Issues to Consider for Electric Car Charging

With more people buying or considering electric cars, there are some issues you may need to work out regarding your home’s electrical system. Vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt are designed to use special charges that have to be hardwired directly into high-power lines to recharge the batteries in a short time.

These charges are not like regular household fixtures where the do-it-yourselfer have wire them into the home. The equipment has to be fully approved, installed by a competent professional, and in most cases, an inspector will have to provide a permit and inspect the installation.

Most consumers think that all that is required is plugging the car into an ordinary receptacle, but it will take a long time to achieve a full charge. Charging a Nissan Leaf would take about 24 hours, and charging a Volt would take eight. With the manufacturers’ quick chargers, the job for either would be done in just a few hours. The Volt can run on gasoline as well, but isn’t the point of an electric car the electricity?

BMW rolled out an experimental fleet of 450 Mini-e electric Mini Coopers in the Los Angeles and New York City areas last summer, but the chargers did not receive approval from Underwriters Laboratory. Many times this approval is required in many states perform an appliance can be installed. It could also affect your home owner’s insurance, so you should make sure the equipment is approved and when you changer you auto insurance, contact your home insurer to see if there are any additional requirements to maintain your policy.

Most quick chargers are designed to utilize 240-volt supply voltage. This is similar to electric clothes dryers or air conditioning units. Since the charging station will most likely be outside or in a garage, it will be required to have some sort of ground fault protection. Surge suppression should also be considered if the charger does not have an internal surge suppressor.

Depending on how far your commute is, you may want to ask your employer to see if you can plug in at work. Don’t be surprised if you have to pay for it though, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

In the future, there may be charging stations at malls or along the street that are similar to parking meters. The automakers are also working on public infrastructure for electric cars and parking lot charging stations are more important for creating public acceptance of electric cars than for actually charging the car. The price point for public charger will be considerably higher than when paying for it at home.

Nissan and GM have been working with city and state governments to prepare them for the arrival of electric car so their customers are surprised by any state or local mandates and inspections. But if there is a way local governments can generate revenue these days, you can image that there will be additional costs.

Standardization

The Society of Automotive Engineers have created a committee made up of all the major automakers, Electric Vehicle start-up companies, and charging equipment manufacturers and supplies. The Committee is called SAE J1772™. They are requiring that charging receptacles and cords have common functionality and design. The chargers should last for at least 10,000 charges, the cord assembly can be driven over, UL approved, drive away prevention, sealed connector, latching capability, and ground fault monitoring to name a few. A communication standard is also being considered to provide information such as available current, ground status, charging capacity, etc.

While the electric car is likely to be around for a long time, there will be issues regarding their implementation and acceptance in the short term. These issues should be considered before considering such a large investment.