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Ryland · 12-24-2012, 12:43 PM

Why shouldn't every car have a plug?
EV charging plugs have become standardized, the J1772 plug can deliver 110v or 220v (three prong) and has two more contacts that are used for communication, different signal voltages and frequencies tell the base station to turn on and off (cord is not live when it's not connected) and adjusts the max amp draw allowed by the EV's on board charger, allowing it to throttle back the EV's on board charger in times of peek grid load.

The other day I was at a friends apartment and was eyeing up the outlet that is in front of each parking space and thinking about the outlets that I installed next to the parking spaces at home for EV charging and I started thinking about all of the other reasons that you would want to plug in a car, any car.
So my list of reasons for plugging in a gasoline car include:

Preheated/cooled passenger cabins would reduce the amount of idling.

Trickle charger on the starting battery would extend battery life.

Engine block heater would nearly eliminate engine warm up time, sending engine in to closed loop sooner, past experiments have shown that plug in block heaters are cheaper and use less energy then driving with a cold engine.

And of course if you had a hybrid that is not normally a plug in hybrid could benefit as well! a plug in system like this could to a charge/balance of your hybrid battery to extend the life of the pack, allowing a route learning GPS drive train management computer like the Ford C-max has, to deliver you home with a drained battery instead of starting the engine up right before you pull in the driveway.

The hardware is already out there, you can buy the J1772 plugs, recepticals and basic signal generator boxes to tell the base station to turn on, of course right now the parts are still out of most peoples price range, but the cost is dropping and it would give more reason for more EV charging stations to be installed.

Of course to make it work really well, it has to be based off of at least a mildly smart control system, an Arduino that was set up to talk to your smart phones calender and also learned your patterns, so it would preheat your car before you go to work and charge the batteries at off peek times.

12-24-2012, 12:43 PM	#1 (permalink)
Ryland Master EcoModder Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Western Wisconsin Posts: 3,903 honda cb125 - '74 Honda CB 125 S1 90 day: 79.71 mpg (US) green wedge - '81 Commuter Vehicles Inc. Commuti-Car Blue VX - '93 Honda Civic VX Thanks: 867 Thanked 434 Times in 354 Posts	Should every car have a plug? Why shouldn't every car have a plug? EV charging plugs have become standardized, the J1772 plug can deliver 110v or 220v (three prong) and has two more contacts that are used for communication, different signal voltages and frequencies tell the base station to turn on and off (cord is not live when it's not connected) and adjusts the max amp draw allowed by the EV's on board charger, allowing it to throttle back the EV's on board charger in times of peek grid load. The other day I was at a friends apartment and was eyeing up the outlet that is in front of each parking space and thinking about the outlets that I installed next to the parking spaces at home for EV charging and I started thinking about all of the other reasons that you would want to plug in a car, any car. So my list of reasons for plugging in a gasoline car include: Preheated/cooled passenger cabins would reduce the amount of idling. Trickle charger on the starting battery would extend battery life. Engine block heater would nearly eliminate engine warm up time, sending engine in to closed loop sooner, past experiments have shown that plug in block heaters are cheaper and use less energy then driving with a cold engine. And of course if you had a hybrid that is not normally a plug in hybrid could benefit as well! a plug in system like this could to a charge/balance of your hybrid battery to extend the life of the pack, allowing a route learning GPS drive train management computer like the Ford C-max has, to deliver you home with a drained battery instead of starting the engine up right before you pull in the driveway. The hardware is already out there, you can buy the J1772 plugs, recepticals and basic signal generator boxes to tell the base station to turn on, of course right now the parts are still out of most peoples price range, but the cost is dropping and it would give more reason for more EV charging stations to be installed. Of course to make it work really well, it has to be based off of at least a mildly smart control system, an Arduino that was set up to talk to your smart phones calender and also learned your patterns, so it would preheat your car before you go to work and charge the batteries at off peek times.