One of the hardest parts, so
far, of entering the EV world is obtaining an
EVSE for my home, that elusive
charging equipment. I have tried four
different options to obtain my home EVSE and each one has achieved various
levels of success. I use the term
“success” lightly because as of now, I don’t actually have an EVSE.
In an effort to be creative and resourceful, neither of which has paid any real dividends, I have explored four different option.
1.
AreoVironment. This is the company blessed by BMW to install
home EVSE’s and their version comes with a cool BMW logo on it—although the electrons
flow freely to any brand of electric vehicle.
We were required to have the nice people, and they were, at
Aerovironment inspect our home and provide a quote for an EVSE install. My quote was $1,750 for the cost of the EVSE
and labor to install it. But this did
NOT include the labor needed to run conduit from my electric panel to the
garage—the problem being a doorway in between the two. So on to plan B.
2.
Coulomb/ChargePoint
America. They offered a
FREE charger, can’t beat that right? As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as free electrons. The problem
with obtaining a free anything is that you have to wait in line, assuming that
the free anything is worth something.
And this anything is worth something, so I waited. And waited.
And waited. Finally, I did
obtain a site visit from Clean Fuel Connection (the subcontractor for Charge
Point, who then sub’s it out again to another electrical company), which went
well but presented two new options for my home EVSE:
A.
Subpanel
Install. A subpanel has to be
installed because my main panel has a full dance card and can’t make room for
one more potential spark. Adds a bit of cost, but whatever it takes is fine by me. Or I could choose option B:
B. Second
Meter. Southern California Edison offers a special EV rate of 10 cents per
Kwh for vehicle charging from 9:00 p.m. to noon, but only when a
second meter is installed dedicated to tracking only the EV usage. The second meter is provided free of charge,
but I have to pay the labor to install it.
And SCE must conduct a site visit to determine the placement of the second meter and whether I have enough juice in the existing wires to feed
two meters.
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| My gate and battered electric meter |
After waiting another week for
the SCE site visit I was told: “you have to relocate your gate because it might
hit the meter.” What? That gate has been there for over 10 years and has hit the existing meter hundreds of times with no visible damage. Only now does SCE notice a problem with the gate? That’s what I get for drawing attention to
myself I guess. Better to fly under the
radar.
So scratch plan “second meter.” I don’t really need a second meter anyway
because I have solar and by using net metering and time-of-use billing for
solar and EV I can obtain a very similar result to having a second meter. It just limits my prime EV charging time from
midnight to 6:00 a.m.
And my quote from ChargePoint
for the EVSE install? Don’t know
yet.
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| Leviton evr-green 160 |
3.
Solar Company. I had solar installed last year by
Peak Power Solutions and they did a great job. So I
called to find out if they handle EVSE’s and whether they could put a package
together that included not only the EVSE, but also a few more solar panels to
help offset the extra power usage. I
thought for sure this would be my saving grace.
And I would love to add more solar panels to my system—what a perfect
excuse.
But not so fast because (1) the
cost of the additional panels were way higher than expected, and (2) the EVSE
that they wanted to install (a Leviton "evergreen 160") was a 3.8 Kw unit.
Keep in mind that the Active E can consume up to 7.2 Kw and most EVSE’s being
installed have a 7.2 Kw output. Not this
one. They found the small Sony Walkman
of EVSE’s in an iPod world, and while it looks ugly it's also entirely underpowered. Wait those are both bad things. Power down this option.
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| GE WattStation |
4.
Private Electrician. The last straw is hiring a private
electrician to come in and run conduit to a
GE Wattstation that I can buy from Home Depot for $999. May not be free, but it’s
not too expensive given the scheme of things and it has one very large benefit:
it may actually arrive in my garage! A
free charger does little good when I can’t use it…because I don’t have it.
My only hold-up under this plan
is…I can’t get my electrician to call me back.
The Hard Charging Conclusion. That’s
four options, four different avenues to a home EVSE, and only one partial quote
in hand.
I don’t want this process to be
difficult. I can steer through it
because my wife and I really want an electric car. So unlike most people, we will slog through
the unpleasantries to get this technology.
But I also want everyone else to want electric cars too. And with hurdles like this to overcome, the dream that EVs will be widely adopted is still out of reach.
Of course, the companies in the
EVSE arena appear to be very busy, which is good. But there’s not enough EVSE usage to keep
every electrician busy. So at some
point, there has to be a shift so that more companies have the ability to learn
about and install EVSE’s.
There is one thing the EV
adventure has taught me: patience. By
the time we’re done I will be a regular Zen master.
