EV Help (what kind of public charge port is this?)
 

I was surprised to see that the local community collage has EV parking.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c4...1-09115611.jpg

The sad part is there are no EVs too use it.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c4...1-09115648.jpg

My question is what kind of EV uses a charger like this?
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c4...1-09115619.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c4...1-09115740.jpg

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It's a J1772 plug -
SAE J1772 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Nissan Leaf and other new EVs and hybrids such as the Volt and Plug-In Prius are supposed to use the J1772 plug. Charging stations are being installed in many areas; most have the J1772 plug, and some also have a standard 20 amp/120 volt plug for EVs that don't have a J1772 style interface.

How long before that cable ends up like the air hose at gas stations? Twisted, mangled, and never returned to the holder.

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Interesting that the Nissan Leaf uses this kind of charger. I had heard talk of major cities around here getting Nissan Leaf chargers.

Where did our Federal Stimulus money go? Into building an EV infrastructure. The Governor announced thanks to stimulus funds The entire I-5 Will have charging stations including fast charging stations.

I have a membership to the ChargePoint station system.

I also go go to the county technical college, but they have not charging station there, and my EV doesn't have the range to make it there and back!

That's the standard connector the the Volt, Leaf, and all other major EVs use.

As part of the official spec on that connector, law requires that it's a non-removable cable, that's why you see it coiled up like that, instead of as a removable cord that EVers would just carry in their trunk.

The odd part about this is that is supports the newly manufactured vehicles from GM, Nissan, etc., but is USELESS to people who have a homebuilt EV or an NEW with a standard 120V power connection. I suppose that's good for the economy... force people to buy expensive NEW vehicles, because those are the only ones supported by the infrastructure. :(

I know that the 120V version of that charging station has the power connection under that middle faceplate. I would certainly hope that this version of the charging station has the original 120V power connector in there still. That faceplate is locked. When you swipe your card, it unlocks the cover, then you plug in your extension, and close the cover, which locks back over it. That way, "those punk kids" can't unplug you when you are not looking.

Also, there is a guy working on J1772 to 120V AC adapter. He's building a custom box that has that type of connector on the one end, and a standard power plug on the other. It even has a "dummy" data connector to fool the charger into turning on, even though it's not the same power connector on the other end.

All I really want is just a plain electric outlet in a parking lot.
My local grocery store has 20-amp GFI outlets on EVERY street light in their parking lot. I asked for permission to use them, and was told that "We can't allow anything that would increase the utility bills of our customers."

Never mind the great free publicity that they would get, or that more people would go to their stores instead of the competition.

Very jealous that you have a charging station around.

J1772
If you want to get your own J1772 cord for the house, it's ONLY $475, as opposed to $30 for an extension cord for 120v at home depot. haha. Dang! it's rated for 70 amps though. And built to order.
I find it really annoying that they would make a plug-in so complicated. I guess they are looking down the road when there will be so many plugs that it could negatively affect the whole electrical grid? So there would be some sort of priority given to the "more dead" batteries? Is that the reasoning behind it? Or is it just to make sure the plug can't come undone? Boy, if they try the charge sharing thing, I think it will take about 1 week before a person makes a crack for it, and sells a "charger" that charges all the way until full by faking signals.

Its the very same if not worse here in Ireland. The answer to the simple act of charging a car seems to be "more technology".

One of the reasons I'm hesitant to bug my college about a charging station is that they would probably install one of these, which would be useless to me; but then I'd never have the range to get there anyway. I did discover a few places near campus that had outlets right there at the parking spot which would be perfect. Anyway, I think that as far as charging stations go, I'm torn about these. I hate the idea that it has to be so expensive, and I think they are sort of pointless given how little everyone drives in a typical day anyway. Also, needing a special plug that costs about the same as my entire conversion annoys me. But I also see the flip side where these weren't designed for the handful of people across the country doing conversions, but rather are built for the OEM's. And when it comes to acceptance, the last thing we need is some dolt plugging in his Leaf and driving off while dragging a charging station behind him! In just the last couple days one of the guys in my local EV group wrote about driving off with the charger still plugged in, so the data transmission aspect, as much as I hate the idea, is probably necessary.

My commuti-car doesn't turn on if it's got power from a cord going to it, a rely switches and charging starts, this is how it came from the factory.

I suspect it will take less then a year before someone starts to make a retrofit charger that works with these charging stations and a few months later someone will make an affordable one, 80 amps at 240 volts would charge my car in half an hour.

All of the manufactured EVs (even Ryland's Citicar) are designed so that if they are plugged in, you can't turn them on and drive off.

On a homebuilt electric vehicle, it's easy to leave that circuit out of your design! (My Electro-Metro has that feature, but it's not actually hooked up right now.....)

Also, the charging plug on pretty much all EVs will always be on the front, or the driver's side. That way you can't help but see and notice it.

One my car, I have to unplug it just to squeeze between the car and the wall of the garage!

VPOPPV: I think many of us feel the same way as you. We don't really want these big expensive charging stations, but people don't want to put up due to cost - we really just need an outlet! I'll have to double-check that ChargePoint station, and see if the 240V version also has a 120V jack hidden inside.

MPaulHolmes' link above goes to a web page where a guy is making adapters. They are not horribly expensive. Still, it would be nicer not to have to use one.

Also, keep in mind that "Charging Stations" are NOT CHARGERS. The charger is built into the car. The Charging Station is simply a glorified electric outlet. I only mention this because I often hear non-EVer's getting confused over that.

a normal 120v 15 amp outlet will work for most people anyway, plug in at work for 8 hours and a 12 amp charger will give you 4-6 miles per hour of plug in time or 40 miles of range while at work, drive less then 40 miles to work and you get done with work with a full charge every day.

How long would it take to charge an EV like the leaf with a charger like the one I posted if it had 50% or less battery?

Looks like Chargepoint DOES have a charging station that includes both 120V AND 240V charging. LINK

These stations supply 240V and 30 amps. They call that level two charging.

Nissan says that the car will take a full charge in 8 hours through the onboard 3.3KwH charger.

So, if the battery is half run down, it would be four hours.

Also, if the car is designed for a 100 mile range, and they say it recharges in 8 hours, you can ballpark calculate how many miles you can go per hour of charging. Divide 100 miles by 8 hours, and you get 12.5. So, if you are the movie theater for two hours, and charge while you are there, you can go another 25 miles after that.

Actually Ben, looking at your link it looks like they are ALL level II stations... Ie the J1772 plug that fit's the Leaf gives Level II power and the Level I is a standard plug... Ie they should be usable for all EV's even homebrew... Not as fast as using the 240V power, but just the same...

Hey nice to see some actual Level 2 Stations sprouting up! Which College in Oregon are they at and specifically where in the parking lot?

Thanks for sharing!

The link I provided was specifically for one of their stations that provide BOTH level 1 & 2 charging with the standard outlet AND J1772.

Look here at their other products.

Most of their products provide something OTHER than 120V.

I was just glad to see that they had one that could quickly charge a Volt or Leaf and also a simple homebuilt or an NEV.

The school is LBCC. I was thinking of realistic driving scenarios its 52 miles from where I live to the coast, a drive I have done many times. Its another 23 miles to get to the closest chargepoint station that's an extra 2hrs of charging just so you could charge. How do you explain to the family they need to go to the "gas station" for the next 6hrs just so they can go home?

Ah... That explains it then... Unfortunately for me, the chance of getting publicly available charging around here in Sweden is as likely as a free Leaf... :(

What! no public EV charging in Sweden. I thought your country was trying to be petrol free?

I don't see the current J1772 approach as bad.

The obvious downside is that the connectors are between outrageously expensive and unavailable. But the only inexpensive power connectors regularly used outdoors that I can think of are used to hook up boats at dock. And those aren't cheap, especially when you move above 30 amps.

The big plus is that the base power is a standard 220V at 30 amps and it's a trivial pilot circuit to turn it on. You only need a smart circuit if you want to draw more power.

Just plan on 220V at under 30 amps for charging now, and buy a J1772 connector pair when they drop in price. By the time the higher power modes are actually standardized, there will likely be an inexpensive module to handle the smart side.

Well... so far the politicians have bought the natural gas, and e85 hype... They are fine for what they are, but considering that people buy "flexifuel" whatever, get the tax breaks and then run them on regular gas is to me just bogus...

Yeah, the idea's are noble but the guys making the rules are as much clueless on this side of the pond as on yours... Trying to register and insure a homebrew EV around here is like a chess game where the opponent know the rules and you dont... And when the opponent doesn't know the rules he makes them up... But I'm learning...

Standardization is a good thing. It's just that as it is right now, the J1772 has been a very expensive connector.

If a person was to build an EV from scratch right now, they COULD put a J1772 connector on their car, BUT that would then only work at official charging stations.

That still wouldn't allow them to charge from standard outlets. Most charging goes on at home, so either a J1772 OUTLET would have to be installed in the garage, or have a dedicated adapter, converting from J1772 to something more standard. (That's what all the new factory-bult EVs will have - J1772 connections, with a adapter carried in the trunk to allow to connect to 120V AC)

Tesla owners have a "variety pack" of power adapters available to them in the Tesla on-line store.

Many less-expensive home-brew electric cars only have 120V AC chargers on them. They work fine. They are less expensive. It seems wrong to have to buy a higher power, more expensive charger just to be able to use a public charging station.

Vehicles like NEVs almost never have anything more than a 16A 120V charger on them.

Charging stations are also NOT inexpensive. Many of them are around $5000 or so. It doesn't seem right to spend that kind of money on a glorified electric outlet, that I can't even plug my car into.

My two cents: I am more than happy just having access to a plain old electric outlet. For all the new cars coming out that will need a lot of juice, just make sure the charging stations support both J1772 level two charging and Edison plug 15 amp 120V AC level 1 charging.

I'm very opposed to using E85. There isn't enough corn to make it work for everyone -- just E10 mandated in parts of the U.S. caused overall food prices to rise dramatically. To see the total effect don't just look at corn prices. Other foods were substituted for corn, causing an overall ripple effect. It's not a big deal where food is 5% of a household budget, but it has a much bigger effect elsewhere.

As far as local inspections, it's easy to understand why the rules don't make sense. Modifying cars is "bad", but it used to be so common the politicians had to allow it a little bit. EVs are "good", but that idea doesn't fit into the rules. After all, you went and removed the catalytic converter, right? And all of the oxygen sensors! Where is the evaporative emissions cannister? I'll bet the gas cap doesn't even hold pressure.

djbecker E85 is not the problem its how most is being made. There is a company that makes their ethanol from bad soda pop and juice. Then fuel is then mixed as E10 and sold. There are other companies that make ethanol from waste products, many things that would otherwise end up in landfill. As for crops grown things like cattails can produce 4X more fuel per acre then corn and grow even better in sewage water in turn cleaning the water. Many people consider cattails a weed because of how well it grows.

At the electric auto meeting last night there was talk about a Leviton charge station that costs about $500, then the conversation turned to the topic of the charge stations being slightly more then a high priced extension cord, the fancy part of them of course is that you can stick the end of it in your cup of coffee or drop it in a puddle or lick it and the end is dead until you plug it in to the car, not sure how accurate it is but apparently the car has to send a signal (someone said square wave 24v, not sure if it was a joke tho) to the charge station before it will turn on, this keeps someones cup of coffee from tricking it in to turning on.
either way, $2,000 for a cord seems like someone is making a killing.

The Leviton is one of the cheapest charging stations out there right now.

ShorePower is another company making stations. They already make them for boat docks, so they know what they are doing about not dropping ends in water, seawater corrosion, etc.

Yep, glorified electric outlets.

My concern is that the cost of the stations is such a turn-off to places that would otherwise consider getting them. The only way I really see this working is with big companies that write it off as an advertising expense. (Look at us! We are eco-friendly! Our employees can charge at work!)

It looks like NRG is going to be the first company to start up any sort of an area-wide array of charging stations, in Dallas.

The "24 volt square wave" is a pretty accurate description.

The most basic turn-on circuit is a resistor and diode to get moderate power out. And this is about as simple as it can be made. A square wave is used to make certain that the diode is in the circuit, not mud or dirt that happens to be exactly the right resistance.

There are future plans to communicate billing info over the same signaling circuit, but I think they should delay the effort to standardize that. Once money exchange is being talked about, all of non-technical players come out of the woodwork trying to change the standard so that they somehow get a little slice of each payment.

Besides, why should the car be billed for the charge? When I'm at the gas pump I can get gas with cash, credit card, and RFID sensor. And I can put gas in my friend's car or a rental car just as easily as my own.

[QUOTE=Tweety;204811]Well... so far the politicians have bought the natural gas, and e85 hype...

Indeed when I was in Sweden I saw some E85 stations but the Stockholm area was supposed to be getting over 1,000 public charging stations. The ones I saw were green poles sort of looking like green industrial flower stems and they had just a standard Schuko style plug (not the Mennekes or J1772)

It was being promoted by one of the major utility companies of which the name escapes me at the moment...

Yeah I know... But that's like comparing New York vs the rest of the US... Granted it makes sense to start in a town for EV's and Stockholm is the largest... But why ONLY Stockholm? I live in Malmoe, Swedens third largest town, wich has a total of 2 puplic charging stations... I'm responsible for one of them, the other one is outside the largest utility companys building...

The cost to also include a 120V plug in this unit would be minimal. But they don't want to do that. It is not about the charging point, but selling the vehicle to use that charge point.

EDIT: Just read farther in the thread that you found that it does have a 120v plug. Cool!

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I can't actually tell just by looking at the photo, but Chargepoint DOES have one version of their station that supports BOTH plugs.

Also, what if you live in a very cold area?
If you have both an EV and a gas or diesel vehicle, you could use the charging station (with a 120V plug) to run your engine block heater as well!

The whole "why do EV charging stations have to be so expensive!?!?" question is the current hot-button issue this evening on the Electric Vehicles Discussion List (EVDL).

Many of the comments mention that an EV charging station IS a glorified electric outlet. (Once again, just a reminder that the CHARGER is a separate item, usually built into the car.)

Other comments refer to specifics in the electrical code, and mention changes that were made to the electric code during the EV-1 time period.

Other persons spoke of "boycotting" level two J1772 chargers until they come down in price, or that part of the cost may be simply because the CAN charge that much money, especially with government incentives.

I'm going to boycott a J1772 charge plug, just like I'm going to boycott the Tesla roadster, and I'm also going to boycott a 300 foot yacht, filled with servants.

Too true, Paul, thanks for putting that all in perspective. ;)

Couldn't decide if this merits a new thread or not but here goes:

Electric cars: Will the power fail? | StarTribune.com

(Newspaper article about anticipated grid inadequacy due to electric cars)

Probably does need its own thread - but here are some additional points to ponder about EVs and electricity use.

Since about 1980, even though the number of electric gadgets in a typical US household has increased dramatically, consumption has actually remained flat.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publica...0-2007-018.PDF (see page 3, or the attached picture)

This is because over time, most items using electricity have become more efficient.

With the shift to electric vehicles, there will be some -reductions- on the grid that will have some balancing effect to the power drawn by EVs for charging.

• Refineries consume a significant amount of electricity in the production of gasoline. About 20% of the energy content in oil is consumed during the refining process. In other words, a refinery uses about 9 gallons' worth of oil energy per barrel - the energy equivalent of 329 Kilowatt hours (kWh) electricity - to produce 44 gallons of fuels and other products. 329 kWh of electricity equates to roughly 1,300 miles of driving in an average electric vehicle at 250 watt-hours per mile.

Interestingly enough, if a better-than-average IC car (30 mpg) were to use the rest of the barrel of oil (44 - 9 = 35 gallons of gasoline), it would only be able to drive about 1,050 miles.

<soap box>

In other words – If we did NOT drill, extract, protect, fight over, transport, refine, sell, spill, or burn ANY oil - simply left it in the ground - and recharged electric cars using the electricity that would otherwise be consumed to extract and refine crude oil into fuel - an electric car could drive 1,300 miles - 250 miles farther than the fossil fueled car.

</soap box>

• Many EV owners have solar electric systems installed on their houses. Buying an EV is oftentimes the tipping point for a homeowner to also install solar. This reduces the overall grid load.

• Because an EV doesn't use gasoline, it won't need to use a gas station. Gas stations use electricity to pump gas out of the ground. The reduction is small (perhaps 200 watt-hours when the in-ground gasoline lift pump is on) but nonetheless a measurable reduction. Putting about 2,000 electric vehicles on the road should eliminate the need for one gas station, which would further reduce electricity demand - no 24/7 lighting, pumps, soda refrigerators, coffee machines, etc.

The article is a bit of fear-mongering.

Nothing it says is an outright lie or anything, but it does seem slanted to the gain readership by being shocking.

Many of the quotes are from electric utilities, yet ELECTRIC UTILITIES have been LEADERS in purchasing Hybrid PLUG-IN kits and Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. They love the fuel and maintenance savings.

Electric Forklifts have been around for a long time, and work great. Nobody has fears of forklifts crashing the grid. If anyone really IS worried, it's only because mainstream electric cars are new and different.

My microwave oven uses more electricity (power) than my EV does.

The article says that adding an EV is like adding a small house to the neighborhood. Well, that's true.... kinda.. When my house is at Peak Load - (that is if I am using the microwave, the electric coffee pot, the television, clothes washer, and dishwasher all at once,) I use about 3500 watts. But the rest of the time, I use between 200 and 500 watts. Thats a peak load to base load ratio of somewhere between 17:1 and 7:1.
So, 17 energy efficient houses use the same total power as one energy hungary home.
Obviously, not all homes are the same.

So, don't charge your EV in the middle of the day in summer while everyone's AC is running full blast. Charge it at night, when less electricity is used. Sometimes you can even get cheaper electricity at night. I think that both the Leaf and Volt have a timer feature built into their charger systems. You can plug the car in, and program it to start charging some time later.

The article also had a quote from the utility in Austin. I did some work down there for the University at Austin, which has it's own power utility. Their main concern was always about power for air conditioning. However, guess what all the maintenance vehicles on campus were? Electrics! Piles of Gem cars and similar running around there. (Helps on parking too

Lastly, the article mentions that plugging into "regular" outlets can be a problem as well, as you could accidentally blow a breaker and have power out to other items on the same circuit. REALLY? Oh my, the utter inconvenience.. :rolleyes:
Any household electric item known to have a large power draw always gets it's own circuit. My microwave oven has it's own outlet, on it's own circuit. It never blows the fuse, and never "knocks out" any other electric items in my house.

An EVer with a 15 amp charger is going to be charging in his garage, or maybe at an outlet on the front porch. Not usually places that you have other large loads going on.

And why didn't the article mention the electrical ADVANTAGES of EVs? I constantly hear talk of "Smart-Grid" technology, where the car's batteries can PROVIDE power to the grid when it needs it. (Granted the round one of commercial EVs don't have this feature, but it's a well-known concept.)

Oh, and now that I think about it. A level 2 charger really is nearly identical in use to an electric water heater or electric clothes dryer. I don't see the utilities worried about people switching to electric appliances, or everyone on one block all happen to run their microwave oven at the same time.

If adding a couple of cars to a neighborhood would wreck the transformers, it was time for new infrastructure already.

Also, people who drive electric cars typically think about their energy use a whole lot more. I don't think I know any EV driver who doesn't use CFL bulbs, timers, power strips, etc to reduce the rest of their electric load.

I think that brings us back to renewable energy. As Tom said, you can make your own electricity. You can't make your own gasoline. Electricity as a fuel (er.. energy carrier, technically..) is amazingly flexible. We can get if from natural gas, coal, wind, solar, nuclear, and a variety of other sources - and for the most part, you get to choose your own source!

Diversification is a good thing. If something goes wrong somewhere ( say, an oil embargo, for example) we still have other options, instead of being held hostage to the costs and politics of one particular fuel.

Also, think how long it took for the Prius to catch on. It took a while. If we DO run into any problems from mass-produced EVs charging, it's not going to hit all at once, the utilities have a while to work out any bugs.


PS: I just read through some of the comments added as public responses to the article. I can NOT believe the lack of knowledge of the public! Wow! Talk about fear-mongering and ignorance!

As far as charging station costs go, I was in the "its too damn expensive" pack until I got the opportunity to live with an EV. After 8 months of use, my NEMA style (household plug) cordset was pretty much destroyed. You pay for durability with the J1772 system.

~Jimbo

Well... Yes, and no to that one... The difference might be a bit sturdier plug and a thicker cord with strain relief on it... But you can get that with a bit more expensive household cords as well...

But in terms of mechanical failures, you are certainly increasing the potential with the J1772 as it has the twist lock, ie more "moving parts" (plastic rubbing on plastic)...

But given that, and the cost of a comparably "better" household cord, I'd say it has still moved from "too damned expensive" into "damned expensive"...