Battery based electric vehicles of today and tomorrow.

[Agvg]

How is the Leaf priced Vs similar ICE Nissan's?

What type of home charges are offered? As I understand it 3 phase is uncommon in homes in the US so that might make som trouble?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

How is the Leaf priced Vs similar ICE Nissan's?

What type of home charges are offered? As I understand it 3 phase is uncommon in homes in the US so that might make som trouble?

On paper a similar ICE car is about half the price of a Leaf but from deals I see mentioned in Leaf forums the Leaf is about $5K USA more.

There are no home chargers for EV's like comes with say an electric golf cart with lead acid batteries. In the Leaf the charger is under the hood. The motor is at bottom then there is the 3 phase AC inverter and at the very top the charger is concealed under a cover. What some call the charger is just an very expense smart extension cord. The onboard charger looks at the AC power source and if happy the charger will decide which of the 3 onboard chargers to use. Our 2016 Leaf came with a 120 volt smart charging cord and if fully discharged it would take 20 hours to fully charge the new 40 kWa lithium ion battery. The format of the plug at the car is the J1772 standard.

I purchased a 240 volt cable (single phase) that is rated to transferring 40 amps from the house but 26 amps is the max the 6.6 amp Leaf charger can draw. It is on a 240 volt 40 amp breaker so when I get an EV able to charge faster I am good up to 40 amps. I have 3 phase grid passing our house but only a shingle phase is tapped using one transformer.

 

[Grumpycat]

Japanese conservatism combined with lack of faith in new revolutionary ideas, and EV are a political product, it's the political demand for pollution reduction that created the big market for EV.

There has always been an admiration for EV. EV conversions have been around at least since the late 1960's. I remember an article in Popular Science or Popular Mechanics of a relatively short range EV that was too easy to burn rubber. They made that sound like a good thing but one of the hard things to do right with an EV is to soft start the motor such that tires don't "skirp" on every start.

The thing that has happened of late is how the ability to control high power electrical motors and advances in battery technology has finally brought the EV into practicality.

About 1979-1980 UPS was running an experimental pure EV brown truck on delivery routes in Huntsville Alabama. You could hear it clacking along because it didn't have a solid state motor control inverter. Speed control was an array of contactors. I don't know if they switched resistors in/out, battery cells in/out, or combination of the two. But the truck made loud clacks every time the speed/load changed on the drive motor.

Fool government has been trying to mandate "solutions" since the beginning of time. The lesson learned from GM's EV1 was that CARB was ready to outlaw combustion engines the next week believing they could force manufacturers to build EVs. GM correctly responded by killing the EV1 project. If CARB was to mandate EV or nothing, then it will be nothing. CARB backed down and learned their lesson resulting in the current situation of tax credits for EV and for varying degrees of emission reduction.

 

[Grumpycat]

It took an outsider to create and accelerate this disruption.

Free Market Capitalism is sneaky about that!

 

[Grumpycat]

There are no home chargers for EV's like comes with say an electric golf cart with lead acid batteries. In the Leaf the charger is under the hood. The motor is at bottom then there is the 3 phase AC inverter and at the very top the charger is concealed under a cover. What some call the charger is just an very expense smart extension cord. The onboard charger looks at the AC power source and if happy the charger will decide which of the 3 onboard chargers to use. Our 2016 Leaf came with a 120 volt smart charging cord and if fully discharged it would take 20 hours to fully charge the new 40 kWa lithium ion battery. The format of the plug at the car is the J1772 standard.

The industry term is EVSE, Electric Vehicle Service Equipment. As Gale says it is a glorified extension cord. GFI and more. Plus a signal to the vehicle indicating how much it is allowed to draw. If limit exceeded then the EVSE shuts down. Somebodies knew full well idiot drivers would try circuits to see how much current they could draw before tripping circuit breakers if they were allowed to.

Basically L1 (Level 1) charging is 120VAC up to 16A (20A circuit).
L2 (Level 2) is 240VAC less than 20 kW (~80A).
L3 (Level 3) is over 20 kW, usually DC.

Tesla calls the bundled 32A EVSE with plug "Mobile Connector". First and 2nd generation Mobile Connectors could provide 40A via NEMA 14-50 on a 50A circuit.

The optional permanently wired EVSE is "Wall Connector" which can provide up to 80A @ 240VAC (on a 100A circuit) to vehicles which can accept that much. Some wire 50A range pigtails to their Wall Connector to use existing outlets. Recent Model S and X can accept 72A from an L2 circuit.

My Wall Connector is on a 50A circuit and jumpered to indicate such to the car, limiting draw to 40A. The Mobile Connector is smart in that it uses one of multiple proprietary adapter plugs to know what kind of outlet it is connected. It limits current to the vehicle accordingly. It knows if the 5-15 or 14-50 is being used.

I purchased a 240 volt cable (single phase) that is rated to transferring 40 amps from the house but 26 amps is the max the 6.6 amp Leaf charger can draw. It is on a 240 volt 40 amp breaker so when I get an EV able to charge faster I am good up to 40 amps. I have 3 phase grid passing our house but only a shingle phase is tapped using one transformer.

Not "good up to to 40 amps". The 100% duty cycle is limited to 80% of the face value on your circuit breaker. 50A breaker is necessary for a 40A charge rate. 32A is the most you can draw from your 40A circuit.

 

[dragoneggs]

Anybody following Ehang?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Anybody following Ehang?

Just saw the first article about it recently.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

2025: The Future of Tesla | In Depth - YouTube

This show is talking about EV's as well where Elon Musk's other companies will be in 2025 tech and value wise. Ford not making it as a stand alone company is easy to see from my angle mainly because they did not give up their debt like like GM and others back in 2008. China coming on strong with nice $15K-$25K EV's before current ICE makers can get EV's to the showrooms. I think this will make a lot of car dealerships disappear. Even if these 2025 predictions do not happen until 2030 it is still going to be a game changer.

 

[herm0016]

GM and a chinese partner's small EV is outselling tesla M3 in china. so i'm not sure all that is true.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

GM and a chinese partner's small EV is outselling tesla M3 in china. so i'm not sure all that is true.

That sounds reasonable. I'm hearing the term Model 2 but don't know what that means. I know Musk is concerned most car buyers are locked out owning a Tesla today due to price.