I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property • Hacker News Board

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#171

Post by maximus-decimus » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:44 PM UTC

natch wrote: post #118

maximus-decimus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long before you recoup the cost of the charger though?

There is absolutely no financial advantage to having an installed charger versus an outlet. There are other advantages. It might fit your hand better during the 2 seconds it takes to plug in. It might be better in the rain if your outlet is exposed to driving rain in wind. It might look more impressive to the neighbors. It looks more impressive to the landlord or wife or anyone who might be approving a budget for upg…

The point with scheduling is that on a normal plug, it make take long enough to charge your car that you can't charge it completely during the time window where electricity is the cheapest. So the parent comment was arguing you need faster charging to save money by doing all your charging in that time window.

But yeah I have a hard time believing it's gonna be a big enough saving to offset the cost of the charger.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#172

Post by sliken » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 5:58 PM UTC

bhhaskin wrote: post #15

socialismisok wrote: post #4

"I'd have to bring my electrical systems up to code and that's expensive for my 80 year old house" Well, yeah. I suppose it would be. I'm a bit surprised this is a surprise to the landlord. Also, many of the costs here are looming anyways. It's a matter of when, not if, the electrical needs updating to meet code.

That's not necessarily true. It sounds like most of the upgrades are about convenience to the power company. Not anything safety related, which is why older properties are exempt. You also have to remember that it takes a lot of power to be able to change an EV in timely manner. It is easily the number one consumer of energy. Older neighborhoods utilities where never designed to do that.

I keep hearing that, it seems like no big deal. The average annual driving I hear is somewhere around 12,000 miles. 12,000/365 = 33 miles a day. Or 10 ish hours on a 120v circuit. Presuming most people sleep, shower, dress, etc 10 ish hours a day it doesn't seem like a big deal. Sure you might have to occasionally use an external charger ... much like the gas folks do.

33 miles a day of electricity is not that much, something like 7.6 KwH per day. For perspective AC units use from 0.5 to 5 KwH per hour.

Is it a difference, yes. However most EVs charge off peak, and would go even more off peak with a financial incentive. I set mine to start charging at 11pm when it's the cheapest rate, which nicely offsets AC use which is heaviest in the afternoon.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#173

Post by sliken » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

bhhaskin wrote: post #67

breput wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like most of the upgrades are about convenience to the power company. Not anything safety related, which is why older properties are exempt. That is definitely not true. An 80 year old house might not even have grounded outlets, let alone GFCI or AFCI protected outlets. > You also have to remember that it takes a lot of power to be able to change an EV in timely manner Nobody worries about how many electr…

GFCI and AFCI are great! But a home isn't going to burst into flames or explode without them. Which is why there are exemptions. 240v at 30A is most definitely not a trivial load. Most homes have 100 amp service. That would be 30% of your homes total power capacity just for changing EV. You wouldn't be able to run AC and the dryer and charge an EV at the same time at that rate. But more importantly there is only so m…

Keep in mind 240v @ 30 amps = charging at 30 miles per hour or so. Common daily driving (12k miles a year) = 33 miles per day. Even throttling to 10 amps (which my charger supports), is 11 miles per hour or 110 miles per day if you charge for 10 hours.

Having had a 100 amp service, it was really not a big deal. Sure I'd normally charge at 11pm, when the AC wasn't running. But the home is using WAY less electricity than when I bought in 1994 when TVs consumed a ton of power, single paned windows insulated poorly, a fair number of 300 watt halogen bulbs, and tons of the 100 watt incandescents. Between LED lighting, a more efficient refrigerator, and a MUCH lower power flat panel TV our power use per day is less than it was in 1994, even with a EV.

100 amps @ 240v is a ton of power, and if you need to peak shave there's quite a bit of room between 240v@30 amps and 240v@10 amps which is plenty for most normal driving patterns.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#174

Post by ev1 » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

acuozzo wrote: post #136

foogazi wrote: post #108

> As EVs become more common, more landlords will be driven to invest in vehicle charging. Can EVs become more common without tenants being able to charge them ?

Yes, if EVs are produced with standardized modular battery arrays. Stop by the "gas" station, open up the hood, grab your drained battery cell cards, bring them in, and pay for fully-charged cell cards to swap in. The "gas" station can then charge the cards you brought and give them to another customer. It's worth noting that, under this scheme, battery life can be monitored and manufacturers can recycle/replace EOL…

Two wheelers already do this in many places. Gogoro is one option where you just pull up to a station, put your old battery in, and it'll tell you which fully charged one to pull out. If the station detects bad health or battery life it'll recycle/replace it the next time someone visits.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#175

Post by sliken » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #84

natch wrote: post #34

You do not need an EV charger to charge your EV. A 110 or 220 outlet with a cord and an adapter will work just fine. Apologies for the US centric terminology but I expect the situation is roughly the same (though numbers vary) elsewhere. We did TWO Teslas in an apartment for two years sharing (alternating cars) a single plug of a single 110 outlet. It was fine. With this arrangement, yes, on days where you do big tri…

Spending 30+ minutes not including added drive time to go to a supercharger everytime I want to go to the city or on a hike is not even close to a "very, very minor inconvenience." Speak for yourself, as I would bet money that the majority of EV owners find significant value and benefit from at-home L2 charging.

Before I had an EV, I'd have agreed with you.

Imagine your gas car increased it's range by 50 miles every time you came home for the night. How often would you fill up your gas tank?

For me it was much rarer than I expected. Sure longer road trips over 300 miles I'd often spend 15 minutes getting 140 miles of extra range. How far away are these hikes or cities?

I spent something like 10x less time charging on the road than I used to for gas and oil, so I consider that a huge win. Even driving from Sacramento Area to Denver area wasn't a big deal. Drive for 4-5 hours, stop and grab a snack and walk the dog and back into the car. Sure I had to wait an extra 10 minutes before driving for another 4-5 hours. I'd much rather do that than have to hit a gas station weekly ish.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#176

Post by ender341341 » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #169

bdcravens wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that states can always override NEC requirements. For example, Texas overrode the 2020 NEC requirement that 240 outlets in the garage must have GFCI breakers. (Learned this when wiring my garage with a 30A plug for my EV)

> the 2020 NEC requirement that 240 outlets in the garage must have GFCI breakers I haven't been keeping up on all the new NEC requirements for shoving xxCI's in various places, but I can see no rationale for this one. There is no such thing as 240 volts to ground in a home - it's all 120V (that's RMS, it's 170V peak), with a "240" outlet being both line phases (say +120 and -120 at a given point in time, giving a di…

I'm pretty sure it is any outlet in the garage now needs to be GFCI (though that may be that we have a utility sink out there for why we needed it).

For my EVSE I just had it hardwired to avoid it (which also allowed me to do higher amperage too).

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#177

Post by seattle_spring » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 6:46 AM UTC

sliken wrote: post #175

seattle_spring wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spending 30+ minutes not including added drive time to go to a supercharger everytime I want to go to the city or on a hike is not even close to a "very, very minor inconvenience." Speak for yourself, as I would bet money that the majority of EV owners find significant value and benefit from at-home L2 charging.

Before I had an EV, I'd have agreed with you. Imagine your gas car increased it's range by 50 miles every time you came home for the night. How often would you fill up your gas tank? For me it was much rarer than I expected. Sure longer road trips over 300 miles I'd often spend 15 minutes getting 140 miles of extra range. How far away are these hikes or cities? I spent something like 10x less time charging on the roa…

Now imagine how much better it'd be if you could fully charge your car at night instead of add only 50 miles.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#178

Post by seattle_spring » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 6:47 AM UTC

natch wrote: post #134

seattle_spring wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spending 30+ minutes not including added drive time to go to a supercharger everytime I want to go to the city or on a hike is not even close to a "very, very minor inconvenience." Speak for yourself, as I would bet money that the majority of EV owners find significant value and benefit from at-home L2 charging.

It’s hardly like that at all though. 300+ miles of range is plenty to get to a nearby city and back for most people, with or without supercharging. The “very, very minor inconvenience” I referred to is the non-issue of having to find something to coil the cord onto when not in use, solved by most installed chargers which give you an hanging hook. BFD.

Oh wow you can charge 300 miles without L2 charging overnight? That's one hell of a plug you must have there.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#179

Post by seattle_spring » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 6:49 AM UTC

natch wrote: post #135

seattle_spring wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spending 30+ minutes not including added drive time to go to a supercharger everytime I want to go to the city or on a hike is not even close to a "very, very minor inconvenience." Speak for yourself, as I would bet money that the majority of EV owners find significant value and benefit from at-home L2 charging.

More like 10 minutes with a 250kw charger if it’s on your way. Big if, of course. But again you can always charge at home instead if it’s just a nearby city.

Yeah again, I'm not arguing against EVs (not sure how people even arrived at that opinion), I'm arguing that owning an L2 charger at home provides more than "barely a convenience over 110V". If you have only a 110V then, no, you cannot "always charge at home." It's literally the argument I'm making.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#180

Post by natch » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #178

natch wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hardly like that at all though. 300+ miles of range is plenty to get to a nearby city and back for most people, with or without supercharging. The “very, very minor inconvenience” I referred to is the non-issue of having to find something to coil the cord onto when not in use, solved by most installed chargers which give you an hanging hook. BFD.

Oh wow you can charge 300 miles without L2 charging overnight? That's one hell of a plug you must have there.

You don’t need to. The charge level just keeps climbing each day. It’s not like it resets to zero at midnight or something. So it will get to 300 or 400 (Model S) if you let it.

And most people living near a city aren’t 150 miles away… more like 5-10 miles away. Even 60 miles away, there’s no need to charge to 300. Except for special cases, and on those rare times you supercharge for maybe 10-15 minutes to augment it, while watching Netflix or posting on Hacker News on the screen. Let me know if you have any more questions, always happy to clear up these misconceptions!