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Can you plug in at home?

  • I can plug in at home.

    Votes: 61 84.7%
  • I cannot plug in at home.

    Votes: 8 11.1%
  • My car takes AA batteries.

    Votes: 3 4.2%

House or Apartment?

7K views 33 replies 24 participants last post by  samotlietuvis 
I was sort of curious, because it appears a good number of Tesla Owners cannot charge at home. Sounds backwards, right? Buy BEV when you have no home charging. Buy dual mode EV when you DO have home charging.
Tesla's have > 200 miles of range and a supercharger network. If you happen to live near a supercharger you could visit it once a week just like ICE drivers visit the gas station once a week, it's less convenient than a gas fill up because it takes at least 30 minutes but it's probably tolerable. Volt's have an EV range of 53 miles and it takes 4.5 hours to charge it. Unless you have access to a free L2 charger at work you need an EVSE at home. Even if you have access to a non-free charger at work you wouldn't want to use it because it's so expensive for Volt owners. Chargepoint is priced by the hour not by the KW so it's really expensive because of the 3.6KW charger in the Volt, in my area > 40 cents/KWh. You would also need to move the car after it's charged if you are using a public charger for the Volt which makes it even more inconvenient to rely on a public charger. Given that it only costs about $1K to install an EVSE (EVSE + electrician's rate) it would be crazy to buy a Volt and not put in your own charger.
 
My condominium homeowners association banned electric vehicle charging. I am waiting for county or state law to catch up with the need for mandatory access to charging for all condominiums in Colorado. Until owners can be assured access to charging, the electric vehicle revolution will only extend to the minority of rich people who can buy million-dollar homes. I am able to charge about a half-mile away from home, then pick-up my vehicle every night a couple of hours later to park at my condominium.
What was their reason for banning EVSEs? As long as you were willing to pay for the installation of the EVSE and the electricity is billed to you I don't see why they would object.
 
I live in a condo with a shared garage. Fortunately the wall outlet is on my driver's side. I'm the first person to have a Plug In so I'm kind of the guinea pig. The garage electricity is shared and isn't on our personal electric meter. The HOA asked me to put a monitor on the outlet to see how much kWh I use. After 6 months I'm supposed to pay the HOA. However, the shared electricity isn't on a Time of Use plan so the rates are higher. Fortunately there's a free charging station in a small business center about a mile away. At the moment I charge there. I just drop the car there and go get it 4 hours later. It's getting more popular though so I may be doing more home charging in the future.
Will your WiFI reach your parking spot? If it does I suggest you get a TP Link HS110 (Energy Monitoring) Smart Plug
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16881704015

It's much easier to use than a Kill-O-Watt. You will be able to read your energy usage from a smartphone app. Below is a screenshot from the TP Link app (KASA) of the monitor on my dehumidifier.
 

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