Electric Car Ownership - Any Experiences?

Belen said:

My brother owns an EV, Rivian...

The weight of it damaged his driveway.

Click to expand...

Yeah, well, the Rivian is not just an "EV". It is a big honkin' truck, the size of a large, 7-passenger SUV. It has a curb weight of 7000 lbs. It is one of the heaviest consumer vehicles you can buy.

EVs are heavy for their size, yes. But what I just bought is about half the weight of a Rivian.

Belen said:

He caught other EV owners charging their cars at his house when he was at work.

Click to expand...

Yeah, they'd have to pull into my driveway to do that at my place - so they'd be trespassing. I work from home most days, and my wife comes and goes on house calls. So, we'd notice quickly, and then they'd be getting towed.

Belen said:

It added 6 hours to his annual vacation trip.

Click to expand...

Well, yes, it would do that. It isn't really made for long-hauls.

Ryujin said:

I think that my solution, to the charging thieves issue, would be a master switch that just kills it when not in use.

Click to expand...

In a typical home, the charging station really ought to be on its own circuit. That master switch can just be the breaker.

We took delivery of the Bolt today. I have an electrician coming next week to start the process of getting the charging station.

I expect it'll mean upgrading the electrical panel.

And pulling a permit from your town, which the electrican should do.

I have 2 chargers, one in my garage and one on the side of my house. Both can be set to need the app to turn them on. Pretty much every home charger I see are app controlled and can have that setting.

Power went out about 8:30 AM at my place and my battery turned on in backup mode (whole house batteries are not UPS so I have my computer plugged into an actual UPS for the less than one second the house battery needs to take over).

I run the battery to 40% each day but I can switch to just back-up mode if I wanted to and have 100% available.

I do not back-up the AC, but otherwise I can easily power my house while the sun is up and fully charge the battery.

Once battery is over 50%, I can charge my EV as well (one EV charger maxes out my inverter so it all has to be balanced with the house load which the battery does for me).

Without a battery, most solar systems do nothing when the power goes out as they rely on the grid.

Umbran said:

I expect it'll mean upgrading the electrical panel.

Click to expand...

Myrdin Potter said:

And pulling a permit from your town, which the electrican should do.

Click to expand...

I had an electrician by today, and it turns out that no, I don't need to upgrade the house panel. My wife and I don't have big electric appliances, so we aren't actually pulling much.

For those who don't know - electric dryers typically need 30 Amps of current capacity. Electric stoves usually need 20-60 Amps. That can quickly eat up the current the incoming line can provide, which is usually 100 amps in an older home like mine. But with gas stove and dryer, the panel actually has capacity we aren't using.

That's especially a good thing - because if we had to upgrade the panel, we might need to upgrade the incoming service line (we'd have to ask the town if the incoming line is sufficient). That line is underground so upgrading it would be a big deal, requiring digging trenches.

Which, ultimately, we might do. But it would be a much longer process, and running around the local towns in the meantime to charge the car is not a whole lot of fun.

I've ordered the charger itself (the Chargepoint Home Flex Level 2), which should arrive on Saturday, and the install is scheduled for Monday morning, after which keeping it powered should become very easy.

Umbran said:

I had an electrician by today, and it turns out that no, I don't need to upgrade the house panel. My wife and I don't have big electric appliances, so we aren't actually pulling much.

For those who don't know - electric dryers typically need 30 Amps of current capacity. Electric stoves usually need 20-60 Amps. That can quickly eat up the current the incoming line can provide, which is usually 100 amps in an older home like mine. But with gas stove and dryer, the panel actually has capacity we aren't using.

That's especially a good thing - because if we had to upgrade the panel, we might need to upgrade the incoming service line (we'd have to ask the town if the incoming line is sufficient). That line is underground so upgrading it would be a big deal, requiring digging trenches.

Which, ultimately, we might do. But it would be a much longer process, and running around the local towns in the meantime to charge the car is not a whole lot of fun.

I've ordered the charger itself (the Chargepoint Home Flex Level 2), which should arrive on Saturday, and the install is scheduled for Monday morning, after which keeping it powered should become very easy.

Click to expand...

Now we just need to add your address to the free charging website…

Umbran said:

I had an electrician by today, and it turns out that no, I don't need to upgrade the house panel. My wife and I don't have big electric appliances, so we aren't actually pulling much.

For those who don't know - electric dryers typically need 30 Amps of current capacity. Electric stoves usually need 20-60 Amps. That can quickly eat up the current the incoming line can provide, which is usually 100 amps in an older home like mine. But with gas stove and dryer, the panel actually has capacity we aren't using.

That's especially a good thing - because if we had to upgrade the panel, we might need to upgrade the incoming service line (we'd have to ask the town if the incoming line is sufficient). That line is underground so upgrading it would be a big deal, requiring digging trenches.

Which, ultimately, we might do. But it would be a much longer process, and running around the local towns in the meantime to charge the car is not a whole lot of fun.

I've ordered the charger itself (the Chargepoint Home Flex Level 2), which should arrive on Saturday, and the install is scheduled for Monday morning, after which keeping it powered should become very easy.

Click to expand...

Upgrading the panel seems as though it'd be expensive, but I imagine it'd be like nothing compared to upgrading your incoming line. I am pleased that we didn't need to do any of that.

We took the Bolt on a longer trip this weekend - 300+ miles from Boston to just past Philadelphia.

The driving experience of the car is quite nice. The electric motors provide enough torque and oomph that the car isn't sluggish, but it has the added stability of all that battery weight at the bottom of the car. It was good to drive.

Along the corridor we were driving, there were a goodly number of Level 3 chargers (mostly the EVgo network). I didn't have to divert far from my route to reach them. But, the charging process took about 45 minutes, and I had to do that every 150 miles or so. So, it added an hour and a half or so each way.

A little work with Google maps allowed me to plan those power stops. This does kind of lock you into a route, and much of the power of Google is choosing routes to avoid traffic. Somehow, I just got lucky, and spend no significant time in real traffic, even on the holiday weekend.

Also, at one of the charging stops, we found a really enjoyable Mexican restaurant. You don't notice the charging time when it coincides with a meal stop, you see.

Umbran said:

So, it was totaled in an accident, so we didn't have possession of the vehicle. It had been towed to a storage yard pending the process.

We needed to verify with the tow company that we had insurance. Then sign a release with the yard to allow the insurance adjuster access to the car. Then sign another to release the car to the insurance company.

We then had to send the title to the insurance company, cancel the registration with the DMV, then send that cancellation to our insurance company to get the car off our insurance.

Click to expand...

Wife used to have a job arranging accident tows, including to and from storage facilities. There’s some slimy tow companies and storage facilities out there. Outright lie about cars location to milk more insurance charges for tow/storage. Make you jump through hoops to try to keep the car longer for even more charges. Etc.