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Ford OEM Energi 120v Charger


theralpher
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I was in the market for one a couple of months ago. There was only one on eBay and they wanted nearly $400. I found several Nissan Leaf ones on there and got a "like new" one for $250.

 

I have the Ford one wall-mounted in my garage, and keep the Nissan one at work for daily charging.

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Any standard J1772 EVSE will work. They come up on eBay all the time. You can typically find one for about $200 or so. It doesn't need to be a Ford branded one. There are a bunch from a rental car fleet that are going for $189 right now. Search for " Lear Level 1 EV Electric Car Charger EVSE". 

 

A friend pointed these out to me and is using one with a BMW i3 as a backup. No issues with that car so far. Of course it wouldn't hurt to have a L2 for his purposes but to have something he can plug-in when there is no 220 available it has worked well.

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A friend pointed these out to me and is using one with a BMW i3 as a backup. No issues with that car so far. Of course it wouldn't hurt to have a L2 for his purposes but to have something he can plug-in when there is no 220 available it has worked well.

Does the i3 not come standard with a 120V EVSE? I thought every EV came with a 120V charger from the factory...

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Any standard J1772 EVSE will work. They come up on eBay all the time. You can typically find one for about $200 or so. It doesn't need to be a Ford branded one. There are a bunch from a rental car fleet that are going for $189 right now. Search for " Lear Level 1 EV Electric Car Charger EVSE". 

 

A friend pointed these out to me and is using one with a BMW i3 as a backup. No issues with that car so far. Of course it wouldn't hurt to have a L2 for his purposes but to have something he can plug-in when there is no 220 available it has worked well.

A L1 charger with the i3? Man, would that even complete an overnight charge?

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Every hour you can charge, even if at 110v, can help out. As for my friend he wanted a spare which isn't a bad idea. 

 

If you are only 30 miles or so on the i3, a L1 charger is enough to recharge it overnight. You don't need L2 chargers everywhere. The vast majority of people could be well served by just having a standard 110v outlet at work. We don't need a 220v volt infrastructure everywhere. 

 

Even if you just put in 1 kWh per hour, and you get 4 miles per kWh, then 8 hours at work will give you 40 miles of range (assuming your have sufficient battery capacity). Not many people commute more than 40 miles each way. If so, maybe a diesel is a better option.

 

I would be ecstatic if many places just had more standard 110v outlets instead of a dedicated electric car recharging station. it would suffice for many people.

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Every hour you can charge, even if at 110v, can help out. As for my friend he wanted a spare which isn't a bad idea. 

 

If you are only 30 miles or so on the i3, a L1 charger is enough to recharge it overnight. You don't need L2 chargers everywhere. The vast majority of people could be well served by just having a standard 110v outlet at work. We don't need a 220v volt infrastructure everywhere. 

 

Even if you just put in 1 kWh per hour, and you get 4 miles per kWh, then 8 hours at work will give you 40 miles of range (assuming your have sufficient battery capacity). Not many people commute more than 40 miles each way. If so, maybe a diesel is a better option.

 

I would be ecstatic if many places just had more standard 110v outlets instead of a dedicated electric car recharging station. it would suffice for many people.

I looked it up. It takes about 15 hours to recharge an i3 on a L1 charger.  That makes it unrealistic for daily use at it's full charge capacity. It all depends on the range needed. I compare it to my use, where I charge only at home. I would require a L2 connection with a BMW i3 for my use.

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That is my point, how often do you USE the entire capacity of the battery? I am not saying you can charge an entirely depleted battery off L1 in its entirety while at work. 

 

I found this that might help others understand the impact of just having more L1 charging options available. 

 

http://www.aprs.org/EV-charging-everywhere.html

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That is my point, how often do you USE the entire capacity of the battery? I am not saying you can charge an entirely depleted battery off L1 in its entirety while at work. 

 

I found this that might help others understand the impact of just having more L1 charging options available. 

 

http://www.aprs.org/EV-charging-everywhere.html

Me personally? Just about every day. I generally get 25 miles out of my EV, and most days I use at least 95% of it.

 

The i3 decision would have to be based on the distance traveled and capability of charging at work. Too many variables. But I personally would spring for at least the L2 charger at my house.

Edited by stevedebi
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Based on your patterns, and if you owned an i3, you wouldn't need a L2 charger at work. Anyway you can't really compare the range of the NRG vs. the i3. Not many people have an 80 mile commute (one way). As shown on a chart in a link I referenced, about 90% of all commutes are 32 miles or less. At 4 mile per kWh, you can recharge that in about 8 hours. Less if you drive more efficiently such a 5 mile per kWh. Even if the i3 driver had a 40 mile commute, he could almost top off at work and be fully charged at home with a 12 hour charge.

 

L2 aren't cheap. At home you have more time to charge typically. At some point EVs aren't that practical when driving long ranges. Where the L2 might make sense for me is preconditioning on very cold/hot days before I get in the car. Since a L1 won't keep up with the max load the AC/heater can put on it, then I can do as much as I might like.

 

Since I'll be at work for a long time like most people, I can cover almost all my charging needs with L1 charging. Now if I had to drive 25 miles, had a part time job, then maybe not so much on L1 but I could still make a dent. In general why recharge any faster than you need? No point have the battery at 100% hours before you go. It isn't healthy for the battery. Unfortunately the Ford charging doesn't let you say when you want to be ready and charge accordingly. 

I would prefer to say be ready at 7am and then start the charging JUST in time so that it would hit 100% about the time I am walking to the car. Value charging isn't quite good enough. I modify it each time based on how much I need to charge.

Considering you can add a L1 charging option for many time less than an L2, it makes more sense to add more L1s for now. Just a standard receptacle. At my work we have 2 L2 chargers. Everyone is playing musical cars to try and take a sip from the hose. Really no need if they just had more 110v receptacles outside. So much time is wasted shuffling the cars around that I don't even bother with it. People are PO'd if you don't take your car off when it just gets charged. If I am the first one there then my car sets at 100% all day long which is a waste. So I've worked out a deal with shipping and receiving to just let me run an extension cord into their dock area and all is good 90% of the time (i.e. no big deliveries going on).

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Every hour you can charge, even if at 110v, can help out. As for my friend he wanted a spare which isn't a bad idea. 

 

If you are only 30 miles or so on the i3, a L1 charger is enough to recharge it overnight. You don't need L2 chargers everywhere. The vast majority of people could be well served by just having a standard 110v outlet at work. We don't need a 220v volt infrastructure everywhere. 

 

Even if you just put in 1 kWh per hour, and you get 4 miles per kWh, then 8 hours at work will give you 40 miles of range (assuming your have sufficient battery capacity). Not many people commute more than 40 miles each way. If so, maybe a diesel is a better option.

 

I would be ecstatic if many places just had more standard 110v outlets instead of a dedicated electric car recharging station. it would suffice for many people.

 

I disagree..and many people, depends on where they live, drive 50+ miles one way..heck, I know quite a few personally, that drives over 110 one way. I have L2 and loved it, Maryland helped me pay for it and the install, IRS gave me some too, and in the end, everything ended up being free. I can now commute, go home and charge, rest and take the family out to dinner....I could go on and on with this, but I dont want to sound like I'm attacking you, rather than trying to get you to look past your own life. Oh and just think if more and more people had a car like ours, can you see what  the parking lots would look like with every 110v outlets..everywhere at your company rather than add 1 or 2 more L2s...

 

We do need "220v volt infrastructure everywhere", we just need more people that is willing to break with oil (GAS) and go cheaper in the long run which will lower the cost AND bring more tech

Edited by lonzo71
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I do look past my own life on this. The statistics show that the vast majority of people's (90%) commute is less than 32 miles one way. I used to commute 80 miles each way when I lived in Atlanta. I understand long commutes. Sure it might be nice to have 220 everywhere but that isn't going to happen soon, if even in my lifetime. Based on that L1 will help most people. There are always going to be the 1% who have extra long commutes and you may not be able to do much for them. You can't do everything for everybody all of the time.

 

The point is if there are more places to charge, even if just a L1, more people are likely to get off ICE powered vehicles. it is a lot easier to talk an employer into setting up a few outlets for L1 charging than asking them to spend thousands of dollars for L2 chargers. All too often i see the L2 chargers tied up even after the people are done charging. So what benefit did having that super fast L2 charging really achieve? 

 

Here at work we have paid L2 charging. We have a whopping 2 EVSEs to handle about 20 people that want to use them. So it becomes a musical cars type scenario and a very negative impact to the working day. Not likely they are going to drop in another L2 but setting up L1 charging. So my friend is happy to charge even if his car is taking comparative sips of electrons rather than big gulps. Slower rates of charging is generally less stressful on batteries anyway. So that is why he wants a spare L1 with his car.

 

Even in SoCal, it isn't that convenient to have an electric car. You have to do a lot of planning. Even then you may plan a stop where there is an EVSE and find that it is occupied. Then you are stuck waiting to get a turn at the fire hose. I can't tell you how many times I've been thankful I wasn't driving a pure EV. At least I could use the ICE and go on to my next stop.

 

One of my key points was a spare charger, even L1, is beneficial and at pretty low cost. My friend picked one up very cheaply and it seems to work fine. 

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