Everything I've Learnt About the Public EV Charging Businesss

Re:Everything I've Learnt About the Public EV Charging Busin... by WorldMaker on Thursday September 01, 2022 @12:43PM (#32679070)

On the decentralization front, I think we need to normalize "Level 1 Chargers" everywhere as an alternative. A "charger" can just be a standard outlet or three in a handy to access spot. No need for credit cards because the Level 1 electricity rates are probably cheaper than parking costs or other things people will be doing on your site anyway. (It's "basic hospitality" at that point, like how phone chargers have started to proliferate in places like coffee shops.) No need for a central database or status checks, because you can just put outlets everywhere and then expect people to find them/use them as they see fit. The more "Level 1 Chargers" that exist in the wild the less people think Chargers have to be gas-station like "pumps" and maybe the more that understand electricity is just electricity and doesn't need to be centralized in the same ways as gas stations. Yes, Level 1 Charging is slow, but it is still better than no charging, and as an available, massively decentralized option it can help drive down costs of Level 2/3+/Fast Charging.

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Re:Everything I've Learnt About the Public EV Charging Busin... by gizmo686 on Thursday September 01, 2022 @12:51PM (#32679220)

Is there any reason not to do Level 2. Every building has either 240 split phase or 208 3 phase (at least in the US). If you are going to add a new circut and wiring to support charging, why not use a full power circuit?

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Re:Everything I've Learnt About the Public EV Charging Busin... by WorldMaker on Thursday September 01, 2022 @01:12PM (#32679620)

Level 2 makes sense outside of the US as the easy decentralized default. In the US the cost differences between installing "a regular plug" and "a dryer plug" are just substantial enough that it moves it over the hump of "easy cheap electric project" to "who's going to pay for this?" The idea of normalizing Level 1 is not to add new circuits in many cases, just add additional boring "regular" outlets to existing circuits (like all the phone chargers we see), in many cases just opening up existing outlets already on the outside of buildings for convenience charging. As soon as people hit that "who's going to pay for this?" it stops being a hospitality project and starts to balloon in people's minds towards "well, we'll need to meter this and charge people's credit cards and…" I think Level 1 as hospitality is worth normalizing and is much easier to decentralize.

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Re:Everything I've Learnt About the Public EV Charging Busin... by gizmo686 on Thursday September 01, 2022 @02:44PM (#32681094)

What existing circuit? Most parking lots do not have any electricty wired to them, and outlets on the exterior of buildings are relatively uncomen and woukd be a tripping hazard and generally unsightly if regularly wired to a parking lot. Plus, the charger would likely draw most of the amperage the circut can provide, so using an existing circut is asking for blown fuses.

I can see level 1 in private garages, or somewhere that happens to have a conveniently located 120V plug near the parking spot. But only because the plugs are already there.

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Re:Everything I've Learnt About the Public EV Charging Busin... by WorldMaker on Thursday September 01, 2022 @04:23PM (#32682577)

Most parking lots have existing circuits for street lamps. There's even a bonus there that street lamps installed before LEDs became common are generally "Level 2" circuits already.

Outlets on the exterior of buildings are quite common today since electric lawn tools and power tools became much more common (roughly sometime between the 70s and 90s). There are some electric codes that require a certain number of exterior outlets. Protocols for minimizing tripping hazards are a solvable problem, including yes, relocating outlets to more convenient to parking spaces. That's often still cheaper than installing Level 2 outlets in the US.

> blown fuses

If a building is still using fuses and experiences blown fuses in 2022 it has other modernization challenges. You may just be colloquially using that to also encompass circuit breakers and breaking a circuit in a circuit breaker, but in general circuit breakers have some pretty strong ratings and it's not a critical hazard if a circuit breaker breaks a circuit. It may be annoying to other users of that circuit, sure, but it's a temporary inconvenience that is solvable with "politeness". (Be polite and don't try to draw more than your circuit is capable of. Share as necessary. Etc.) To my understanding most Level 1 EVSEs are quite polite and gently check circuit state before trying to pull full amperage.

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Re:Everything I've Learnt About the Public EV Charging Busin... by hedora on Thursday September 01, 2022 @07:35PM (#32684773)

Our house has a bunch of exterior 110v outlets, but they are all on the same 20A circuit. Our level 1 charger takes many hours to charge our small EV battery, and draws 16A. There's no way for it to politely ask the circuit breaker how much amperage is left on the circuit.

If I was wiring a parking garage, I'd likely run level 2 charges, since you get twice the charge rate for the same amount of copper.

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