Two Spark Charging

[Dusty]

My teenage daughter wants to lease a Spark EV. guess I don't let her use mine often enough. That will leave us with two cars to charge every night. Does anyone know if there is an EVSE designed to charge one car and then the other?

TIA
Dusty

 

[NORTON]

I never heard of such a feature on an EVSE.

On the Onstar app you'll see the 'Charge Completed By:' time.
Take that time.
Poke it into the daughters brand new old fashioned alarm clock.
Always charge the parents car first and have the daughter wake up and walk down to the cars in the middle of the night and swap the L2 connector.

It will be good for her. It'll build character. The kids these days.... They're never given chores or task around the house. Blah, blah, blah,,,,, :lol:
That's why they get tattoos and piercings to prove they can do things that are hard... They've only had it easy.... Blah, blah, blah,,,, :roll:

Her's could be simultaneously be charging on L1 before swapping to L2, if time is an issue.

 

[SparkMoore]

Chargepoint (http://www.chargepoint.com/commercial/) makes/sells an EVSE that can charge two cars at once from a single electrical circuit. It's under their commercial products line. It automatically switches power as needed, between the two connected vehicles. I think its a 6.6kW EVSE so if one vehicle is connected with a 6.6kW OBC, it will apply all 6.6kW to the one car. If two cars each with 6.6kW OBC's are connected, it will distribute the power evenly between the two at about half the power. Or if one is drawing less power because it is close to topping off, it will redirect more power to the other car. Because the Sparks only have 3.3kW OBC's, if they were both connected to the EVSE, both cars would get the maximum power from the EVSE that the cars will allow.

Having said all that, the Chargepoint EVSE that does this is part of their commercial products line. My interpretation of that is that it will be expensive as compared to other EVSE's. They will be smart EVSE's, possibly with the ability to charge a fee for electricity, and that kind of thing. Considering you can get two EVSE's from Bosch with the rebate that comes with each car, and that if you get the 3.3kW versions they would effectively be free, whatever Chargepoint charges will certainly cost you more than the free EVSE's from Bosch.

Alternatively, in the back-up generator industry, there are people that make automatic switches in case of a power outage on whatever you have a back-up generator attached to. Perhaps one of these automatic switches could be configured to switch power between two EVSE's depending on which one is drawing power. That might be more trouble than its worth in the end, but it might be an alternative if it turns out that the Chargepoint EVSE is prohibitively expensive.

David

 

[kevin]

My teenage daughter wants to lease a Spark EV. guess I don't let her use mine often enough. That will leave us with two cars to charge every night. Does anyone know if there is an EVSE designed to charge one car and then the other?

TIA
Dusty

Since the Spark only has a 3.3kW on board charger you could feed two EVSEs on a single 50 Amp circuit as the level 2 charger would only take ~16A.

I don't know what is allowed by code.

Another way may be to get two portable EVSEs such as from Aerovironment - they are only 16A and plug into a 220/20A socket. Wire up 2 of the sockets to plug them in and you can charge simultaneously.

kevin

 

[Dusty]

Thanks fellas. I guess we're stuck with multiple EVSEs. That Chargepoint rig looks sweet, but if you have to ask the price, it's too much. To make matters worse, we're trying to talk my wife into getting a new Volt just so we have at least one long-range electric vehicle. That means 3 EVSEs probably running off a 60 - 100 amp sub panel. I know multiple electric car families are scarce right now, but that will change and it could be a good opportunity for someone to address the issue.

Thanks again!

And Norton, it's obvious you never had any teenage daughters…

Lucky guy!

 

[KingUltra]

I have 2 sparks at home, and charge them after 10 pm for better rates.
Just get 2 of the Bosch that are almost free, and install them at where you'll be parking the vehicles.

 

[cwerdna]

You could build one of these: https://code.google.com/p/open-evse/wiki/Hydra.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/28195-J1772-Hydra-charge-two-vehicles-with-one-charger/page2?p=598749&viewfull=1#post598749 has a link to the YouTube video where its creator talks about it and responds to some questions.

 

[NORTON]

And Norton, it's obvious you never had any teenage daughters…

Lucky guy!

I had two in the house at the same time actually. Bless their little hearts !!
I talk big, "Let her get in line and charge after the parent".
But in reality, I'd install a second 240V circuit and buy an inexpensive second 3.3kW EVSE,,,, just to avoid any conflicts! Family harmony is worth the price !!

You would be an awesome 'Family of the Future' with 3 EV's in the house!
Might as well run the third 240V circuit and outlet now while you doing the second run. At least pull the wires into place.

Tech Note: A 3.3kW EVSE can be used on a 6.6kW or higher EV. The EVSE sends a pilot signal to the car's onboard charger telling it to draw only 3.3kW.
I had a loaner i3 for 4 days and charged it with my 3.3kW EVSE.

 

[xylhim]

It would be quite expensive, and I'm not sure if you could mount non-clipper creek EVSE's to it, but here is a pedestal for mounting two EVSE's at once:

http://www.clippercreek.com/store/product/dual-mount-pedestal-kit/

You could try to sell the Bosch and apply that money towards the pedestal, then get two cheap clipper creek 15 amp EVSE's.

 

[CSW]

I have 2 sparks. I have one evse 240v in my garage. So I charge one spark on the level 2 and the other on the level 1 that came with the car just plugged into a regular outlet in the garage. Works fine for me. I can switch which car uses the 240 depending on which car needs to be charged faster.