I ran into a guy who seemed very level headed. He said he only uses 110-volt charging at home for his Nissan Leaf, which he supplements with commercial chargers when roaming further afield. For those who do this, what's the real-world performance you are getting from 110-volt charging at home? One reason I ask is that our 160-year-old house only has 60-amp service, and the cost of upgrading that plus significant rewiring would be a big hit before we could even consider installing a 240-volt charger. Another reason is that places I frequent have no chargers, but it would be possible to plug in to 110 at some of them.
110 charging in the real world
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Our 2018 Model 3 Mid Range RWD charges at a whopping rate of 4 MPH on 110v. I had a NEMA 14-50 recepticle installed which delivers 30 to 32 MPH at 32A. The AWD cars can uses a little more amperage.
If you have an unused 3 prong dryer outlet, my understanding that delivers 20 to 25 MPH but I do not know for sure.
You are looking at significant cost to upgrade your service. This may be OK if you were planning to do so anyway. I had upgraded our old panel years ago; sure glad I did. Luckily a friend was a journeyman electrician and did it for next to nothing.
There are owners who charge at work for subsidized rates, but this is hardly a dependable solution for most.
Will 4 MPH work? That depends on your use case. Not mine.
If you have an unused 3 prong dryer outlet, my understanding that delivers 20 to 25 MPH but I do not know for sure.
You are looking at significant cost to upgrade your service. This may be OK if you were planning to do so anyway. I had upgraded our old panel years ago; sure glad I did. Luckily a friend was a journeyman electrician and did it for next to nothing.
There are owners who charge at work for subsidized rates, but this is hardly a dependable solution for most.
Will 4 MPH work? That depends on your use case. Not mine.
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So far as 110V charging goes, my only experience was with my 2012 Volt, which I charged exclusively at home, on 110.
The Volt had a whopping 50 miles of total electric range, which isn't a very big battery, BUT it would charge from "0" to 100% overnight.
I did install a dedicated 110V outlet using #10 wire on a 30 amp breaker, and in it's own metal box, because at the time, there were horror stories about receptacles getting hot.
I didn't have any issues like that. The charging cord would get warm however, which I felt was a waste of electricity.
Ultimately, it seems to depend on the size of the battery.
The Volt had a whopping 50 miles of total electric range, which isn't a very big battery, BUT it would charge from "0" to 100% overnight.
I did install a dedicated 110V outlet using #10 wire on a 30 amp breaker, and in it's own metal box, because at the time, there were horror stories about receptacles getting hot.
I didn't have any issues like that. The charging cord would get warm however, which I felt was a waste of electricity.
Ultimately, it seems to depend on the size of the battery.
It's interesting because day to day 4mph charging rate would work for me. 10 miles round trip to work along with errands usually being under 5 miles away.
The hold up would be if i every needed to go outside my normal, which happens of course. I wouldn't want all my eggs in one slow charging basket just to have some margin for error.
The hold up would be if i every needed to go outside my normal, which happens of course. I wouldn't want all my eggs in one slow charging basket just to have some margin for error.
With driving those few miles, any car would work. An ICE car would require refueling, what, every 2 weeks or longer?
You have 220V coming into your 60A service panel. What is the size of your panel feed wire that goes from where the utilities lines terminate. I'm assuming that wire will support at least 100A.
My house is 135 years old and its only been 5 or so years ago that I changed out my fuse and pull breaker panel to a 200A modern breaker panel. It really isn't that expensive or difficult to do, but you will need a permit because the power company won't kill your service at the pole unless you have the permit. Whole swap took less than a day to do.
My house is 135 years old and its only been 5 or so years ago that I changed out my fuse and pull breaker panel to a 200A modern breaker panel. It really isn't that expensive or difficult to do, but you will need a permit because the power company won't kill your service at the pole unless you have the permit. Whole swap took less than a day to do.
I had a 2014 Volt and 2018 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. For a long time I only charged with 120V because I didnt realy need anything more. The only time it would have been useful is if I was coming home on a depleted battery but needed to turn around quickly for another trip. I think I could get away with it just fine with a Tesla as well because you could top up overnight for the daily commute and then use a public charger for longer trips on the weekends.
Should've been no more than a 20 amp breaker if you were connecting it to a standard 5-15 or 5-20 receptacle.
Many of those old services had panels with a main and range (usually 50A) fuse. A lot of times the range fuse wasn't even used because the house had a gas range. In that case you could feed a subpanel off the range fuse.
What are your existing 240V loads now?
I'm using the OE 110V charger set at 12a to charge my AWD IONIQ 6 with good results for around town driving.
There are chargers now that monitor the usage of the home and will charge the vehicle up to the max load of the panel. Then if you turn on your dryer or something the charger will reduce the charging rate. This is a pretty good option if you don't want to pay many thousands to upgrade your line/panel.
Nothing. Gas stove, heat, hot water, and dryer. A few years ago I asked an electrician about upgrading the house to 200 amps to be able to support a dryer and stove and he ballparked $5-10K for the job.
It depends on the vehicle you are considering and your daily driving needs. As the others have mentioned, 3-4 miles per hour is the average with a 12A 120V charge. I am aware of two people (Model LR and current Leaf) who use 120V successfully, but it is definitely not ideal.
Honestly, most houses in 2023 should have at least a 100A service, arguably 200A.
60A tells me you're on aluminum wiring and/or knob and tube, which should be upgraded for a multitude of reasons. 5-10K is a steal for that work.
Over the 10 months I've owned my Accent I've average 560 miles per month. Mostly because I ride my Honda scooter to work every dry day in the summer. But at about 40mpg in my day to day driving i would see well over 400 miles per tank.
I had a RAV4 Prime and charged at 120v with it. I sometimes would wake up and not have a full battery, and the battery was only good for about 30-40mi. It took about 10 hours to get a full charge. 18kwh battery, roughly, as I recall. 110v may be fine for city dwellers, but that's about it. Since I've gone full EV, I have put in a 240v.
At the least you will need a dedicated 2 conductor with ground circuit from the main box to the garage outlet. Then it is usually not too complicated to energize it with 240 volts, even at a 15 or 20 amp level so as not to overload the service. The car charger can be configured to draw only what you've determined the house is capable of.
Old cloth covered #14 or smaller wiring should not be trusted for a steady high current such as car charging.
Old cloth covered #14 or smaller wiring should not be trusted for a steady high current such as car charging.
There's no way your lighting and general receptacles load comes anywhere near 60A.
By the time aluminum wiring was in use 100A services were common, at least around these parts.
If you could post a picture of your fuse panel or circuit breaker panel that would be helpful. You might think you only have a 60A service because that is what the main is rated for, but as I mentioned previously these often have an unused RANGE fuse pullout, which is rated for 40A, making your total service size 100A and you can connect a 240V level 2 charger to the unused RANGE fuse pullout, just put the appropriate 40A or less fuses in it to match your level 2 charger and it's wiring.
EDIT: If it isn't clear the MAIN only protects the lighting and receptacle loads (glass screw-in fuses), the RANGE fuse is connected in parallel with the line side of the MAIN fuse, these are what is known as a split-bus panel. So you could pull the MAIN fuse but the RANGE fuse would still have power.
EDIT: See https://structuretech.com/old-fuse-panel-60-amps-or-100-amps/
EDIT: If it isn't clear the MAIN only protects the lighting and receptacle loads (glass screw-in fuses), the RANGE fuse is connected in parallel with the line side of the MAIN fuse, these are what is known as a split-bus panel. So you could pull the MAIN fuse but the RANGE fuse would still have power.
EDIT: See https://structuretech.com/old-fuse-panel-60-amps-or-100-amps/
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