Is It True that You Lose Electricity on a 220V Charge?

[Amecameca]

As a new Spark EV owner I am still trying to decide whether to take advantage of the free Bosch charger offer or not.

A friend of mine who has a Nissan Leaf said that he had read somewhere that when charging from a 110V charger you "lose" 2-3% of the electricity, but when charging from a 220V charger you lose 11% of the electricity. This is his reason for passing on a 220V charger and making do with 110V. Can anyone confirm that this is accurate?

I have had my Spark for about a month, and since I only use it to run errands in town I haven't had a problem with the slow charge. I have been topping it off overnight every 3-4 days. I'm not feeling the need to pay an electrician $$$ to install the "free" Bosch unit.

 

[KingUltra]

There was an older discussion somewhere here, in which the argument was that you waste more electricity charging the Spark from Zero to Full for 17 hrs at 110 than 7 hrs at 220.

Regardless, you should get Bosch charger just for the heck of it.

 

[cwerdna]

First off, please stop incorrectly calling the "Bosch" unit a charger" and using the words charger when you actually mean EVSE. Please see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14728&p=332668#p332668 and http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=262630#p262630.

For L1 and L2 AC charging, the charger is on-board the car. I've fixed your post.

As a new Spark EV owner I am still trying to decide whether to take advantage of the free Bosch EVSE offer or not.

A friend of mine who has a Nissan Leaf said that he had read somewhere that when charging from a 110V EVSE you "lose" 2-3% of the electricity, but when charging from a 220V EVSE you lose 11% of the electricity. This is his reason for passing on a 220V EVSE and making do with 110V. Can anyone confirm that this is accurate?

Your friend is totally wrong and has it reversed. Charging efficiency is worse at lower voltages. There is inherent inefficiency in both and virtually nothing you can do about it. Just like the AC adapter for your phone, laptop computer, rechargeable devices heats up, so does the on-board charger. That's waste heat. Not all the energy coming out of the wall makes into the battery. And, to cool the OBC, pumps (fixed overhead) need to run, which need to run longer when charging for longer (e.g. at 120 volts).

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=155305#p155305 were some figures on the '11 and '12 Leaf which only had a 3.3 kW OBC.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=19899 has pointers to some discussion about charging efficiency such as http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/fsev/SteadyStateLoadCharacterization2015Leaf.pdf and http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/fsev/SteadyStateLoadCharacterization2012Leaf.pdf.

You can find some more at http://avt.inel.gov/fsev.shtml, such as for the BMW i3.

 

[NORTON]

Yep, the opposite is true.

 

[MrDRMorgan]

I started out with the 120 VAC EVSE provided with the car and collected charging data for approximately 2 months. My average charging efficiency was about 65% wall to wheel. Said another way, only 65% of the kWh supplied from the wall outlet to the car goes into the battery. The rest is used for other vehicle functions and onboard charger losses. This should also be true for a Leaf or E-Golf, etc.

This month I installed a 240 VAC 16-amp Bosch L2 EVSE in my garage. Data I have collected to date from this EVSE shows the charging efficiency is between 75% and 80% wall to wheel.

I believe the Bosch EVSE is the way to go if, for no other reason, the faster charging time. Installation costs have to be considered too. In my case, I was able to use an existing unused 240 VAC electric dryer socket in my laundry room and route a 6-foot 30-amp electric dryer power cord through the wall into my garage where I connected it to my Bosch EVSE hanging on the wall. The 12 foot EVSE cable is just the right length for my charging needs.

I hope this helps. The wall to wheel numbers represent the number of kWh for which you will have to pay your power provider.

Dennis

2014 White Spark EV 2LT
2015 Silver Spark EV 2LT

 

[Zoomit]

There's great advice and data posted already, but I'll reiterate that even if you don't plan to use it, the 16A unit is essentially free and you may decide later it's worth the additional cost to install it.

 

[kevin]

As a new Spark EV owner I am still trying to decide whether to take advantage of the free Bosch charger offer or not.

A friend of mine who has a Nissan Leaf said that he had read somewhere that when charging from a 110V charger you "lose" 2-3% of the electricity, but when charging from a 220V charger you lose 11% of the electricity. This is his reason for passing on a 220V charger and making do with 110V. Can anyone confirm that this is accurate?

I have had my Spark for about a month, and since I only use it to run errands in town I haven't had a problem with the slow charge. I have been topping it off overnight every 3-4 days. I'm not feeling the need to pay an electrician $$$ to install the "free" Bosch unit.

From measurements I have done the charger in to battery out efficiency is ~83% for Level 2 (220V) vs ~78% for level 1 (110V) charging.

I expect the main difference is that there are fixed losses (to run the fans, pumps and computer etc) that are larger fraction when charging at the lower rate of level 1.

kevin