New owner, need charging advice

[uscpsycho]

Hello, new member here. I just got a SEL today and I'm shocked by how long a full charge takes with the provided charger so I'd like to upgrade to something that will charge faster.

Are there any solid go-to chargers that you guys recommend? I can put in a 220 plug or hardwire as necessary. Are there any advantages to hard wiring?

What about battery maintenance? Does fully charging the battery on a daily basis hurt the battery life? What are best practices for keeping the battery in peak condition?

I'm sorry if these things have been addressed before (I'm sure they have) but when I try to search for "charger" the forum won't let me because it's too common.

TIA

 

[Sparklebeard]

There are a few threads on this topic. I’ll summarise for you,

Charging to 80% daily rather than 100% will help prolong the battery’s health. You can limit charging to 80% by going into the vehicle settings screen, tapping e-Manager, and creating a charge timer. You will want to set the ‘minimum charge level’ to 80, then on the timer set the ‘maximum charge level’ to 80. Set a day and time for the timer, but it can be any day and time. It doesn’t matter for this purpose. Now when that charge time is active the car will only charge to 80% then hold. If you want to charge to full you can press the little ‘charge now’ button by the charge port, and it will override the charge limit

It’s a bit convoluted, but in essence the way it works is that the charge timer tells the car ‘charge up to X% by Y time but then stop once you reach X%’
The minimum charge setting tells the car ‘no matter what the timer says, immediately charge to this minimum amount as soon as the car gets plugged in, then stop and wait for the timer before continuing’

By setting these together at the same percentage you tel the car to immediately charge to that level, then hold indefinitely since the charge timer has already hit its max limit.

It’s ok to charge to full when you need it but recommended not to do that if the car will just end up sitting at a high battery percentage. It’s supposedly better to run from 80% to 20% rather than 100% to 40% for example. I try to avoid going much below 20%, though I believe as far down as 10% isn’t really too bad for the battery, it’s just annoying and potentially dangerous if you’re on a freeway when you suddenly hit the low battery speed limiter!

Regarding ev charging equipment, the general recommendations seem to be the Juicebox 32, ChargePoint Home, or ClipperCreek models. These are all UL listed and can support the full charge speeds the e-Golf can accept.

Congrats on the SEL! Was it a new or preowned purchase?

 

[uscpsycho]

Thanks for the info!

I got a new SEL. Crazy deals right now, I got $10,500 off MSRP and another $600 for the Partner Program and refusing the cargo net ($100 for that???). Plus another $10K in state/federal rebates. Ended up being less than 50% of MSRP.

 

[JoulesThief]

Thanks for the info!

I got a new SEL. Crazy deals right now, I got $10,500 off MSRP and another $600 for the Partner Program and refusing the cargo net ($100 for that???). Plus another $10K in state/federal rebates. Ended up being less than 50% of MSRP.

What color exterior and interior?

 

[uscpsycho]

What color exterior and interior?

I got white exterior with black interior.

Are fully adjustable electric seats an option? I thought the SEL came loaded but in the instruction manual they show a seat that has electronic controls in all directions. Only my seat back is electronically controlled, all the other adjustments are manual.

 

[Sparklebeard]

What color exterior and interior?

I got white exterior with black interior.

Are fully adjustable electric seats an option? I thought the SEL came loaded but in the instruction manual they show a seat that has electronic controls in all directions. Only my seat back is electronically controlled, all the other adjustments are manual.

Not in North America at least. Semi-electronic is the best we get!

 

[JoulesThief]

At 10 amps and 120V that's about 1.2 kWh per hour charge rate. You only get about 91% efficiency, or there abouts of kW into the battery at that rate. That might be good for adding 4 miles of recharge per hour. So if you've driven about 100 miles out of 125 miles of range on a charge, that's at least 25 hours of recharge time with the supplied EVSE.

Going 240V at 30 amps and 7.2kWh charge rate at home... if you install a 240V 50 amp outlet dedicated circuit for EVSE charging only, you are probably looking at 4.5 to 5 hour total charge time, if your battery is darn near empty, which is not a good idea to run the battery that low, try to always keep the needle out of the red zone, on any German car. It's really a deep doo doo emergency reserve for your battery, not good to run it that low, ever, if it can be avoided.

 

[uscpsycho]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I ordered a JuiceBox Pro 40 since it is sold by Costco.

 

[Sparklebeard]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I ordered a JuiceBox Pro 40 since it is sold by Costco.

Do you mind if I ask their price? I've been considering the JuiceBox.

 

[uscpsycho]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I ordered a JuiceBox Pro 40 since it is sold by Costco.

Do you mind if I ask their price? I've been considering the JuiceBox.

$549, same price as it is sold by the manufacturer.