110v vs 220v

[crash]

Hey everyone. I just signed up on this forum because I'd like to pick up an EV sometime soon.

At this point, I've looked at the Leaf, the Ford EVs and honestly, the Spark seems to be the best bang for buck as well as the fastest (which matters to me).

I just sold my daily driver (a Toyota Solara V6) which was - quite frankly - a bear to drive. I also just bought a 2014 Stingray. So to compliment the new Stingray and give me a daily driver I can really appreciate (since I've always loved EVs), I feel a second new Chevy is the way to go.

This would really be just for driving to and from work and maybe going to visit friends and family. I'd be driving the Corvette pretty much everywhere else. My daily work commute is 42 miles round trip. There maybe 1 extra mile thrown in there for going to and from lunch at work.

I'm having a line put in for charging sometime at the end of this month if not in December. And I have the choice to go with either 110v or 220v. The issue is that my parking spaces are in a common parking area with a lot of other people. If I put in the 220v, and mount a Level 2 charger, I'm a little worried someone here may mess with it or someone could get in a just take it. But if I go with 110v, would it be fast enough to recharge enough for the next day? How slow is 110v charging?

I also may be moving at some point next year and I'm wondering how easy it is to move the L2 chargers around. I'm assuming that there isn't much to them. From the pictures they look small and portable.

Are there any people on this forum that either have common shared parking or live in an apartment that can give me an idea of what they've experienced so far?

Thanks in advance.

 

[GeorgeChevy]

Congratulations on your new Stingray! I've had the pleasure of checking one out in person and it's an amazing car. I will get to drive it on the track in a training session in January.

I would say that with your commute, 110v charging would be fine if you can charge at work and at home, you'll be able to recharge back to 100% while you're at work and at home. However, if you need to install a 110v outlet at work in order to recharge, I would suggest putting in a 220v line and getting a Level 2 EVSE from Bosch with your $500 coupon because the cost won't be much more (and you can charge faster so you won't even need to charge at home).

You can hardwire the charger so it cannot be tampered with. Also, the Onstar RemoteLink app allows the car to send you a text if charging is interrupted so you can go out and check in the event that someone tampers with your charger. I used to charge my car in a public parking structure with my included 110v EVSE and there was never a problem with anyone messing with it.

 

[crash]

Congratulations on your new Stingray! I've had the pleasure of checking one out in person and it's an amazing car. I will get to drive it on the track in a training session in January.

I would say that with your commute, 110v charging would be fine if you can charge at work and at home, you'll be able to recharge back to 100% while you're at work and at home. However, if you need to install a 110v outlet at work in order to recharge, I would suggest putting in a 220v line and getting a Level 2 EVSE from Bosch with your $500 coupon because the cost won't be much more (and you can charge faster so you won't even need to charge at home).

You can hardwire the charger so it cannot be tampered with. Also, the Onstar RemoteLink app allows the car to send you a text if charging is interrupted so you can go out and check in the event that someone tampers with your charger. I used to charge my car in a public parking structure with my included 110v EVSE and there was never a problem with anyone messing with it.

OH! That's interesting... The OnStar thing would give me some peace of mind.

The option to charge at work isn't really there yet. Most of the office buildings in my area are putting in chargers, but my building hasn't mentioned it yet. We have a number of people in that office building with Tesla Ss and I believe they're pushing to get charging stations. If that's the case, I'll charge there pretty much 100% and hardly charge at home so the 110v would be fine. LOL

My office is near Santa Monica so there's LOTS of electric car perks in that area.

Thanks for your input. Do you know how long it would take to charge 50% off 110v?

 

[GeorgeChevy]

Thanks for your input. Do you know how long it would take to charge 50% off 110v?

Full charge from empty is about 17 hours on 110v, and you get about 5 miles of range per hour. So for 50% it takes about 8-10 hours, which is doable just plugging in on 110v at home when you return to work. However, there are special time-of-use rates available from LADWP and So Cal Edison that are <$0.10 per kwh between 12am and 6am, otherwise you would be paying more to charge. If you're concerned about electricity cost installing a Level 2 EVSE at home makes sense as you can charge back up to 100% within those times.

Right now I have a level 2 EVSE at home and I charge using the 110v EVSE at work (at the dealer). I actually don't need to charge at work even though my commute is about 30 mi each way but I do it because it's available (I end up with about 50% charge when I go home without charging at work). When I charge from work on 110v, I plug in around 9am and it's done by 2pm (starting from about 75%). It takes me about 2 hours to charge back to full at home on 220v (and 4 if I don't charge at work).

 

[MysteriousJ]

Thanks for your input. Do you know how long it would take to charge 50% off 110v?

The Chevy Spark has a 21-kWh battery pack, and has two charging modes at for L1 charging, 8A (default) and a 12A (you need to manually set this option every time you charge)

For an 120V, 15A outlet
For a full charge from zero.
Default
8A * 120V = 960W
21kWh / .96 kW = 21.875 hours

Change manually after charging has started (12A mode)
12A * 120V = 1440W
21kWh / 1.44 kW = 14.583 hours

For an 110V, 15A outlet
For a full charge from zero.
Default
8A * 110V = 880W
21kWh / .88 kW = 23.863 hours

Change manually after charging has started (12A mode)
12A * 110V = 1320W
21kWh / 1.32 kW = 15.909 hours

If you want to charge half your range,
120V @ 8A for 50%, 10.938 hours
120V @ 12A for 50%, 7.29 hours

110V @ 8A for 50%, 11.932 hours
110V @ 12A for 50%, 7.95 hours

Hope that helps

 

[cwerdna]

^^^^
You can't make accurate calculations that way. Charging is not 100% efficient. Not all the electricity coming out of the wall makes into the battery pack. There are inefficiencies in the on-board charger and other charging overheard (e.g. coolant pumps and possibly fans to).

I'm pretty confident that if you have 21 kwh usable and you drove the car till it was totally dead, it'd take longer that figures you state.

 

[crash]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Looks like 220v is the way to go. I've requested to my landlord to put in the 220v. I was told a new meter would have to be installed, so they're looking into it further. They're not against it at all at this point. I was told they're aware that EVs are soon to be the norm and that this would be something they would have to accommodate at some point, in any case. So they're thinking "why not now?" In addition, they're looking to install more cameras and whatnot in our parking area, so they want to do it all at once. This all sounds like good stuff for me, especially. It addresses all my concerns.

Thanks for all the info. It was exactly what I needed to make my decision. I asked the guys at the dealership, but they really didn't know much.

Now the wait for December and what color to pick.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I'm pretty confident that if you have 21 kwh usable and you drove the car till it was totally dead, it'd take longer that figures you state.

If we just use the LEAF data, you can expect about 73% efficiency as 120 volts / 12 amps (and even worse at 8 amps) and 84% at 240 volts / 16 amps.

So, assuming 21kWh usable (I have no idea if this is accurate), then a "fill up" would be:

29kWh would have to be pulled from the wall on 120 volts

25kWh would have to be pulled from the wall on 240 volts

*****************************

30.2 hours = 29kWh / (120 volts * 8 amps) [73% charger efficiency]

20.1 hours = 29kWh / (120 volts * 12 amps) [73% charger efficiency]

6.5 hours = 25kWh / (240 volts * 16 amps) [84% charger efficiency]

*****************************

This assumes a room temperature battery with no battery heating or cooling required.

 

[Theo]

I'm pretty confident that if you have 21 kwh usable and you drove the car till it was totally dead, it'd take longer that figures you state.

If we just use the LEAF data, you can expect about 73% efficiency as 120 volts / 12 amps (and even worse at 8 amps) and 84% at 240 volts / 16 amps.

So, assuming 21kWh usable (I have no idea if this is accurate), then a "fill up" would be:

29kWh would have to be pulled from the wall on 120 volts

25kWh would have to be pulled from the wall on 240 volts

*****************************

30.2 hours = 29kWh / (120 volts * 8 amps) [73% charger efficiency]

20.1 hours = 29kWh / (120 volts * 12 amps) [73% charger efficiency]

6.5 hours = 25kWh / (240 volts * 16 amps) [84% charger efficiency]

*****************************

This assumes a room temperature battery with no battery heating or cooling required.

Those numbers look to be a lot more like what I've been noticing anecdotaly from charging it at various different places.

Another side benefit to getting a 240V station installed, is that it means you don't need to get your 110V charger out of the trunk everyday to charge and put it back in every morning. You can just use the station that is there at all times.

 

[cwerdna]

^^^
Also, I suspect that as you get near 100%, charging slows down and thus the amount the car draws goes down. I can see that when charging to my Leaf to 100% and I look at Chargepoint's 5 minute interval graph of power being drawn.

With 208 volt charging L2 charging my Leaf at my work, it starts off pulling ~5.9 kW but near the end, it falls off fairly sharply and eventually is below 2 kW and IIRC, even below 1. It then seems to stop and restart a few times w/a few charges at <0.8 kW, possibly related to some battery balancing.

If I only charge the Leaf to 80%, it pulls 5.9 kW the whole time and then, IIRC, shuts right off.

is that it means you don't need to get your 110V charger out of the trunk everyday to charge and put it back in every morning.

BTW, please stop using the term "charger" when you really mean EVSE (http://www.mychevysparkev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3549). The charger is on-board the car for J1772 L1 and L2 AC charging.

 

[lalacurf121]

some battery balancing.