Interesting EV charging article

Amazing how a journalist can write an article on a subject that every EV owner understands implicitly.

He seems to think that having a larger battery increases the energy consumption rate while driving.

 

I have yet to pay for a charge, at home or on a trip. That could end April 22 when the free Petro Canada charging runs out. Still hope someone else steps up, but wouldn't count on it. However, BC Hydro may start offering lower rates for off hours at home, so that would help. And never a problem accessing charging stations. We have lots of them and more and more being constructed and opened.

 

Imagine how cool it would be to have a gas pump at your house. Just pull up and fill up any time. Never closed, never forget your wallet.

that is what it is like owning an EV, why are they trying to make it seem like a disadvantage?

Maybe if you are living in the film 'night of the living dead' it might suck, but otherwise it rocks

 

Well, having a gas pump at home would be terrible. It'd smell, you would have to actually fill it (not just plug and forget) and you'd have to be around when the truck comes to fill your tank up.

Of course I get your point, but there is nothing better and easier than charging at home (your point). Literally, plug and forget. It's even easier than charging your cell phone.

 

I don't think I'm going to risk the potential brain damage that could be caused by reading the whole article. I've been charging in a plain ole 110v wall socket for nearly 2 years just fine, thank you. In the place I'm just moving into I'll be putting in a level 2 charger, but mainly because -- like many homes in Hilo -- it doesn't have a garage, just a carport that's semi-exposed to the element. In that environment, given the occasional howling storms here, I want a hard-wired unit rated for outdoor use.

 

Heh, charging at night in your own garage is one of the biggest advantages of EV over ICE, because the cost of using EVs charged on public DC chargers is similar to ICE, at least in Europe. I personally treat landing on public chargers as an emergency option or an unpleasant necessity on longer journeys.

 

I mean that's not entirely wrong; A larger battery is heavier, and weight works against energy efficiency. I don't think that's what he was going for, though...

The main thing missing from this opinion piece (and many like it) is that what charging scheme works for you will be highly personal and dependent on your needs and means. As noted by others in this thread, 110V charging is viable if the amount of driving you do is within what 110V charging can deliver, which depends on how much driving you do and your vehicle's efficiency, which in turn depends on things you can control like your driving habits, and things you can't control like weather and even the car itself. It's all rather nuanced when you really dig into it.

That said, I've also done perfectly fine on 110V charging for the month between getting my Kona and getting the chargepoint installed, and even though recently I'm doing more driving and using more heat I still think I could manage if I plugged it in all the time. I appreciate that this is mostly because I drive only about 10 miles per day typically and that certainly doesn't describe everyone's situation...