I need advice to buy Level-2 charger

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Apr 25, 2015
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I have been driving my new E-Golf for 3 days only. Reading the forum I understood there is a huge problem with car-net. Please, advice to me what Level-2 charger I should buy to have delayed charge function ( built-in timer) to relay only on a charger. I understood that car go asleep in 2 hrs, and delayed charge must start in less than 2hrs, otherwise the car will not respond.
Please, let me know if I have to switch to a different plan with my electric Co (PG&E) to pay less for the off-peak time , I live on Central Coast, Santa Maria. Can I stay with my current residential plan or it would be better switch to another plan?
How much is a monthly cost to charge E-Golf each night, if I drive 70 mi/day? Thank you guys.
 
If you don't have a meter setup already for off peak, it's not economical for off peak charging and unless you drive a lot or have other uses for off peak electricity, it may not pay. You need to go to your electric co web site and get the rates. When I did that for Con Ed in NY, I found I couldn't begin to justify it

Car net will have delayed charging fixed so it wouldn't pay for that function built into a charger.

Ron
 
I have not heard of a station that can reliably charge the e-Golf from its own timer. I am hoping that the upcoming Jamp JR from QuickCharge Power will work. I will be buying one as soon as it's available and will report back to the forum. I am hopeful about this EVSE because its timer function will interrupt the Presence pin. That should make the car see the timer event as a new plug-in event, so it should work reliably. Obviously, VW should fix Car-Net eventually so this should not be a big issue.

For most people in PG&E coastal territory that don't have heavy Air Conditioning usage, the rate Schedule EV will save you money over the standard rate E-1. PG&E has already deployed SmartMeters throughout their territory, so starting you on a time of use plan is purely a change in the billing system. I also strongly recommend looking into solar if you're in PG&E territory and you own a single family home that you're planning to keep for 5+ years.

You can see a rate analysis I did before posted here. The focus of that analysis was the cost of adding car charging to different homes that don't have solar. That was done last year, so it will be slightly more expensive today due to routine incremental rate increases.
 
Thank you for your answer. What EVSE Level-2 do you advice to me?
Do you have a SmartMeter?
How much do you pay monthly( electricity bill) for your E-Golf?
Thank you again.
 
konstantin said:
Thank you for your answer. What EVSE Level-2 do you advice to me?
Do you have a SmartMeter?
How much do you pay monthly( electricity bill) for your E-Golf?
Thank you again.
1. If you ignore the timer issue, there are large number of EVSE available to deliver 30 or 32 amps to your e-Golf. At the cheap and ugly end of the spectrum is the GE Wall Mount then you have Aerovironment, Siemens, Schneider, Bosch, Leivton, and Clipper Creek. I feel these are all the top tier station brands and would not recommend others. I personally have a Leviton 40 amp unit because I had pre-wired my house during new construction for this size circuit and I got a RAV4 EV that can take all 40A.

Getting an electrician to give you a fair bid for the install is far more important than the small difference in price between all these charging stations. You will probably save a significant amount of money buying the EVSE online and having the electrician only provide the supplies and labor to install it.

2. I have a NEM SmartMeter because I also have solar. I am on the E-9A PG&E rate plan which is closed to new customers. The current rate plan is Schedule EV. If you can charge the car between 11pm and 7am you will only pay 10c/kWh in the Summer and 10.3c/kWh in the Winter. However, you didn't say where you are or who your electric utility is.

If you don't have tiered rates, calculating the cost of charging a car is relatively simple if you know your driving efficiency in miles/kWh. For example:
1,000 miles/month / 4.0 mi/kWh = 250kWh/month
250kWh battery energy / 85% charging efficiency = 295kWh utility energy
295kWh/month * $0.10/kWh = $29.50/month
 
Konstantin,

I had the same question as you when I had to figure out whether to switch from PG&E tiered to the EVA plan. What I did to help me out with the decision was to go the the PG&E website and download my usage history for the last couple of months. By doing this, I was able to plot out my daily usage by time of day and apply the pricing rules for the two different plans.

As Miimura notes, the answer will depend heavily on your driving habits. For me, I use roughly 10.5 KW-hrs per day on my commute and on weekends stretch the Golf's legs a bit more (and drive in freely flowing traffic) so I use more. I ran an analysis for an average of 14 kW-hr per day to account for weekends and extraneous driving that might happen day to day. I get a slight advantage using EVA plan ($4.10/day) vs tiered ($4.90/day) but that also means I'll have to be more conscious about only doing laundry on the weekends before 11am or after 7pm and running the dishwasher on a delay as well.

The cool thing about being able to download your usage from PG&E is that after a couple of months, you download, re-analyze, and decide if switching back to tiered makes sense.

I decided to go for the e-motorwerks Juicebox EVSE as i was drawn to it's online connectivity and the promise of future updates for increased usability since they use open source software. Plus, I had an existing 240V plug in the garage from an old dryer install and the Juicebox comes with a plug and optional adapters to plug into dryer receptacles. Didn't have to worry about electricians or hardwiring. It also means the juicebox is portable so it goes with me to my next place and in the hopefully not too distant future of 200+ mile affordable e-cars, can go with me on road trips.

Arturo
 
If you go with EVA with PG&E, note that you cannot change back for a full year. Also read the fine print, off-peak begins at 11pm on weekdays EXCEPT during daylight savings time when all peak/non-peak times move forward by 1-hour so that off-peak will actually begin at 12am.
 
Frank3 said:
If you go with EVA with PG&E, note that you cannot change back for a full year. Also read the fine print, off-peak begins at 11pm on weekdays EXCEPT during daylight savings time when all peak/non-peak times move forward by 1-hour so that off-peak will actually begin at 12am.

Thanks for the heads up on the fine print. Curious to see where you saw the full year waiting period to switch back. On the website
http://www.pge.com/en/myhome/saveenergymoney/pev/rates/index.page it claims:

"Customers can change their rate plan twice every 12 months. If they opt to install a meter dedicated to their electric vehicle, they are only eligible for EV-B on that meter. Their house, however, will be eligible for PG&E's tiered or tiered, time-of-use rate plan."

I wouldn't be surprised to find contradictory info in some other fine print. I also more carefully read the official Cal PUC sheet for the EV-A plan, and it's a really weird daylight savings adjustment. If I read it correctly, the one-hour shift in times only applies for about three weeks in March and about one week in October. Very strange and a bit obnoxious to have to program that into charging schedules...

http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf
 
IndigoZ, I think you're right about the ability to change plans twice a year - I must have read it wrong.
 
Regarding PG&E and plan changes - they basically don't want you on one plan for summer and another for winter, to game the rates. If you have a change in situation, they will always let you change. For example, you get an EV and want to get on the EV plan, they will let you. If you get solar and want to change to a different plan, they will let you.
 
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