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Staggering buying an EV and EV charger
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this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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[Dormant] Electric Vehicles
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A large amount of people in North America can suffice on a level 1 charger anyway. It charges more than the average commute.
If you do a ton of errands and have to drive the kids around as much as the average commute after work as well then it won't, but there's buffer for some errands in there.
If you start falling behind you'll make it up on the weekend unless you're going on a trip. You do need to make sure you're topped up enough if you're coming home from a trip though, so having a level 2 nearby may be important.
A level 2 charger is more efficient though so over time it'd cost less. But I don't think you'll make up the difference for many years.
Also modern 120v nema 5-15 outlets actually have wiring to the breaker box capable of a nema 5-20 outlet. That extra 5 amps makes it even easier to manage and is a super cheap upgrade IF you're wired for it
This is the math people should look at instead of using an emotional reaction saying "EVs don't work"
The 2023 average USA Ev range is 291 miles. The average USA commute distance is 41 miles round trip. Right there, the average EV will make 7 average work commutes before needing a full charge. As you said, the weekend is a likely place to make up a deficit.
But what if you also do a trip on the weekend? Forbes has some aggregated stats we can use. As of 2021, 91% of US households had a car. 59% had more than one car. I would expect the single-car households are more central to cities which pair with shorter car commutes and a higher rate of non-car commutes. The 5 lowest metro area ownership rates span the metro areas from Boston to Philly. In all likelihood, swapping one car for an EV per household would go completely unnoticed - it'd never stop someone from reaching their destination.
Common arguments:
"I buy mulch at home depot" [once a year]
"I might do a road trip" [forgetting how boring it was to drive 6+ hours at a time 7 years ago]
"this is my vehicls, not hers" [yelled from a offroad rig that hops a curb in traffic]
"most of America is desolate" [95% of Americans live within 100 miles of a border, a fun Border Patrol jurisdiction loophole]
No, this isn’t likely true and can be dangerous advice. Even if it’s on a 20a circuit, which I don’t think is a requirement yet, you can’t just swap the outlet if it’s a shared circuit
Its not a requirement, but it's pretty common on anything in the past couple decades for the wires to be capable (maybe not a 20a breaker switch)
Not sure about the shared circuit part, but yes, don't just swap it, do the proper research, but for many people it is just as easy as swapping the outlet.
I want to preface by saying I absolutely agree with everything you've said. My personal commute is like ~20 miles round trip, which is more than capable of being covered by a level 1 charger. But I wasn't aware of that 5-20 bit of trivia. I'm going to have to look into that for myself. (Thanks!)
Though, there are two things I'd like to add: Under the normal commute situation, there are scenarios I can think of where a level 2 charger might still be a good investment.
If your battery capacity is good, in practice, you would hardly notice when you have a day or two of heavy driving. Sure it may take an extra day or so to reach full or so, but it won't impact your ability to get things done when things soon revert to normal.
On the other hand, if your battery is something that probably belongs more in a hybrid than it does in an EV, then said car will probably be less forgiving of back-to-back heavy usage. (I was originally looking at a Nisan Leaf since there were good deals for them used, but then I saw that the non-"+" trims had garbage capacity. And then I understood why they were so common as used.)
The other scenario is your power company. They may provide incentives for restricting your charging to certain hours by using an approved Level 2 charger, which when combined with the federal incentive, drastically cuts down the time it takes to break even and then come out ahead.
Ya that's a really good point about the time of day charging incentives. That can add up a lot quicker if you have access to it. When you're on level 1 you don't have the luxury of choosing when to charge unless it's a really short commute.