Home EV charging

[Zathras]

Does anyone have a setup for feeding power back to the home from the EV?

Or for those with solar, anyone look into battery power storage systems?

We have two Teslas, solar and Tesla Powerwalls (batteries).
The Teslas are not set up to feed power to the house. Some EVs can be set up to do that (Ford Lightning for example).

As others have mentioned, there is a setting in our Tesla to only charge off solar. We are both home most days, so we take advantage of that option.

 

[audreyh1]

Cybertruck has bidirectional charging. First Tesla to do so.

 

[Koolau]

We had a 6 hour power outage Sunday over a significant corner of our Island. I'm betting that many wished their EVs could have powered their homes but I've yet to hear a story of anyone doing that on Island. I think such a capability would have made the news. Here in our condo building, I don't think there would be any easy way to hook up an EV to power one's apartment, but SFHs should be easy with the right equipment and hook ups. I see more EVs almost every time I am out. Maybe this latest outage will encourage folks to buy whatever equipment is needed for the reversal of the power. I assume such equipment must include a lock-out to prevent energizing beyond one's own home.

 

[Alan]

We had a 6 hour power outage Sunday over a significant corner of our Island. I'm betting that many wished their EVs could have powered their homes but I've yet to hear a story of anyone doing that on Island. I think such a capability would have made the news. Here in our condo building, I don't think there would be any easy way to hook up an EV to power one's apartment, but SFHs should be easy with the right equipment and hook ups. I see more EVs almost every time I am out. Maybe this latest outage will encourage folks to buy whatever equipment is needed for the reversal of the power. I assume such equipment must include a lock-out to prevent energizing beyond one's own home.

Increasing numbers of EVs support V2L where the EV can have an extension cord into which you can plug regular appliances. It is aimed mostly at the camping community but if you had a power outage at home you could certainly plug in things like your fridge and freezer to stop food spoiling.

Here is one from Hyundai

https://www.hyundai.co.nz/v2l#:~:text=Vehicle to Load Adaptor,the vehicle is turned off.

“ Vehicle-To-Load” (V2L) allows you to use the stored energy from electric vehicles high-voltage to recharge an e-bike, or power electrical camping equipment, or some domestic appliances, and this is even possible when the vehicle is turned off. A V2L External Adaptor is required to use this function.

 

[Midpack]

Though the Cybertruck is capable, it’s not simple…

Powershare is Tesla’s new bidirectional charging feature, which seems to include vehicle-to-load, vehicle-to-home, and vehicle-to-vehicle capabilities (V2L, V2H, and V2V).

V2L refers to a vehicle’s capability to power equipment through five outlets – two 120 V 20 A outlets in the bed and cabin, each, and one 240 V 40 A outlet in the bed. This can be used for work equipment, camping, or other mobile power necessities (emergency response, for example). Tesla confirmed that the Cybertruck has 9.6 kW worth of continuous power combined through five outlets in the vehicle.

But Cybertruck does have 11.5 kW output capability from its V2H system, which allows it to power a home in the event of a power outage or grid instability.

Tesla’s solution is no different – to power your home, you will need additional equipment, seemingly in the form of Tesla’s Universal Wall Connector ($595) and Gateway ($1,800) products and, optionally, Tesla’s Backup Switch (though this may depend on your utility).

But the big difference here is the existence of the Tesla Powerwall. The company says that homes with Powerwall and Tesla’s Wall Connector installed will be ready to use Powershare without additional equipment (although it refers alternately to its Wall Connector and Universal Wall Connector, so we’re not sure which one is compatible, or both, or whether you need one made after a certain year, or what).

 

[Koolau]

Our last home on the mainland, I had a grid isolater (not sure what you call that) installed so I could hook up my generator and energize the house without energizing the line to the house. I never actually had to use it, but tried it out and it w*rked. It was a couple hundred of hardware IIRC and maybe $300 electrician time. With a $500 B&S generator, I was good to go for maybe 24 hours (that B&S generator DRANK gasoline!) Heh, heh, my ICE car could run my house - if I sucked gas out of my car to put in the generator.

 

[Golden Mean]

We had a 6 hour power outage Sunday over a significant corner of our Island. I'm betting that many wished their EVs could have powered their homes but I've yet to hear a story of anyone doing that on Island. I think such a capability would have made the news. Here in our condo building, I don't think there would be any easy way to hook up an EV to power one's apartment, but SFHs should be easy with the right equipment and hook ups. I see more EVs almost every time I am out. Maybe this latest outage will encourage folks to buy whatever equipment is needed for the reversal of the power. I assume such equipment must include a lock-out to prevent energizing beyond one's own home.

The Technology Connections kid did a poor man's version of this with his Ioniq 5, on his Connextras channel: Ioniq 5

 

[Koolau]

Kinda cool. My set up was "whole house" but I could see running the fridge and maybe the microwave (a hungry boy can survive.)

 

[RetMD21]

In this cooler weather we’ve been enjoying, I have been charging during daylight hours too. We don’t get a break in price for non-peak hours.

However I’ll switch back to early morning wee hours charging when hotter weather is here.

I'm trying to just use the solar but if the sun goes behind a cloud it doesn't matter much since our electric rate is flat until summer. We have long days in the summer so I may try to do daytime charging but keeping it conservative enough to avoid the higher daytime rates.

 

[Koolau]

I'm trying to just use the solar but if the sun goes behind a cloud it doesn't matter much since our electric rate is flat until summer. We have long days in the summer so I may try to do daytime charging but keeping it conservative enough to avoid the higher daytime rates.

No possibility for me to use solar at this time, but I've often wondered:

Most of us drive during the day when charging would be ideal. Does that w*rk out for most solar charging folks? Sounds a bit like a Catch 22 but I haven't heard how much solar time is needed for most EVs.

Our electric provider isn't capable of allowing very many people to net meter, so "off grid" seems the only choice and that would seem ideal for charging EVs - except that daytime is when most of us are "out and about" in our cars. YMMV

 

[ERD50]

The Technology Connections kid did a poor man's version of this with his Ioniq 5, on his Connextras channel: ...

I watch a lot of his videos, but I wish he'd be more concise. He could have simulated all that with a few measurements, and got a good idea how long the car could power those loads. He really drags it out.

I wish he would have tested the statement he made near the end. He said the car was not as efficient at converting battery power to AC power, but is that a mostly constant loss as long as it is in power delivery mode, or is it more a percentage of power delivered? IOW, would you still waste much of that if all you were powering was an LED reading lamp? If that was the case, you could cycle power and only run the fridge and freezer for 1 hour on 2 hours off or something like that.

Either way, it's sufficient for an extended power out, if you limit your peak usage, so pretty useful.

-ERD50

 

[RetMD21]

No possibility for me to use solar at this time, but I've often wondered:

Most of us drive during the day when charging would be ideal. Does that w*rk out for most solar charging folks? Sounds a bit like a Catch 22 but I haven't heard how much solar time is needed for most EVs.

Our electric provider isn't capable of allowing very many people to net meter, so "off grid" seems the only choice and that would seem ideal for charging EVs - except that daytime is when most of us are "out and about" in our cars. YMMV

net metering is going away most places but generally has been replaced by less generous programs. I think it would be difficult or impossible to get condo owners on board to add solar.

How much you need to charge depends on how much you drive, efficiency, and the amount of solar available. On most days I drive maybe 15 miles. I can recover that in a couple of hours of charging.

 

[explanade]

We have the option of feeding back from our EV but would need a new charger.

We do have solar battery storage so charge up every day and powers the house all day.

And this is in North Yorkshire, which is like the middle of England?

You can generate enough power from solar for the house and also charge the EV?

Is this all year round or mostly spring/summer/fall?

 

[Alan]

And this is in North Yorkshire, which is like the middle of England?

You can generate enough power from solar for the house and also charge the EV?

Is this all year round or mostly spring/summer/fall?

This is for the whole of the UK.

For about 8 months we generate enough solar that we have net zero consumption for the house, excluding the EV. We have no AC and the water is heated on demand from a gas boiler.

Over the course of a year we export about 40% of what we generate as the long summer months generate a lot.

Since we have an EV our overnight rates / kWh are less than what we get paid for export so we charge the solar batteries fully overnight even during the summer as it is cheaper overall.

 

[Koolau]

net metering is going away most places but generally has been replaced by less generous programs. I think it would be difficult or impossible to get condo owners on board to add solar.

How much you need to charge depends on how much you drive, efficiency, and the amount of solar available. On most days I drive maybe 15 miles. I can recover that in a couple of hours of charging.

Thanks. That sounds very doable for anyone who can have their own solar system. If you have to miss a couple of days due to clouds, you could make it up on the next sunny day. Cool.

 

[Zathras]

No possibility for me to use solar at this time, but I've often wondered:

Most of us drive during the day when charging would be ideal. Does that w*rk out for most solar charging folks? Sounds a bit like a Catch 22 but I haven't heard how much solar time is needed for most EVs.

Our electric provider isn't capable of allowing very many people to net meter, so "off grid" seems the only choice and that would seem ideal for charging EVs - except that daytime is when most of us are "out and about" in our cars. YMMV

Works great for us. Each of our cars is generally at home for 4-6 hours of peak solar production.
Even on a cloudy day, we produce enough for our house plus a bit for the cars if needed.
It takes a downright stormy day to block the panels completely.

 

[scfr]

Is anyone else affected by the Enel X Way (owner of the Juicebox charger brand) shutdown? What do you think it will mean for you down the road? Juicebox North America | Enel X Way USA - Creditor Claims Information

We have a plug-in Juicebox Level 2 charger that we use to charge our PHEV at home.

Our electricity costs the same regardless of time of day so we don't schedule our charging. We've only used the app to monitor usage, so we don't rely on it.

As long as the hardware keeps working, I think we'll be fine. And if the hardware stops working some day, we can get a new Level 2 charger. Thanks to county + federal rebates and buying on during a Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale, our net cost for the charger wasn't that high. Will the hardware not last as long if there are no more software updates? I wouldn't be thrilled with having to replace the charger sooner than we would have had to with updates, but it wouldn't be a major problem.

And since we have a PHEV we can keep our car running even if we can't charge.

The bottom line is that I'm not really worried about this. But I wonder if I'm missing something?

 

[ctbktb]

Is anyone else affected by the Enel X Way (owner of the Juicebox charger brand) shutdown? What do you think it will mean for you down the road? Juicebox North America | Enel X Way USA - Creditor Claims Information

We have a plug-in Juicebox Level 2 charger that we use to charge our PHEV at home.

Our electricity costs the same regardless of time of day so we don't schedule our charging. We've only used the app to monitor usage, so we don't rely on it.

As long as the hardware keeps working, I think we'll be fine. And if the hardware stops working some day, we can get a new Level 2 charger. Thanks to county + federal rebates and buying on during a Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale, our net cost for the charger wasn't that high. Will the hardware not last as long if there are no more software updates? I wouldn't be thrilled with having to replace the charger sooner than we would have had to with updates, but it wouldn't be a major problem.

And since we have a PHEV we can keep our car running even if we can't charge.

The bottom line is that I'm not really worried about this. But I wonder if I'm missing something?

Hi there scfr- I am in the same boat as you and I don't think you are missing anything. The one thing I use the App for is to change the Amps/Kw going to the car. Soon, I will no longer be able to do this. As a precaution, I have set it at a rate I'm generally comfortable with.

 

[braumeister]

The bottom line is that I'm not really worried about this. But I wonder if I'm missing something?

No, it will continue to work as a dumb EVSE. You just won't have the extra features available in the app. Remember that the actual "charger" is in the car -- the EVSE simply feeds current to it.

 

[Jerry1]

Wouldn’t the app keep working in the state that it’s in for awhile? Maybe even a long while? Similar to operating systems on old computers. They don’t advance but they keep working the way they did. Of course eventually something changes and breaks it but on a single function system, I’d think it would work pretty good.

Maybe one work around would be to use a cheap phone that you’ll be good with letting go stagnant because it’s most likely the a phone os update is the thing that will kill the app someday.

Maybe the user base is big enough that some type of open source/third party will take on supporting/creating the app going forward.

 

[explanade]

Wouldn’t the app keep working in the state that it’s in for awhile? Maybe even a long while? Similar to operating systems on old computers. They don’t advance but they keep working the way they did. Of course eventually something changes and breaks it but on a single function system, I’d think it would work pretty good.

Maybe one work around would be to use a cheap phone that you’ll be good with letting go stagnant because it’s most likely the a phone os update is the thing that will kill the app someday.

Maybe the user base is big enough that some type of open source/third party will take on supporting/creating the app going forward.

I haven't really surveyed the charger market but I guess despite growing number of EVs on the road, there were too many charger vendors?

You buy these things once and maybe you might replace them in 5-10 years or more. Or never.

So without constant hardware sales, they don't have the revenue stream to maintain those servers.

That's happened to some other smart home devices, like web or security cams where they weren't charging a subscription fee to store videos in the cloud so the vendor just bailed and now those webcams are useless because they can't record to a memory card, they were designed to save recordings to the cloud.

While subscriptions solve the problem somewhat of ongoing server costs, people are resistant to getting a subscription to use every IoT or smart home device.

Something like chargers though, they could probably have built them with some amount of onboard storage to save settings but they wanted you to register for accounts and connect to their servers.

Why? They probably thought they could monetize your patterns of behavior somehow.

I was looking at one brand, called Emporia, with load management. But for that to work, you have to have Wifi connected to their cloud.

A competitor called Wallbox apparently doesn't require Wifi but does require a wired connection to the main panel to do the load management. So probably a higher upfront cost to have installed by licensed electricians.

People suspect that Emporia is tracking your behavior and plan to do something with the data they're collecting. Or it could be just some paranoia.

 

[braumeister]

So without constant hardware sales, they don't have the revenue stream to maintain those servers.

Not necessarily. I have a ChargePoint EVSE in my garage and it's absolutely solid. ChargePoint has charging stations pretty much everywhere, because whenever I travel I can usually find one not far from where I stay. Their business model is in good shape, as a car plugs into one of their stations at least once a second in North America and Europe.

 

[aaronc879]

I don't have an EV yet but when I do I plan to just use the charger that comes with it and plug into the existing 110 V outlet in the garage. No need to upgrade unless you put on a lot of miles, I don't.

 

[lilly]

I got our Juice Box at Costco about 2 years ago and up until now I was very happy with it. I am not pleased with losing the ability to adjust the amount of charge to the car or the timed charging. I have an older EV that does not internally have these capabilities. I purchased through Costco knowing I could return if something went wrong, and I am considering returning it now since it no longer will do what I needed from it. I would repurchase what Costco has available now with the same protection if it doesn't work right or do what I need. They are currently offering a similar product "wallbox pulsar".

 

[scfr]

My husband reminded me that if for some reason the Juicebox stops working, we can always go to Level 1 charging using the cord that came with the car. We share 1 vehicle and I still have a commute, so we rely on the quick Level 2 charging. Going to Level 1 charging wouldn't be ideal, but we could make it work.

I do feel for those who rely on the adjustments that @lilly mentioned, or who installed Juiceboxes for commercial purposes.