Volta Charges Installed
- Thread starter Zee09
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Charge at home. Commercial chargers are too expensive.
Zee09
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Yes and I am all set for that but in emergencies etc. Plus the more chargers the easier trips are.
Tidbit for you
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/ford-pulls-out-all-the-stops-to-revive-a-struggling-brand
Zee09
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I'm ready for wireless charging.Volta is free
Problem with Volta is they are ALWAYS in use.
More charging stations is a great thing.
Family is currently driving a Model S Dual Motor FL to VT. They've come across a few Tesla charge stations with waiting lines. They played football while waiting at one location, and went shopping at another, that's not a great result. Also they are complaining about the slower charge speeds when all charge-stations are in use.
So far, they have been able to get just below 200 highway miles per charge, with the arrival range down in the "teens".
While the car has the 100KWh battery, and stated range of 375 miles, charging slows to a crawl at 80% and so they are operating between 80% and 15%.
Bottom line, $102,000 gets you 190-199 miles of real world highway range in mild conditions.
Family is currently driving a Model S Dual Motor FL to VT. They've come across a few Tesla charge stations with waiting lines. They played football while waiting at one location, and went shopping at another, that's not a great result. Also they are complaining about the slower charge speeds when all charge-stations are in use.
So far, they have been able to get just below 200 highway miles per charge, with the arrival range down in the "teens".
While the car has the 100KWh battery, and stated range of 375 miles, charging slows to a crawl at 80% and so they are operating between 80% and 15%.
Bottom line, $102,000 gets you 190-199 miles of real world highway range in mild conditions.
Are those a level 2 only charger? Handle looks like thst. A 100 kwh battery takes about 15 hours to charge if it is level 2. I see 6 out of 7 vehicles in the picture are gas trucks or suvs. Good to see more chargers. More EV is good. Makes gas cheaper and everyone can be happy.
On a long trip, most people want to get where they are going, not play football or shop. I understand that they had time to kill
I went to their site and checked some in area. Level 2 with two hour max time. So that gives about 13 kwh at full charging rate, or 52 miles if your EV is good to very good in efficiency mpge. So you wait two hours to go 50 miles more or less. Not bad for the patient.
Zee09
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New around here except at the dealerships. They are located at a grocery store. Maybe they will get updated in time.
When I purchased hybrids here I guess in 2006 and onward the dealerships all said they are non sellers here. Fast forward they still aren't big sellers but I am starting to see more and more.
That’s a good real world review. Since rapid charging may reduce battery life, the choice is to rapid charge to 80% reducing range and battery life, or playing more football and getting that last 20%. Not a great result. Flip flop back and forth on it. Of course everything has a development phase EV is no exception.
Most EVs will charge at 7.4 kW on that, others less. It's absolutely massive for being hardly anything more than a GFI and place to hang the cable.
AC "destination" chargers are fine for locations where you're staying overnight but outside a shop it's hardly worth the effort of plugging in.
Clearly this is intended to encourage local commerce but AC units are no longer relevant for practical short-term EV charging. DC chargers start at 25kW and are more suited to a time period related to shopping. We have had this issue here for the last few years. Councils and businesses seem out of touch with the fast moving EV market where a Nissan Leaf no longer sets the standard. We're seeing more DC units at supermarkets, not always free as that invites misuse.
AC units outside shops here in NZ are mostly unused these days. If I plug in shoppers just stop for a minute wondering why I've tied my car to the box used by smokers to lean on. This unit can actually provided 22kW but the one EV that can accept that is no longer made.
AC "destination" chargers are fine for locations where you're staying overnight but outside a shop it's hardly worth the effort of plugging in.
Clearly this is intended to encourage local commerce but AC units are no longer relevant for practical short-term EV charging. DC chargers start at 25kW and are more suited to a time period related to shopping. We have had this issue here for the last few years. Councils and businesses seem out of touch with the fast moving EV market where a Nissan Leaf no longer sets the standard. We're seeing more DC units at supermarkets, not always free as that invites misuse.
AC units outside shops here in NZ are mostly unused these days. If I plug in shoppers just stop for a minute wondering why I've tied my car to the box used by smokers to lean on. This unit can actually provided 22kW but the one EV that can accept that is no longer made.
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They really didn't have any excess time. They had to be back last night to make school today. Took them 2 full days, Jupiter, FL to Burlington, VT. 8:00AM departure on Sat, Midnight arrival on Sunday. 2 drivers, through the night. Although they planned for a hotel stop, they could not spare the time.
On a side note, the car showed up late with a low battery. I hooked up the car to a 50A breaker, 240V at my house (welder outlet), to try to top it off before departure. It initially charged at 22 miles range per hour and declined to 16 miles range per hour. The charge cable was quite warm. I was able to select a 40A charge rate (it would not allow us to select 50A) and the Model S ended up with 270 miles of predicted range (out of 375). So the thought that you can charge overnight at your house and go from nearly empty to a full battery is in error. The car would have needed another 6-7 hours.
By way of comparison, I can do the drive in just over 20 hours, going pretty fast. Unless I take the ferry, which adds at least another hour. It took them about 35 hours. Some time was spent at restaurants.
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