Best Level 2 Home Charger?

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PDXMarian

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Oct 10, 2016
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I just posted a separate topic re: a 20 hour charge mystery with 110 home outlet. While I'm solving that, I'm also researching a Level 2 home charger. There are so many on the market! What would y'all recommend as the best for a charger that will be installed in a garage but will need at least a 20 foot cord? Price point is not a major concern; looking more for reliability/speed of charge + ability to schedule.
 
There are some excellent recommendations in this forum. Since you're located in Oregon, DOE gives you 50% back up to $750 when you install a charger at your house. Problem for me is it's going to cost me $1000-2000 to get the 240v circuit to the right location.

I will be ordering mine soon and I'm leaning with Chargepoint Home 32amp $700 http://www.chargepoint.com/home/order/. The reason is it's UL certified and has Wifi capabilities. I'm not sure if being UL certified matters but better safe than sorry... If you don't care about UL certification, the Juicebox wifi looks like a great product, and gets great reviews.

If my install costs too much, I'll probably go with a Siemens Versicharge at Costco for $470.
 
UL approval only matters in certain cities that require it. The Tesla EVSE is not UL approved and there are thousands out there. I favor an OpenEVSE with a 40A Quick Charge Power J1772 cable. There are not many affordable 40A EVSE's out there. OpenEVSE is an open platform and many have added wifi to it. Personally I could care less but some want constant contact through their smartphone.

The B is J1772 compliant so it will charge just fine at 30A but 25% slower. If you have all night to charge you can save a lot of money. By the way, I now have a eGolf and the 40A OpenEVSE charges it fine at 30A. the car just ignores the extra and it takes what it needs.
 
The B class has a bigger charger onboard than most EV's. You don't have to take advantage of it, but it is handy to get the faster charge when you need it. For example if you want to make more than one sizable trip in a day, the faster you can recharge in between the trips the better.

The B can charge at 40A off a 50A electrical circuit, or 32A off a 40A circuit, and on down from there. There are many more off the shelf options in the 30A and 32A size class than the 40A class.

I use a JESLA by QuickCharge Power, it is a modified Tesla UMC. It isn't cheap, but is portable and flexible in its input power connectors and allows the full 40A charge rate the car can handle. There are no timer or delay options on it though.

The Siemens Versicharge is very good value, 32A charge rate with time delay and I thought even some connectors where you can wire up a custom remote control of some sort.

Clipper Creek, Bosch, Leviton, and on and on for other off the shelf options.

Then you have the juice box and open evse kits or preassembled versions of those.

Plenty of options, but if you need to do wiring get a 50A circuit on a 14-50R receptacle installed with a double pole (240 volt) 50 Amp breaker. No matter what EVSE you go with that should be your power source.
 
I've got the Clipper Creek HCS-40P. "P" I assume is for "plug-in", in which mine uses a 14-50 plug that are commonly found at RV parks & campgrounds. I figured on the (very) rare occasion I get the urge to roam, it could come in handy to take my EVSE with me.

https://store.clippercreek.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=67&search=hcs-40&category_id=74

It's a 32 amp unit, capable of delivering up to 7.7kW to the car. Well built, and works great. That said, I bought it before I decided on the B250e as I thought I was going to buy an EV that only needed 6.6kW. Had I known I would end up buying a car with a 10kW charger, I would have bucked up for the HCS-50P - the 40 amp / 9.6kW model (since I installed a 50 amp service anyway). I drive my car a lot and there have been occasions where I drive the car all day, and come back with 30% or less - and need a quick turnaround for another trip that evening. As winter approaches, the time window gets shorter.

I honestly don't know how others manage on 120v. I guess they rarely drive their cars.

EDIT: Noticed that you are looking for "ability to schedule". As good as Clipper Creek models are, you need to look elsewhere for that feature. My rate is 5.6 cents per kWh 24/7 so scheduling isn't necessary for me.
 
oilerlord said:
I've got the Clipper Creek HCS-40P. "P" I assume is for "plug-in", in which mine uses a 14-50 plug that are commonly found at RV parks & campgrounds. I figured on the (very) rare occasion I get the urge to roam, it could come in handy to take my EVSE with me.

https://store.clippercreek.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=67&search=hcs-40&category_id=74

It's a 32 amp unit, capable of delivering up to 7.7kW to the car. Well built, and works great. That said, I bought it before I decided on the B250e as I thought I was going to buy an EV that only needed 6.6kW. Had I known I would end up buying a car with a 10kW charger, I would have bucked up for the HCS-50P - the 40 amp / 9.6kW model (since I installed a 50 amp service anyway). I drive my car a lot and there have been occasions where I drive the car all day, and come back with 30% or less - and need a quick turnaround for another trip that evening. As winter approaches, the time window gets shorter.

I honestly don't know how others manage on 120v. I guess they rarely drive their cars.

EDIT: Noticed that you are looking for "ability to schedule". As good as Clipper Creek models are, you need to look elsewhere for that feature. My rate is 5.6 cents per kWh 24/7 so scheduling isn't necessary for me.


5.6cents for electricity then everyone in your area should be driving electric cars. I live in Anaheim with municipal power. I have no tiers so I can charge any time but the power is 16.6 cents per kilowatt hour.

OpenEVSE had a built in delay timer. As I understand it Edison is 45 cents peak so it makes sense to charge late at night. You can set any start and stop time but the default 5 min after midnight and 5 min before 7AM works for most. It will be fully charged long before seven.
 
Not to brag or anything, but my rate is 5.6 Canadian cents per kWh. That actually works out to around 4 cents USD . Alberta is at least a decade behind the times when it comes to embracing EV's as daily driver cars. I have spotted a few Teslas on the road but I'm quite certain that I'm the only one in our province with a B250e. I've seen one Nissan Leaf in the last year.

The biggest reason is the lack purchase incentives. No $7500 federal and $2500 state tax credits where I live. Cheap electricity alone isn't enough to overcome that.
 
We got the ChargePoint charger with the 15' chord.
I really like that the charger is wifi enabled. I set it up with information about our local rate plan, plug the car in when my wife gets home, and it starts automatically as soon as the rate changes to off peak (different hours weekdays and weekends).
The mobile app is nice because it gives me a chafing summary, and let's me know exactly how much of my power bill went to the car.
I mounted the unit outdoors, and only regret I didn't get the longer chord.
 
I use the Leviton 40A charger - maximizes the onboard 9.4 KW capacity, as it is a 10 KW charger.
 
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