion I get to drive it...FAST.


Oh well. Guess that is the end of that for now. MTG

There is no way that 99% of women will remember to plug in their car. That's not conjecture, it's pure science.

Rollerskate? My brother's Tesla would blow the Maxima out of the water.