How does the plug-in for a Chevy Volt work?

[SaltyNuts]

Really thinking about getting one, particularly given the up to $7500 tax credit - will bring down the cost of the car significantly.

Question - can I charge it using just a regular wall outlet? Or does it need some proprietary charging device? I can't park the car in my garage, as I have punching bags in there. So I very much hoping I can just leave an extension cord plugged in next to my driveway, then just plug it into the car when i get home.

Thanks!

 

[NutBucket]

Yes, you can charge it from 120V outlet. The charge time is about 13 hours.

It would be wise to get a fast charger which drops the recharge time to about 4.5 hours. Again, no need to garage the vehicle as the charger can be mounted outside...or inside with a cord running outside.

 

[bruceb]

The fast charger will require a 220V power outlet. If it is mounted oudoors, it will need to be weatherproof. It will also need installation by a licensed electrician. Note if your power panel does not have 2 extra circuit breaker slots, you will need to update the panel in order to accomodate them. More info at this link:

http://www.mychevroletvolt.com/ev-home-charging-station-faqs-is-level-2-240v-charging-worth-it

 

[NutBucket]

Licensed electrician? Bah, that's just double talk for wasting money (assuming you're comfortable with electrical work).

 

[Kaido]

Again, no need to garage the vehicle as the charger can be mounted outside...or inside with a cord running outside.

My buddy has the 240V charger mounted 5 feet from his front door. He just pulls into his driveway, plugs in the "gas" hose, and walks inside. It's awesome!

 

[bruceb]

Be advised, illegal electrical work, which can be a safety or fire hazard, would be cause for your insurance company to deny a claim, if they suspect or believe that said improper, unlicensed work, caused say a fire.

 

[herm0016]

we have a gen 1.

We used the 110 volt charging cord for about the first 6 months and then upgraded to a 220 from clipper creek. When we used the 110 all the time, it sat on the ground by the car and we never had an issue with rain or snow or anything. Our car sits outside in the driveway as i have a woodworking shop in the garage. we have the 220 outlet by the garage door and run the cord under the door to plug it in. it sits on a brick ledge when the car is gone. I got the outlet put in, and a new sub-panel for our garage workshop for about 400 bucks.

240 is nice but not necessary. I would try to avoid extension cords though, it creates voltage drop and can get hot as the car uses a lot of current for a long time. upgrade your cheap outlet to a good 20amp rated outlet and make sure it is properly grounded.

also: we love the volt, best small car ever. we are at about 200 mpg and have put about 50k miles on it. We have solar as well, it ends up being free to charge all summer.

 

[jlee]

Be advised, illegal electrical work, which can be a safety or fire hazard, would be cause for your insurance company to deny a claim, if they suspect or believe that said improper, unlicensed work, caused say a fire.

DIY electrical work is not synonymous with illegal electrical work.

 

[bruceb]

No, it is not. And if your local town / city / hamlet, etc is willing to inspect any work you do, then your insurance company would be satisfied that any work you did, was in full compliance and not the possible cause of any fire that may happen. Better to pull a permit and get it inspected, just in case.

 

[SaltyNuts]

Thanks so much guys! 13 hours is more than enough time for me to charge one overnight, and that will be 99% of my driving situations, so it sounds like I might not need to get the 240 amp charger. I have a plug right by the drive way so I can just buy a very short, stout cord from the outlet and plug it in when I get home. But I may see how much getting the level 2 charger outlet and what not costs to get it installed.

herm0016, very neat. Might I ask, how much did you pay for the solar panels roughly? So during the summer you energy is basically free? In winter the panels can't keep up with your electricity demand?

Thanks!

 

[herm0016]

its not 240 amp, its 240 volt. usually 50 amp max. i use nema 14-50 outlets for all my 240 volt stuff.

the solar was already on the house, so we probably paid an extra couple grand over the same house next door. we have 4200 watts peak production and it covers all our needs from about may to sept. our gas and electric in the winter is about 120 bucks max. our gas and electric in the summer is about 20.

the previous owner got a sweet deal about 15 years ago from the power company. they bought the credits for 20 years for 15k and the total install was about 23k. and the home owner owns all the hardware. I have the original receipts somewhere.

 

[Kaido]

btw OP, Plugless has the Chevy Bolt gen2 wireless charger in development right now:

https://www.pluglesspower.com/shop/plugless-2017-volt/

It's basically a plugged-in frisbee you drive over & it wirelessly charges your car, pretty neat! Hands-free operation!

 

[NutBucket]

I'd like to know how efficient it is. Wireless is great but efficiency is typically pretty bad.

 

[desura]

Eh...I get really paranoid about DIY electrical work. This isn't like something where if you screw up it's annoying but NBD.

13 hours is really long though for that amount of charge you get.

Has anyone experienced asking to plug in at like Hotels during long distance trips?

 

[herm0016]

we have plugged in at a few places. hotels and such usually don't care if they have an outlet available, but a lot of places do not have any place to plug in.

 

[desura]

we have plugged in at a few places. hotels and such usually don't care if they have an outlet available, but a lot of places do not have any place to plug in.

Like, I can sorta foresee a situation say where you have an electric car and you are low on range and you wind up at some coffee shop or something and ask them if you can charge your car...now, thing is this isn't a laptop which eats up some negligible amount of energy, the car probably will eat up like $5-$10 worth of electricity.

 

[herm0016]

it costs about a 1.20 to charge a gen 1 volt from "empty" to "full" . a gen 1 uses about 10.5 kwh and the avg price of electicity in the states is about 11 cents per kwh. and you will never be without a car with a volt, that's the beauty of it. we went on a 4k mile road trip and got about 40 mpg. when we got back home, plug it in and its an electric car again and we don't use any gas outside of long trips.

 

[herm0016]

i read recently that plugless efficiency is somewhere around 70%. it's not like its hard to plug it in with a cord.

 

[Kaido]

I'd like to know how efficient it is. Wireless is great but efficiency is typically pretty bad.

It's actually not bad:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plugless_Power

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) testing in 2013 found the system had a power delivery efficiency between 84%-90%, compared to 95%-99% for corded charging systems, depending on the alignment of the Adapter and Pad, the separation gap, and the rate of power transfer in use (kW).

That's for the 3.3kW model. Would be curious to see how efficient the Tesla's 7.2kW model is. Plugless advertises that particular unit to charge at a rate of 20 to 25 miles of range per hour, which is about on-par with Tesla's standard charger on a 50-amp circuit breaker:

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/US/universalmobileconnector_nema_14-50.pdf

Larger listing of various amperages vs. charging times here:

https://www.tesla.com/support/home-charging-installation#standard-equipment

For reference, Tesla's residential 240V wall charger does up to 52 miles of range per hour, so the Plugless system would cut rate by at least half, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The longest-range Tesla (the non-P 100D) goes up to 335 miles on a full charge. That's a good 5 hours of highway driving a day (at 65 MPH, not factoring in traffic, driving hard, inclines, A/C usage, etc.). So assuming you only use half the battery per day, an overnight 8-hour charge would refill you every night, and all you'd have to do is pull into your driveway, nothing to plug in. For $4,000

 

[tweakmonkey]

So you'd lose 10-16% efficiency of your EV for a little convenience? Seems like a huge waste, especially on something like a Tesla with a giant 100 kW battery (which costs $16-40 to fill up here depending on time of day).

 

[NutBucket]

That's what I was thinking.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Props for working in the oil industry, and yet, having solar and an electric car. At least some people in the industry are forward-looking. It sounds like a sweet setup to me. My problem is, I'm a big guy, so I need a fairly large car to accommodate my size. I don't know if I would fit into one of those "puny" electric cars. Do they make electric SUVs yet?

 

[tweakmonkey]

Many EVs are quite big or at least full size cars.

There's a Rav4 EV, the Chevy Bolt is actually rather big despite people saying it's so small but I am biased and prefer much smaller cars. The Focus Electric is full size, any of the Teslas are huge. Unless you're like 400 lbs / 7 foot 6. The only small EVs I can think of are the Fiat 500, Smart, and Miev.

 

[herm0016]

My co worker/friend that goes to lunch once in a while with me is about 6ft 275lb and fits. its a bit snug though.

A lot of the engineers/scientists in the industry are those things first, and Oil people second.

 

[NutBucket]

Besides, as Leno likes to point out, if we drive green/efficient cars on a daily basis then we still get to drive muscle cars and such on the weekends. Really makes a lot of sense.