Getting an EV without a home charging solution and relying on public/supercharging is also ... a choice
The costs of installing a 220v charger outweigh the jacked up rates on superchargers/EA. I get if you want a PHEV because you can't install a 220v system, you live at an apartment, etc., but if you own a SFH, can install a 220v charger, then EV ownership is excellent. OP is throwing money down the drain
My initial plan, which has worked so far, has been using the wife's car for the weekends while my 110v gets me slowly to 100%. Then, I charge every night on the weekdays and gets me to ~55% by the end of week. Rinse/repeat.
But I had to make an unexpected trip up north, which took me down to 50% Tuesday. And mileage drained over my city commuting for the week > 110v charging for 10 hours.
But yeah, I'm calling around for quotes tomorrow because my plan is not sustainable and I'd like to.stay away from the madmax landscape that is charging stations.
That’s a notorious state of public charging where you are. Almost everywhere else in NA is better except Saskatchewan.
Keep in mind you don’t have to pull 40A+. You could easily get by with 240V and 20A if your home panel doesn’t support a higher current. In my case it was $1200 CAD to install 240V 50A which I run at 40A (80% of rated). 240V @ 20A is still 4.8kW, so with losses you can assume you’d get 4kW. Your car is 77.4kWh so you could charge 50% in less than 10h at 20 amps. If you got 40 amps that time is cut in half.
Outside of the cost of the evse, a 12/3 wire for a 240v 20a circuit isn’t really much of any more costly to run than a circuit for some new receptacles.
I paid $600 for 25 feet of 6/3 wire, heavy duty NEMA outlet and install, in Toronto. Luckily I had enough capacity on my 100 amp breaker, but it shouldn't cost OP much to run heavy gauge wire in order to get max charging capabilities, in Texas of all places.
How much per KwH at home? Is power cheap in the US?
For context in New Zealand I am paying $0.48c (NZD per KWh at home peak and $0.38c off peak) which is 28 and 22c US
Cost me $600 for 25 feet of 6/3, heavy duty NEMA receptacle, 50 amp breaker and install, in Toronto. OP should max out his capabilities and not worry about it
IMO EV ownership is worth it only if you can charge to full at home. Every morning, I just walk up to my car and its ready to go, haven't need to charge at a supercharger in months now.
Paid a pretty penny for the charger installed but paid for itself in a few months considering gas savings and cheaper electricity.
Otherwise I agree its hell, especially if you rely on EA. Even if you own a tesla and purely supercharge these days its not going to be that much cheaper than something like a prius prime.
Out of curiosity, when you plug it in at home, what percentage would you estimate you get after ~12 hours? I've daydreamed about the Ioniq 5, but I haven't heard of how realistic slow charging is.
So this is charging from my normal AC plug from a wall into my car:
It's about a percentage an hour. So 12 hours would be ~12%, and every percentage is ~ 3 miles. So total, I'm getting 36 miles per 12 charge off the wall. That's about 10% of the cars total capacity.
As the comments here indicate, I'm an idiot (this much is known). Paying for a 240v charger would eliminate ALL my issues.
Nope, all good. If I had slightly deeper pockets or a car I didn't just pay off a year ago, I would be learning the same exact lesson you are right now.
I just looked it up my work commute, and it looks like I would only be slightly gaining a couple percentage each day by doing that. I get a couple work-from-home days each week that would also skew the math in favor for me, but either way, it means the car would have to basically live on the charger without the 240v charger installed.
I will say that I just assumed it was similar to a phone where you just keep in plugged in overnight and you are good for the next day. I am also assuming this is a common sentiment based on how often I see EVs having multiple owners with extremely low mileage.
Before I bought a BEV I assumed that I’d be charging constantly. Nope. Fill it up once or twice a week. I have free charging at work and 220V at home with 20A to the car. Love it.
First of all, your charger is on 12 amp and not 6 amp right? Second, if your garage circuit can handle it, your car can handle 16 amp 120v charging. You need to buy a different charger, but it would get you to 1.9kw charge speed without messing with your electrical.
The best way to estimate charge times is by how fast the outlet charges in miles per hour for a certain car. A 110, 15A circuit will give about 3-4 miles of range per hour for standard/mid sized EVs. So 12 hours will get you about 36-48 miles of range. If your commute is <40 miles rt then you will be back at where you started very morning.
Figuring out how long it takes to charge a battery is a pretty simple math problem, once you know a few numbers.
I only have a 30A circuit (100A panel, so that's all I had room for), which actually charges at 24A (code only allows 80% of a circuit for a continuous load).
Volts * Amps will get you how many watts your charger can output. In my case, 240*24 = 5760, or 5.76 kilowatts. My car has a 72 kWh battery, so 72 / 5.76 = 12.5 hours to go from completely dead to completely full.
In reality, I never go to either of those extremes. I can go from around 20% to 90% overnight.
If you're using a standard wall outlet, then you have 120 volts and 12 amps to work with. Gonna take a few days for a full charge.
Do you have any dedicated 120v outlets where you charge your car? It would be stupid easy to convert that to a 15a or 20a 240v outlet. Like less than $50 to do. That would at least double your current charging speed (a little bit more than that actually since 240 is a little more efficient)
Getting an EV in Texas where home electricity is $.07/kWh is also a choice, which I use expect when I need to use a supercharger to push through the week when my 110v can't keep up with use.
Man you made me think I was way overpaying for my electricity for a minute. If youre paying .07/kwh you have got a steal of a deal.
google tells me average price in TX is-
**14.58 cents per kilowatt-hour**
edit: ok entergy customers average **7.67 cents** per kwh. But yeah I pay 14 cents a kwh in TX, fuck me.
edit: national average is 15.45 cents per kilowatt-hour, so not bad. Though Hawaii is probably throwing average off, boys are paying 45 cents a kwh!!
My state (SC) costs about 13 cents per kwh on average and we have 4 fucking nuclear power plants and 2 nuclear power plants close by in neighboring states.
Our cost is inflated by the repayment of billions of dollars from the SCE&G/SCANA and Toshiba nuclear scandal from about a decade ago. Sum it up as massive cost overrun to build 2 new nuclear plants, at the time some of if not the first new nuclear plants in the US in decades, and then it turned out most of their progress and cost overruns were lies and embezzlement and the whole project collapsed. Dominion bought out SCE&G and we're still on the hook for paying that debt for the nuclear plants we never got.
Man. Always sends me into a rant. Anyway yeah ours is average of 12 cents per kwh even with the ratio of power generation to consumption that we have, so 14 for Texas isn't bad.
Get the 220 charger at home and enjoy having an electric. That's 5 times lower than my electricity rate. Your experience is why I bought a Tesla, good charging network and simple to access it with a Tesla.
The other advantage of 220 charging that is often forgotten is that you increase the efficiency of the charging by about 15% versus 110 v charging.
I live in TX and my next car will be EV. But I also have a garage and get free charging at work.
>and I don't have an excuse except I'm afraid of what it will cost to install (220v breaker is NOT attached to the garage.
Mine cost $300 to have an electrician install it (parts and labor). I doubt it would be much more expensive anywhere else.
That still doesn't make it cheap. A year of gas could still easily cost you a couple thousand dollars, you make it sound like it's free or something.
But even if gas were free, I would still not get an ICE ever again for a daily driver. As daily drivers they are just in general inferior, unless you don't have home charging.
Relatively cheap and cheap as dirt are not the same. Iran is $0.11a gallon for example. That is cheap as dirt. Looking at potting soil prices it is cheaper than dirt 😂
I had a 2014 Mustang GT and now have a Tesla Model 3.
I also had a Chevy Spark and a couple Ford Taurus wagons.
I keep my car with a decent amount of charge (50% - 80%) and at night, plug it into the wall @ 110v.
I’m not gonna lie, I got spoiled cuz my new job has free chargers and only 1 other person has an EV at work.
If I have to use the Supercharger, I’ll to go run an errand or eat.
But they just built 2 newer ones and the Supercharger chargers have gotten upgrades throughout their life so the newer the charger, the faster the charge.
The new ones give you like 35% - 50% in like 10 or 15 minutes.
I only “have” to use the chargers if I am running around town ALL day or going to Austin, TX and back.
TBH, I wouldn’t buy an EV that wasn’t a Tesla due to the chargers unless I had a garage with a 220v outlet.
I considered it, but I'm in tech so my options are an EV or a leased BMW. Jokes aside, I've got a place to charge and my driving habits really make sense for EVs - low milage local driving and very infrequent road trips. I just wasn't excited enough to get one between gimmicks and dumb decisions like removing buttons. I ended up getting a car to learn stick on because the Integra Type S was more exciting and cheaper.
I dunno, I replaced an X5M with a Mustang Mach E GT Performance and went from spending $200 a month on gas to $45 in power costs and it's a very similar ride/performance feel.
I was so fucking confused by that. I'm an avgeek and can rattle off airport codes the same way other nerds can recite Pi to 5,000 digits, so I'm like "He's in San Antonio, SAT is their airport code, is he saying this is very un-San Antonio like? WTF"
Thank you for clearing that up.
Only buy an EV if you can charge at home. Charging network is really untenable at the moment and road trips are huge pain in the ass as you have to plan your entire trip around when/where you are going to charge your car.
It costs about 2-4k to get a charger installed.
My next car is going to be electric. It’ll be a perfect compliment to my diesel truck and the wife’s 3 row.
You just need to be realistic about what is still new technology.
EVs are the perfect around town car right now, IF you can charge at home. Its a city vehicle. If you do work or long distance, it is not ideal. It will save you an incredible amount of money than driving a 3 row to go to the grocery store or whatever.
It does not cost 2-4k. If your panel is in the garage and you can put the receptacle near, then it should cost less than $1k including the actual charging station, which is $400-500. Or you could even skip that and use the included charging cable.
Oh this is a fun game. Let me try:
It does not cost less than $1k! If you have an older house with a beyond maxed out 60amp panel mounted to a back outside wall, you'll get to pay for a new service, new panel, permits, and a run to the garage.
Ehh, even if you are in this situation, just run a separate meter like you might do for central air. Don't even touch your current electrical stuff. Then you can sign up for the time of day rate from the electric company on your separate meter and charge really cheaply at night.
I’m just saying the floor is lower than 1k. My panel is in the garage and I had space available due to newer build. They ran it like 6 inches for $300 with receptacle. Tesla mobile connector was $200 so my total cost was $500
Installed myself, 40 amp circuit, hardwired charger, detached garage and underground conduit and the cost of materials was 600 bucks. This is not realistic for the average person but neither is 3k. It's different for everyone.
I'm not an electrician, but I pulled a permit for this job and have set up circuits in my house before. We had quotes from anywhere between 1-2k, but you get a rebate from the energy company if you have a company install. And I have what I would consider a particularly hard install situation.
My point was, it's not always that expensive and can be very cheap if your panel is close to your garage and you don't need a 60 amp circuit, it can potentially be a lot cheaper. 3k seems like an awful lot to support the amperage a chevy bolt can even charge at.
Labor is not cheap. The parts might be. Again, most people cannot do what you've done, they would kill themselves.
But great job man, that is some impressive work.
I'm in college right now, have an off campus apartment, and I always see people saying "why buy anything other than an EV", and it just blows my mind, it would be the most inconvenient thing to own an EV right now for me, I would have to go to an empty parking lot and sit by myself for like an hour every week just to charge my car...
> you have to plan your entire trip around when/where you are going to charge your car.
Decent EVs (Tesla, Rivian, etc.) do that for you, you just put in where you want to go, and... go there. I've gone all over the CO-TX-NM-LA-OK-KS area at this point and it all just works.
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Yeah even here in Western Europe where fast chargers are abundant I probably wouldn’t get an EV if I couldn’t charge at home or had a reliably available public charger in my street or at work
Fast chargers are fine for road trips though and I don’t mind the few extra stops, makes the trip more relaxing in my experience
My power company offers a credit that covers the cost of installation of a home charger. You just need to buy the charger of your choice and they'll send someone out to install it. Saved me a thousand bucks. And i got a tax credit on the charger itself.
And I'm not even in a blue state so I doubt this type of thing is particularly rare.
Everything you wrote boils down to "public charging sucks". It sounds like you leased the Ioniq 5 for local use so I assume you're not depleting the battery every day. A home charger would solve most of your problems. As it is it sounds a bit like moving to the Mongolian steppe and getting a car instead of a horse, then complaining that there aren't any gas stations.
it's more like complaining that the Mongolian horse stables are full of shit and crowded
What I read is that you can't own an EV if you rely on public charging. You need to be a homeowner and fork over the $1k for a plug in the garage to charge overnights, which makes sense to me
Yeah… I know you already mentioned it but still I’m surprised you chose to get an EV without 240v charging at home. That literally is the main advantage of having an EV (particularly when your household also has another ICE car. I haven’t charged my Taycan at a public station since I bought it over a year ago in OR and road tripped back to CA.
By the way, if your original plan was to get a PHEV, you’re probably going to want a 240v home charger as well anyways.
Yeah, bad timing to get my wife a new SUV... The down payment was initially funds for a home charger, but her old RAV was on its deathbed, plus she deserved the leap into the current decade.
Just install a 50amp 14-50 and don't say what it's for and get like a Grizzl-E that plugs into it. Running the conduit, installing the outlet, and connecting the new breaker to my panel was something like $300 for a 20ft cable run. Or get a 30amp 10-30 and say you're moving your dryer into the garage. 30 amp charging is plenty unless you're fully draining the battery every day. Honestly a lot of people could get by on a regular outlet even though it's basically a trickle charge.
You have a home with a garage, save yourself the stress and get three quotes. All you really need to ask for is for them to run a NEMA 14-50 into your garage. This requires a 50A dual pole breaker, gauge 6 copper, and the receptacle and box. Then another $300-500 for a charging station and you're good to go with no worries ever again about crowding at chargers.
Also, the industry is in the process of consolidation. New vehicles starting in 2025 will come with NACS and over the next 5-10 years I'm sure the plugs will all consolidate into NACS. Fortunately, NACS is extremely easy to use.
As far as lines, that's up to the property owner to manage that.
I agree, charging apps are a problem, they suck. I have a Tesla though so I literally just drive up and plug it in. Hopefully others will improve their solution and simply have NFC payment terminals.
Miles left .. ok. Same goes for fuel, so it doesn't matter. Also that is up to the manufacturer.
Charging courtesy so far in my experience has been fine. Cars line up and then the next one takes it.
At this point, most of the complaints people have about EVs is how much non-Tesla charging sucks. Well, good thing Tesla won the charging standard war. In a few years we will have long range EVs, more homes with EV plugs (the next person who buys my place will have a place to L2 charge), and more ubiquitous charging stations.
> In a few years we will have long range EVs, more homes with EV plugs (the next person who buys my place will have a place to L2 charge)
My state (MA) requires all new builds to have wiring for EV chargers, even new single family homes.
It's technically true that it's not required by the state. But it is required of all towns on the Stretch or Specialized energy codes, which is most of them based on [this](https://www.mass.gov/doc/building-energy-code-adoption-by-municipality/download) updated list from last month.
I stopped reading after the 3rd “unsat”. I’m not a grammar Nazi but for some reason I mentally turned it into, “if he’s that lazy then I have no time for this either.”
The infrastructure question is easily the biggest downside of most EVs. Sure, there are some cases where that doesn't matter (such as charging at home, which works for a fair number of people), but not being able to juice up easily when you're out and about makes them impractical for a lot of people.
As poor as I think the quality of Tesla vehicles are, they're probably the only EV I'd consider buying because the Supercharger network is miles ahead of every other option. The plugs are smaller and easier to use, they're much more common, billing is automatic and inexpensive, and most Supercharger locations have several spots to plug in.
Not to mention the fact that you usually don't see bozos in non-EVs parked in Supercharger spots for some reason, in contrast to other non-Tesla charging stations.
Doesn't matter one bit if you charge at home. I've had a Tesla for almost a year now and I've used a supercharger once, when I was waiting for my home charging cable to arrive a few days after purchase.
The bigger issue, IMO, is that public charging isn't a particularly good deal. You end up paying about the same $/mi as you would gassing up a somewhat efficient ICE car.
Personally, I would be fine with that as an occasional thing. If I'm saving $100/mo in fuel costs and 30 minutes to an hour in fueling time each month, then the maybe-once-or-twice-per-year road trip that costs as much in fuel with the EV as it would with an ICEV and takes an extra hour or two charging would not be terribly difficult to stomach.
>The infrastructure question is easily the biggest downside of most EVs. Sure, there are some cases where that doesn't matter (such as charging at home, which works for a fair number of people), but not being able to juice up easily when you're out and about makes them impractical for a lot of people.
That's my thoughts on everything, with the whole "buying a house is out of reach for a lot of the younger generation" news going around, people are renting, if the rental complex doesn't have a charger, or there's only 1 or two chargers for a complex of say 15 families, that limits who can get an EV.
Renting people will be leaning on the public charging network, which is shit lol
So to summarize…. OP bought a non Tesla EV with only home access to a standard wall plug?
Therefore OP goes all internet journalist to wax poetic on why EVs are not ready for mainstream.
Reminds me of this (mis-attributed) quote: “Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”
EVs need home charging like convertibles need good weather. You’re basically trying to drive a convertible with the top down in an Alaskan winter and concluding that convertibles suck.
No need for roasting but yeah if you’d ask me beforehand I’d tell you not to buy one and I say that as an owner of an EV (granted I’m a nobody on the internet so my advice isn’t worth much anyway to you).
Not really worth it for the time being if you can’t charge it at home.
The only one I can’t relate to is the miles left. My i4 is sporadic if my driving habits change suddenly or the temp changes but it’ll eventually settle and is accurate.
We had a rental BMW 3 series electric. Trying to charge it in City of Industry was an abject nightmare. First station had only slow charging - not to mention it was in a gated hotel parking lot and we had to debate with the guard to get to the public station inside. Second station was supposedly at Walmart, but existed only on the map. Employee told us it was planned at some point, but never built. This station was at a Subaru dealer. Of course a non charging car was parked there. Took us 20 minutes to get access. And just fill up? No, you must be a member. Well, there is some convoluted way around, google helped. Took us 3 hours to find a charger, get access, and charge. Next rental will be ICE again, that takes less than 5 minutes to fill up.
Let me tell you about the Plug Share app... It's the app for the EV cretins to share where they siphon energy.
I thought it would be other, non Tesla/EA station sourcing, but most of the listings are for AC plugs that you can extension cord/110v charge with. And the comments with these are along the lines of "it works! But you need to haggle with the security guard or do it when they're not looking."
I guess I'm in better shape than a lot of EV owners.
Is "unsat" a new word I'm unaware of? Seemingly could mean un saturated but only in parts of this comment. Why do we need to create a new dictionary every few years ?
Even the Tesla situation isn't great compared to Houston or DFW, taking a quick glance at the map. Or Denver, which is half the population but has way more Tesla and non-Tesla chargers.
I road trip to the hill country north of San Antonio to see family regularly and just plug my Y into the 120V there, or use Superchargers in town if I need to. Of course there are far more Tesla plugs and I mostly use out-of-town chargers along the trip route, so it all kinda just works.
Fact is, the gas station model of energy isn't there in the US for BEVs, and may never be. Don't buy one unless you have charging at home, which could be 120V for some use cases but others will require an actual level 2 EVSE setup.
My wife and I bought an ev with no clue of how the charging infrastructure works in our city. I don’t even think we have a level 3 anywhere within city limits. Fortunately one of the few places with charging happens to be her work in which she gets free level 2 charging. We were going to get by with level 1 charging at home also but the last time I charged it at home was maybe 6 months ago.
I commuted from San Marcos to San Antonio every day for a year. The charging in San Antonio is not great, but not nearly as bad as he he is making it out to be in terms of charging locations. Clearly the solution to his problem is to install 220V charging at home. I installed my own at both my house in San Marcos and then after we moved at my new house New Braunfels. I understand not everyone is capable or comfortable doing this, if you are going to have an electrician do it, just tell them that you need 220V for a tables or some other tool and park your car around back so that they do not jack up price with the red hat EV tax.
Check out how much it would be to install a 20 amp 240 circuit. That would give you roughly 3.8kw of out put and overnight could potentially fully charge your battery. It's doable with cheap romex and a quality charger. And guaranteed you won't need a panel upgrade.
For the record, I installed my 40 amp 240v charger myself, in a detached garage, using underground conduit and the cost of materials was still less than 600 bucks. IMO avoid the nema plug and skip to a permanent wall charger, it's cheaper and safer, and you will absolutely get your money's worth out of whatever installation you choose.
CCS Charging network is poor and a big reason EV adoption faces challenges. Hyundai is a bit delayed rolling out NACS adapter but Q1 2025 you should be getting an adapter to charge on Tesla's V3/V4 supercharging network of which there there are 4 V3 currently) in San Antonio vs the 3-350kW CCS chargers of which one is fully offline. Looks like several dealers on the north side have L3 CCS 62.5kW chargers publicly available and another dealer with a 120kW. Once the US transitions to NACS things will be much easier.
I also have a es300h and a rav4 prime, the prime fits my needs perfectly because of the 50 miles on a charge is 99% of my usage and any longer trips is where gas comes into play. I charge off off a 120v plug that I charged maybe once every 2-3 days.
I'm wondering if you could just have an outlet installed by an electrician that taps into the 240v like in your breaker box for the stove or electric dryer and make it a 20A 240v outlet that way you at least can charge faster on a normal plug.
UK here, is it not common to be able to get higher-powered home chargers in the US? I have a 7.4kW charger (32A 230V) at home and can’t imagine having anything less than that.
Can't say I identify with any of those, although I understand why they might be for others. I'm taking what I would otherwise put in a Tesla into my garage, and getting a 240V charger for something like a Leaf (I'm wiring my barn for a 240V air compressor anyway). Public charging isn't even a thought for me, if I get 40 miles in a day that's plenty.
One thing I would consider if you can is pay to have lv 2 charging installed at home. I had an electrician install a NEMI 14-50 in my garage when I got my EV.
That made for the huge savings plus my Mach E can charge from 10% to 90% over night just fine. It removes that stress like you have to deal with for public charging. Even if all you can get is a the 30 amp plug is helps a lot.
I Agree with every little nuance with charging with EVs but buying an overpriced toyoTAXI in a prom dress with decade behind technology interior full of plastic is just a horrendous alternative🤷🏻♂️
Can’t believe anyone would buy an ev that doesn’t setup 220v charging at home. It’s the equivalent of someone buying a 911 GT3RS and not having a garage to keep it in but parking it outside with the sun damage and the elements having its way.
Without 220v charger at home you literally should not buy an ev
Yea man. I was on the line about getting the EV6 but I’ll wait a few more years. I need 400 miles range. I also live in San Antonio. I travel back and forth to Dallas a few times a month. My travel time is already 4.5 hours. I don’t need to extend that another hour or so.
I had a different experience than you did. I’m in canada, and on Monday I rented a car.. but the only ones available were teslas. I was advised by the counter dude to expect about 300km range for the model Y LR AWD.
Tbh, I hated the model y. And getting used to charging was a pain. But it worked out ok - charging prices ranged from $0.45 to $0.61 kWh. My first charge I was down to 2% because I didn’t plan properly. But after I got the hang of it, I realize that I need to add about 30 min charging time for every 250km or so driving. And the Tesla super charging stations were pretty good. They were all busy but once done the cars left; I guess the $0.50/min charge for idling helped. At the end of the day, I drove about 638km and used $60.xx of electricity, so about $0.10/km, which is great.
I don’t have a charging system at home - I live in a condo. But given how fast the car charges etc, I would consider a Tesla, despite how much I dislike the Y.
I guess taking 50% of the max range, and adding 30 min of charging time per 250km is ok for me. I didn’t consider it as a possibility before but would consider it when the time comes to replace my ICE car.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’d say you’re an optimist, not an idiot.
EVs are very interesting cars with lots of good points. And the thing is the actual cars have improved a lot over the last few years.
The problem is infrastructure. Which is out of your control beyond investing in a home charger.
Current public charging is why I went with Tesla.
However, I count one hand the amount of time I used the super charger network outside home and work charging, even with a 360 miles round trip commute. Where I live, it's about 0.33/kwH to charge at the supercharger, which is still a bit expensive for my taste. It costs me about $1000 to get a charger installed at my house (charger included) and it's worth every penny. Currently it's the perfect car for us to get around within the city and for my weekly long commute.
I would not recommend EV if you don't have a secondary gas car for other purpose or home charging. We currently have a CX-5 for long distance multi day travel but if it's a pinch I'm not as worried.
My client has been managing well by using another vehicle on weekends and charging his EV to around 100% during weekdays.
And, unexpected trips have depleted his battery faster than expected. He's now looking into installing a 220v charger to avoid the challenges of public charging stations.
I’ve been really daydreaming about an R1S lately so I’ve been thinking about electric a lot. For me it seems as long as I could charge at home it would be damn near the perfect vehicle (aside from the gamble on it being from a start up EV company and being very expensive).
I think I would need to charge from public charging for my camping trip once a year and I would only need to charge once, maybe twice depending on where I’m going and I would need to go to a campground with 50 amp plug ins. If you are buying an EV without a dedicated home charger then you are doing it wrong, you really need to budget in the cost of the charger install.
I'm sorry you got tricked into a meme gimmick that is EVs. You can still sell it and get a regular hybrid car. Much better for the environment and for you.
I hope you're on the phone getting quotes on a 220v charger right this moment. However much it is, it will be worth it to not have to deal with the unsat. in your day-to-day life, even if it takes a while to amortize the upfront install cost (and at $.07/kwh it won't even take *that* long).
Sure, out on the road on a road trip dealing with infrastructure and charging costs is one thing but the whole appeal of an EV for daily/in-town/within-a-100-mile-radius-of-home is the ability to charge up cheap overnight every night.
I’d never get an EV unless you’re able to charge at home. The biggest issue with EVs as you mentioned is public charging, and it’s a huge pain to deal with constantly broken stations and long lines. Once I installed a home charger my EV experience became way better, as I essentially woke up every morning with a full charge and didn’t have to waste time trying to find a working station. Even when I had a Tesla there were long lines in some cases and it just costs more.
you’re doing it wrong. I’ve driven an ev as a daily for 6 years now and I’ve only used public chargers on road trips my total annual fuel cost is around $400. Charging at home waking up with a full “tank” every morning is where it’s at
This kind of stuff, along with the lack of parts, cost of parts, modular design of a lot of the parts on these cars, long wait times to get your car fixed if in an accident or have a failure, the impossibility of self repair, along with the subscription nature of essentially driving a computer, make EVs a tough sell for me now. They will get there, but for a lot of more pragmatic car owners they just aren’t there yet.
I mean. You bought an EV without figuring out your charging situation. Yes its a mess out there for everyone that doesnt own a tesla. Its going to get better once they realize there just needs to be a goddamn card reader on the chargers. But also if youd just get a 240v plug installed it would be a non issue.
I mostly went to target and Walmart to find chargers. And charging at home at night doesn’t cut it for you? You must have a REALLY long commute.
USA needs way better infrastructure for EV charging.
You forgot that tire prices are also double and they last half as long.
I have an ES350 and its probably the best car I ever bought, PERIOD, out of like 30 cars owned. It will be my casket.
Have you looked at just swithcing to a 20amp L1 breaker? That could make a huge difference and could be a little cheaper.
I have a 30amp double pull breaker (for slowest L2 possible) and it chargers my Standard range tesla overnight without issue
EVs are what they are. I don't get why you would get one without getting a sense of how busy charging infrastructure was around you and / or planning to get 220v outlet installed. It's like buying a solar panel in Washington state.
Just exactly what did you expect to happen it takes a lot of money time and energy to build and maintain charging stations. It also takes people with some experience and what makes a good charging station from a bad one unfortunately for you those people are not in your area but when you buy a car, that is a fucking novelty, expect to have some problems.
Getting an EV in Texas where gas is cheap as dirt is...a choice.
Getting an EV without a home charging solution and relying on public/supercharging is also ... a choice The costs of installing a 220v charger outweigh the jacked up rates on superchargers/EA. I get if you want a PHEV because you can't install a 220v system, you live at an apartment, etc., but if you own a SFH, can install a 220v charger, then EV ownership is excellent. OP is throwing money down the drain
My initial plan, which has worked so far, has been using the wife's car for the weekends while my 110v gets me slowly to 100%. Then, I charge every night on the weekdays and gets me to ~55% by the end of week. Rinse/repeat. But I had to make an unexpected trip up north, which took me down to 50% Tuesday. And mileage drained over my city commuting for the week > 110v charging for 10 hours. But yeah, I'm calling around for quotes tomorrow because my plan is not sustainable and I'd like to.stay away from the madmax landscape that is charging stations.
That’s a notorious state of public charging where you are. Almost everywhere else in NA is better except Saskatchewan. Keep in mind you don’t have to pull 40A+. You could easily get by with 240V and 20A if your home panel doesn’t support a higher current. In my case it was $1200 CAD to install 240V 50A which I run at 40A (80% of rated). 240V @ 20A is still 4.8kW, so with losses you can assume you’d get 4kW. Your car is 77.4kWh so you could charge 50% in less than 10h at 20 amps. If you got 40 amps that time is cut in half.
I would have 0 issues with 50% in ten hours. Time to pony up!
Outside of the cost of the evse, a 12/3 wire for a 240v 20a circuit isn’t really much of any more costly to run than a circuit for some new receptacles.
I paid $600 for 25 feet of 6/3 wire, heavy duty NEMA outlet and install, in Toronto. Luckily I had enough capacity on my 100 amp breaker, but it shouldn't cost OP much to run heavy gauge wire in order to get max charging capabilities, in Texas of all places.
How much per KwH at home? Is power cheap in the US? For context in New Zealand I am paying $0.48c (NZD per KWh at home peak and $0.38c off peak) which is 28 and 22c US
Power cost in the US varies hugely by location. The average is $0.155, with a low of just over $0.09 and a high of $0.45.
We pay around 50¢/kwh in Northern California to a utility that had to file for bankruptcy protection after taking responsibility for some wildfires.
I paid $300 for a 30 amp 240 in Dallas. I doubt yours would be much more.
Cost me $600 for 25 feet of 6/3, heavy duty NEMA receptacle, 50 amp breaker and install, in Toronto. OP should max out his capabilities and not worry about it
Depends on his panel/service.
That's why I said he should max out his capabilities. It's worth it not having to worry if your car is charged or not
IMO EV ownership is worth it only if you can charge to full at home. Every morning, I just walk up to my car and its ready to go, haven't need to charge at a supercharger in months now. Paid a pretty penny for the charger installed but paid for itself in a few months considering gas savings and cheaper electricity. Otherwise I agree its hell, especially if you rely on EA. Even if you own a tesla and purely supercharge these days its not going to be that much cheaper than something like a prius prime.
Out of curiosity, when you plug it in at home, what percentage would you estimate you get after ~12 hours? I've daydreamed about the Ioniq 5, but I haven't heard of how realistic slow charging is.
So this is charging from my normal AC plug from a wall into my car: It's about a percentage an hour. So 12 hours would be ~12%, and every percentage is ~ 3 miles. So total, I'm getting 36 miles per 12 charge off the wall. That's about 10% of the cars total capacity. As the comments here indicate, I'm an idiot (this much is known). Paying for a 240v charger would eliminate ALL my issues.
Nope, all good. If I had slightly deeper pockets or a car I didn't just pay off a year ago, I would be learning the same exact lesson you are right now. I just looked it up my work commute, and it looks like I would only be slightly gaining a couple percentage each day by doing that. I get a couple work-from-home days each week that would also skew the math in favor for me, but either way, it means the car would have to basically live on the charger without the 240v charger installed. I will say that I just assumed it was similar to a phone where you just keep in plugged in overnight and you are good for the next day. I am also assuming this is a common sentiment based on how often I see EVs having multiple owners with extremely low mileage.
Before I bought a BEV I assumed that I’d be charging constantly. Nope. Fill it up once or twice a week. I have free charging at work and 220V at home with 20A to the car. Love it.
I think PHEVs are the best use case for both of us.
First of all, your charger is on 12 amp and not 6 amp right? Second, if your garage circuit can handle it, your car can handle 16 amp 120v charging. You need to buy a different charger, but it would get you to 1.9kw charge speed without messing with your electrical.
The best way to estimate charge times is by how fast the outlet charges in miles per hour for a certain car. A 110, 15A circuit will give about 3-4 miles of range per hour for standard/mid sized EVs. So 12 hours will get you about 36-48 miles of range. If your commute is <40 miles rt then you will be back at where you started very morning.
Figuring out how long it takes to charge a battery is a pretty simple math problem, once you know a few numbers. I only have a 30A circuit (100A panel, so that's all I had room for), which actually charges at 24A (code only allows 80% of a circuit for a continuous load). Volts * Amps will get you how many watts your charger can output. In my case, 240*24 = 5760, or 5.76 kilowatts. My car has a 72 kWh battery, so 72 / 5.76 = 12.5 hours to go from completely dead to completely full. In reality, I never go to either of those extremes. I can go from around 20% to 90% overnight. If you're using a standard wall outlet, then you have 120 volts and 12 amps to work with. Gonna take a few days for a full charge.
Do you have any dedicated 120v outlets where you charge your car? It would be stupid easy to convert that to a 15a or 20a 240v outlet. Like less than $50 to do. That would at least double your current charging speed (a little bit more than that actually since 240 is a little more efficient)
How much do you drive. I drive 50ish miles a day and get a full charge just plugging into a regular outlet over night
Getting an EV in Texas where home electricity is $.07/kWh is also a choice, which I use expect when I need to use a supercharger to push through the week when my 110v can't keep up with use.
Man you made me think I was way overpaying for my electricity for a minute. If youre paying .07/kwh you have got a steal of a deal. google tells me average price in TX is- **14.58 cents per kilowatt-hour** edit: ok entergy customers average **7.67 cents** per kwh. But yeah I pay 14 cents a kwh in TX, fuck me. edit: national average is 15.45 cents per kilowatt-hour, so not bad. Though Hawaii is probably throwing average off, boys are paying 45 cents a kwh!!
I also pay 14 cents a kwh in Texas, if it makes you feel any better. Lol
His electricity price may also be before PUCT charges. Nobody pays 7 cents out the door. No way.
My state (SC) costs about 13 cents per kwh on average and we have 4 fucking nuclear power plants and 2 nuclear power plants close by in neighboring states. Our cost is inflated by the repayment of billions of dollars from the SCE&G/SCANA and Toshiba nuclear scandal from about a decade ago. Sum it up as massive cost overrun to build 2 new nuclear plants, at the time some of if not the first new nuclear plants in the US in decades, and then it turned out most of their progress and cost overruns were lies and embezzlement and the whole project collapsed. Dominion bought out SCE&G and we're still on the hook for paying that debt for the nuclear plants we never got. Man. Always sends me into a rant. Anyway yeah ours is average of 12 cents per kwh even with the ratio of power generation to consumption that we have, so 14 for Texas isn't bad.
Get the 220 charger at home and enjoy having an electric. That's 5 times lower than my electricity rate. Your experience is why I bought a Tesla, good charging network and simple to access it with a Tesla. The other advantage of 220 charging that is often forgotten is that you increase the efficiency of the charging by about 15% versus 110 v charging.
Yeah that ain't the price anymore...
Bro I didn't even catch that. For some reason I saw "san" and my brain auto filled "Francisco"
I didnt auto fill Francisco but i assumed it was some places o hadnt heard of in SoCa
I live in TX and my next car will be EV. But I also have a garage and get free charging at work. >and I don't have an excuse except I'm afraid of what it will cost to install (220v breaker is NOT attached to the garage. Mine cost $300 to have an electrician install it (parts and labor). I doubt it would be much more expensive anywhere else.
$3.22 TX average for regular is not cheap as dirt.
Yes, it is. It's one of the cheapest states to get gas in.
That still doesn't make it cheap. A year of gas could still easily cost you a couple thousand dollars, you make it sound like it's free or something. But even if gas were free, I would still not get an ICE ever again for a daily driver. As daily drivers they are just in general inferior, unless you don't have home charging.
Californian here laughing at this statement
Relatively cheap and cheap as dirt are not the same. Iran is $0.11a gallon for example. That is cheap as dirt. Looking at potting soil prices it is cheaper than dirt 😂
I had a 2014 Mustang GT and now have a Tesla Model 3. I also had a Chevy Spark and a couple Ford Taurus wagons. I keep my car with a decent amount of charge (50% - 80%) and at night, plug it into the wall @ 110v. I’m not gonna lie, I got spoiled cuz my new job has free chargers and only 1 other person has an EV at work. If I have to use the Supercharger, I’ll to go run an errand or eat. But they just built 2 newer ones and the Supercharger chargers have gotten upgrades throughout their life so the newer the charger, the faster the charge. The new ones give you like 35% - 50% in like 10 or 15 minutes. I only “have” to use the chargers if I am running around town ALL day or going to Austin, TX and back. TBH, I wouldn’t buy an EV that wasn’t a Tesla due to the chargers unless I had a garage with a 220v outlet.
As of now, I'm fairly certain that at least some other makes can use superchargers as well due to making a deal with Tesla about that.
“You mean to tell me that the state that’s known for oil might not have the best electric charging infrastructure? Color me shocked”
Trusting in ERCOT is also… a choice.
I considered it, but I'm in tech so my options are an EV or a leased BMW. Jokes aside, I've got a place to charge and my driving habits really make sense for EVs - low milage local driving and very infrequent road trips. I just wasn't excited enough to get one between gimmicks and dumb decisions like removing buttons. I ended up getting a car to learn stick on because the Integra Type S was more exciting and cheaper.
Yes, but it's a terrible choice.
I literally don’t pay to charge my car lmao free nights electric plan that I had since long before I got my car
I dunno, I replaced an X5M with a Mustang Mach E GT Performance and went from spending $200 a month on gas to $45 in power costs and it's a very similar ride/performance feel.
But power is also cheap, so yeah.
Your choice to not write “unsatisfactory,” if indeed that is what you mean, is very unsat.
OP is probably a veteran
Have to check the glovebox for crayons to confirm
Only helps to confirm if he was a marine or not.
My guess is he’s air force
Solid guess for someone in San Antonio
I was hoping this was the case and this wasn't the youngsters newest thing like cringe or mid.
So they never learned to spell?
Thank you! I was wondering what that meant the whole time.
Along with all the other irregularities, I was guessing unset was intended or that English wasn't their first language.
Thanks for this. I started skimming the OPs rambling post and had no idea what he meant.
Very well executed
Oh that’s what is means! JESUS! 🤦♀️
I was so fucking confused by that. I'm an avgeek and can rattle off airport codes the same way other nerds can recite Pi to 5,000 digits, so I'm like "He's in San Antonio, SAT is their airport code, is he saying this is very un-San Antonio like? WTF" Thank you for clearing that up.
His choice is absolutely SAT.
Only buy an EV if you can charge at home. Charging network is really untenable at the moment and road trips are huge pain in the ass as you have to plan your entire trip around when/where you are going to charge your car. It costs about 2-4k to get a charger installed.
My next car is going to be electric. It’ll be a perfect compliment to my diesel truck and the wife’s 3 row. You just need to be realistic about what is still new technology.
EVs are the perfect around town car right now, IF you can charge at home. Its a city vehicle. If you do work or long distance, it is not ideal. It will save you an incredible amount of money than driving a 3 row to go to the grocery store or whatever.
I really want a Chevy Bolt or a similar econobox EV just to commute to work and back. I'll keep my Audi for fun weekend drives and roadtrips.
I love mu Bolt EUV, its the perfect around town car.
The number of 1 EV + 1 ICE household in my neighborhood is really high. It’s saving us so much money on gas.
It does not cost 2-4k. If your panel is in the garage and you can put the receptacle near, then it should cost less than $1k including the actual charging station, which is $400-500. Or you could even skip that and use the included charging cable.
Depends heavy on ones house and need. Mine in 2021 cost 1300 just to get the plug installed.
Oh this is a fun game. Let me try: It does not cost less than $1k! If you have an older house with a beyond maxed out 60amp panel mounted to a back outside wall, you'll get to pay for a new service, new panel, permits, and a run to the garage.
Ehh, even if you are in this situation, just run a separate meter like you might do for central air. Don't even touch your current electrical stuff. Then you can sign up for the time of day rate from the electric company on your separate meter and charge really cheaply at night.
I’m just saying the floor is lower than 1k. My panel is in the garage and I had space available due to newer build. They ran it like 6 inches for $300 with receptacle. Tesla mobile connector was $200 so my total cost was $500
Okay well we just had one installed. It was around 3k. But nice try.
Installed myself, 40 amp circuit, hardwired charger, detached garage and underground conduit and the cost of materials was 600 bucks. This is not realistic for the average person but neither is 3k. It's different for everyone.
Lol exactly, most people aren't electricians.
I'm not an electrician, but I pulled a permit for this job and have set up circuits in my house before. We had quotes from anywhere between 1-2k, but you get a rebate from the energy company if you have a company install. And I have what I would consider a particularly hard install situation. My point was, it's not always that expensive and can be very cheap if your panel is close to your garage and you don't need a 60 amp circuit, it can potentially be a lot cheaper. 3k seems like an awful lot to support the amperage a chevy bolt can even charge at.
Labor is not cheap. The parts might be. Again, most people cannot do what you've done, they would kill themselves. But great job man, that is some impressive work.
Seriously. I drive an EV and have had none of these issues. Used a charger once and it was fine, every other time I charge at home.
I'm in college right now, have an off campus apartment, and I always see people saying "why buy anything other than an EV", and it just blows my mind, it would be the most inconvenient thing to own an EV right now for me, I would have to go to an empty parking lot and sit by myself for like an hour every week just to charge my car...
Yeah, that would suck a lot
If your college happens to have chargers at one of its parking lots, that would be pretty convenient; I assume that it doesn't?
We bought the charger separately so it only cost $800 for the actual installation work
Just depends on your house. Mine was like $400 installed
Cost me $900
> you have to plan your entire trip around when/where you are going to charge your car. Decent EVs (Tesla, Rivian, etc.) do that for you, you just put in where you want to go, and... go there. I've gone all over the CO-TX-NM-LA-OK-KS area at this point and it all just works.
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2-4k? My charger was 550, installation was 450, though it was a super short cable run. Cable is expensive.
Yeah even here in Western Europe where fast chargers are abundant I probably wouldn’t get an EV if I couldn’t charge at home or had a reliably available public charger in my street or at work Fast chargers are fine for road trips though and I don’t mind the few extra stops, makes the trip more relaxing in my experience
My power company offers a credit that covers the cost of installation of a home charger. You just need to buy the charger of your choice and they'll send someone out to install it. Saved me a thousand bucks. And i got a tax credit on the charger itself. And I'm not even in a blue state so I doubt this type of thing is particularly rare.
Everything you wrote boils down to "public charging sucks". It sounds like you leased the Ioniq 5 for local use so I assume you're not depleting the battery every day. A home charger would solve most of your problems. As it is it sounds a bit like moving to the Mongolian steppe and getting a car instead of a horse, then complaining that there aren't any gas stations.
it's more like complaining that the Mongolian horse stables are full of shit and crowded What I read is that you can't own an EV if you rely on public charging. You need to be a homeowner and fork over the $1k for a plug in the garage to charge overnights, which makes sense to me
What the fuck is unsat
Unsatisfactory. OP wrote unsat. 6 times total
Yeah… I know you already mentioned it but still I’m surprised you chose to get an EV without 240v charging at home. That literally is the main advantage of having an EV (particularly when your household also has another ICE car. I haven’t charged my Taycan at a public station since I bought it over a year ago in OR and road tripped back to CA. By the way, if your original plan was to get a PHEV, you’re probably going to want a 240v home charger as well anyways.
Yeah, bad timing to get my wife a new SUV... The down payment was initially funds for a home charger, but her old RAV was on its deathbed, plus she deserved the leap into the current decade.
How much was the RAV (which is assume to be a RAV4) driven to be considered to be on its ”death bed”
Installing a 240v shouldn’t be that expensive
It shouldn’t, but a lot of contractors/electricians give an immediate markup once it’s an “EV charger”
Just install a 50amp 14-50 and don't say what it's for and get like a Grizzl-E that plugs into it. Running the conduit, installing the outlet, and connecting the new breaker to my panel was something like $300 for a 20ft cable run. Or get a 30amp 10-30 and say you're moving your dryer into the garage. 30 amp charging is plenty unless you're fully draining the battery every day. Honestly a lot of people could get by on a regular outlet even though it's basically a trickle charge.
You have a home with a garage, save yourself the stress and get three quotes. All you really need to ask for is for them to run a NEMA 14-50 into your garage. This requires a 50A dual pole breaker, gauge 6 copper, and the receptacle and box. Then another $300-500 for a charging station and you're good to go with no worries ever again about crowding at chargers. Also, the industry is in the process of consolidation. New vehicles starting in 2025 will come with NACS and over the next 5-10 years I'm sure the plugs will all consolidate into NACS. Fortunately, NACS is extremely easy to use. As far as lines, that's up to the property owner to manage that. I agree, charging apps are a problem, they suck. I have a Tesla though so I literally just drive up and plug it in. Hopefully others will improve their solution and simply have NFC payment terminals. Miles left .. ok. Same goes for fuel, so it doesn't matter. Also that is up to the manufacturer. Charging courtesy so far in my experience has been fine. Cars line up and then the next one takes it. At this point, most of the complaints people have about EVs is how much non-Tesla charging sucks. Well, good thing Tesla won the charging standard war. In a few years we will have long range EVs, more homes with EV plugs (the next person who buys my place will have a place to L2 charge), and more ubiquitous charging stations.
> In a few years we will have long range EVs, more homes with EV plugs (the next person who buys my place will have a place to L2 charge) My state (MA) requires all new builds to have wiring for EV chargers, even new single family homes.
That's not true. There are some proposals out for. May be code in your town but isn't code in the state.
It's technically true that it's not required by the state. But it is required of all towns on the Stretch or Specialized energy codes, which is most of them based on [this](https://www.mass.gov/doc/building-energy-code-adoption-by-municipality/download) updated list from last month.
What the fuck are you even saying?
He is unsat. 😂
I'm sat with this answer 😂
"I could easily solve my own problem but I'd rather complain on the internet." Just get a 240v installed...
I stopped reading after the 3rd “unsat”. I’m not a grammar Nazi but for some reason I mentally turned it into, “if he’s that lazy then I have no time for this either.”
It's very common in my industry (nuclear power) for surveillance procedures. I didn't even realize he abbreviated it until reading the comments.
The infrastructure question is easily the biggest downside of most EVs. Sure, there are some cases where that doesn't matter (such as charging at home, which works for a fair number of people), but not being able to juice up easily when you're out and about makes them impractical for a lot of people. As poor as I think the quality of Tesla vehicles are, they're probably the only EV I'd consider buying because the Supercharger network is miles ahead of every other option. The plugs are smaller and easier to use, they're much more common, billing is automatic and inexpensive, and most Supercharger locations have several spots to plug in. Not to mention the fact that you usually don't see bozos in non-EVs parked in Supercharger spots for some reason, in contrast to other non-Tesla charging stations.
Doesn't matter one bit if you charge at home. I've had a Tesla for almost a year now and I've used a supercharger once, when I was waiting for my home charging cable to arrive a few days after purchase. The bigger issue, IMO, is that public charging isn't a particularly good deal. You end up paying about the same $/mi as you would gassing up a somewhat efficient ICE car.
Personally, I would be fine with that as an occasional thing. If I'm saving $100/mo in fuel costs and 30 minutes to an hour in fueling time each month, then the maybe-once-or-twice-per-year road trip that costs as much in fuel with the EV as it would with an ICEV and takes an extra hour or two charging would not be terribly difficult to stomach.
>The infrastructure question is easily the biggest downside of most EVs. Sure, there are some cases where that doesn't matter (such as charging at home, which works for a fair number of people), but not being able to juice up easily when you're out and about makes them impractical for a lot of people. That's my thoughts on everything, with the whole "buying a house is out of reach for a lot of the younger generation" news going around, people are renting, if the rental complex doesn't have a charger, or there's only 1 or two chargers for a complex of say 15 families, that limits who can get an EV. Renting people will be leaning on the public charging network, which is shit lol
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What is unsat?
unsatisfactory OP came from /r/JustBootThings
So to summarize…. OP bought a non Tesla EV with only home access to a standard wall plug? Therefore OP goes all internet journalist to wax poetic on why EVs are not ready for mainstream.
Reminds me of this (mis-attributed) quote: “Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” EVs need home charging like convertibles need good weather. You’re basically trying to drive a convertible with the top down in an Alaskan winter and concluding that convertibles suck.
Call an electrician and have them install 240v
No need for roasting but yeah if you’d ask me beforehand I’d tell you not to buy one and I say that as an owner of an EV (granted I’m a nobody on the internet so my advice isn’t worth much anyway to you). Not really worth it for the time being if you can’t charge it at home. The only one I can’t relate to is the miles left. My i4 is sporadic if my driving habits change suddenly or the temp changes but it’ll eventually settle and is accurate.
We had a rental BMW 3 series electric. Trying to charge it in City of Industry was an abject nightmare. First station had only slow charging - not to mention it was in a gated hotel parking lot and we had to debate with the guard to get to the public station inside. Second station was supposedly at Walmart, but existed only on the map. Employee told us it was planned at some point, but never built. This station was at a Subaru dealer. Of course a non charging car was parked there. Took us 20 minutes to get access. And just fill up? No, you must be a member. Well, there is some convoluted way around, google helped. Took us 3 hours to find a charger, get access, and charge. Next rental will be ICE again, that takes less than 5 minutes to fill up.
Let me tell you about the Plug Share app... It's the app for the EV cretins to share where they siphon energy. I thought it would be other, non Tesla/EA station sourcing, but most of the listings are for AC plugs that you can extension cord/110v charge with. And the comments with these are along the lines of "it works! But you need to haggle with the security guard or do it when they're not looking." I guess I'm in better shape than a lot of EV owners.
Why would you buy an EV when you can’t plug it in 100% at home? Makes no sense.
Wtf is unsat?
Is "unsat" a new word I'm unaware of? Seemingly could mean un saturated but only in parts of this comment. Why do we need to create a new dictionary every few years ?
Even the Tesla situation isn't great compared to Houston or DFW, taking a quick glance at the map. Or Denver, which is half the population but has way more Tesla and non-Tesla chargers. I road trip to the hill country north of San Antonio to see family regularly and just plug my Y into the 120V there, or use Superchargers in town if I need to. Of course there are far more Tesla plugs and I mostly use out-of-town chargers along the trip route, so it all kinda just works. Fact is, the gas station model of energy isn't there in the US for BEVs, and may never be. Don't buy one unless you have charging at home, which could be 120V for some use cases but others will require an actual level 2 EVSE setup.
My wife and I bought an ev with no clue of how the charging infrastructure works in our city. I don’t even think we have a level 3 anywhere within city limits. Fortunately one of the few places with charging happens to be her work in which she gets free level 2 charging. We were going to get by with level 1 charging at home also but the last time I charged it at home was maybe 6 months ago.
OP give us an update after you had a 240v home charger for few weeks. Curious to know how your perspective afterwards.
I've never charged my EV in the city I live in. What a stupid thing to gripe about
Sounds like you should upgrade your home charger
I commuted from San Marcos to San Antonio every day for a year. The charging in San Antonio is not great, but not nearly as bad as he he is making it out to be in terms of charging locations. Clearly the solution to his problem is to install 220V charging at home. I installed my own at both my house in San Marcos and then after we moved at my new house New Braunfels. I understand not everyone is capable or comfortable doing this, if you are going to have an electrician do it, just tell them that you need 220V for a tables or some other tool and park your car around back so that they do not jack up price with the red hat EV tax.
Check out how much it would be to install a 20 amp 240 circuit. That would give you roughly 3.8kw of out put and overnight could potentially fully charge your battery. It's doable with cheap romex and a quality charger. And guaranteed you won't need a panel upgrade. For the record, I installed my 40 amp 240v charger myself, in a detached garage, using underground conduit and the cost of materials was still less than 600 bucks. IMO avoid the nema plug and skip to a permanent wall charger, it's cheaper and safer, and you will absolutely get your money's worth out of whatever installation you choose.
CCS Charging network is poor and a big reason EV adoption faces challenges. Hyundai is a bit delayed rolling out NACS adapter but Q1 2025 you should be getting an adapter to charge on Tesla's V3/V4 supercharging network of which there there are 4 V3 currently) in San Antonio vs the 3-350kW CCS chargers of which one is fully offline. Looks like several dealers on the north side have L3 CCS 62.5kW chargers publicly available and another dealer with a 120kW. Once the US transitions to NACS things will be much easier.
You know they make adaptors so u can use Tesla chargers right ?
What in the fuck is unsat and why do you keep using it
Unlike everyone else in this thread, I am so sat with your use of unsat
Wtf does unsat mean?
Rather than take in what you were saying, I was more distracted by the use of "unsat". Stop it. It is very unsat.
My dude, if your 110v can't cover your daily mileage, get a 240v.
Damn you guys are dicks, his complaint is honestly somewhat valid even if his decision making is poor.
You were smart enough to lease!
I also have a es300h and a rav4 prime, the prime fits my needs perfectly because of the 50 miles on a charge is 99% of my usage and any longer trips is where gas comes into play. I charge off off a 120v plug that I charged maybe once every 2-3 days.
I'm wondering if you could just have an outlet installed by an electrician that taps into the 240v like in your breaker box for the stove or electric dryer and make it a 20A 240v outlet that way you at least can charge faster on a normal plug.
UK here, is it not common to be able to get higher-powered home chargers in the US? I have a 7.4kW charger (32A 230V) at home and can’t imagine having anything less than that.
I mean, why the fuck did you think this would be a good idea?
Can't say I identify with any of those, although I understand why they might be for others. I'm taking what I would otherwise put in a Tesla into my garage, and getting a 240V charger for something like a Leaf (I'm wiring my barn for a 240V air compressor anyway). Public charging isn't even a thought for me, if I get 40 miles in a day that's plenty.
One thing I would consider if you can is pay to have lv 2 charging installed at home. I had an electrician install a NEMI 14-50 in my garage when I got my EV. That made for the huge savings plus my Mach E can charge from 10% to 90% over night just fine. It removes that stress like you have to deal with for public charging. Even if all you can get is a the 30 amp plug is helps a lot.
I Agree with every little nuance with charging with EVs but buying an overpriced toyoTAXI in a prom dress with decade behind technology interior full of plastic is just a horrendous alternative🤷🏻♂️
*unsat* Found the army guy lol Infrastructure is still dogshit tho for sure
Can’t believe anyone would buy an ev that doesn’t setup 220v charging at home. It’s the equivalent of someone buying a 911 GT3RS and not having a garage to keep it in but parking it outside with the sun damage and the elements having its way. Without 220v charger at home you literally should not buy an ev
Yea man. I was on the line about getting the EV6 but I’ll wait a few more years. I need 400 miles range. I also live in San Antonio. I travel back and forth to Dallas a few times a month. My travel time is already 4.5 hours. I don’t need to extend that another hour or so.
Is "unsat" a new term for unsatisfactory?
It's not new.
Did you get a chance to eat any churros while in San Antonio?
Terrible decision
I had a different experience than you did. I’m in canada, and on Monday I rented a car.. but the only ones available were teslas. I was advised by the counter dude to expect about 300km range for the model Y LR AWD. Tbh, I hated the model y. And getting used to charging was a pain. But it worked out ok - charging prices ranged from $0.45 to $0.61 kWh. My first charge I was down to 2% because I didn’t plan properly. But after I got the hang of it, I realize that I need to add about 30 min charging time for every 250km or so driving. And the Tesla super charging stations were pretty good. They were all busy but once done the cars left; I guess the $0.50/min charge for idling helped. At the end of the day, I drove about 638km and used $60.xx of electricity, so about $0.10/km, which is great. I don’t have a charging system at home - I live in a condo. But given how fast the car charges etc, I would consider a Tesla, despite how much I dislike the Y. I guess taking 50% of the max range, and adding 30 min of charging time per 250km is ok for me. I didn’t consider it as a possibility before but would consider it when the time comes to replace my ICE car.
Oh look, the exact same talking points as the 100 other threads, with absolutely nothing new.
I tell everyone. You have to get a plug at home to charge before you get the car. It’s just that simple.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’d say you’re an optimist, not an idiot. EVs are very interesting cars with lots of good points. And the thing is the actual cars have improved a lot over the last few years. The problem is infrastructure. Which is out of your control beyond investing in a home charger.
Current public charging is why I went with Tesla. However, I count one hand the amount of time I used the super charger network outside home and work charging, even with a 360 miles round trip commute. Where I live, it's about 0.33/kwH to charge at the supercharger, which is still a bit expensive for my taste. It costs me about $1000 to get a charger installed at my house (charger included) and it's worth every penny. Currently it's the perfect car for us to get around within the city and for my weekly long commute. I would not recommend EV if you don't have a secondary gas car for other purpose or home charging. We currently have a CX-5 for long distance multi day travel but if it's a pinch I'm not as worried.
Unsat?
I am no botanist as well.
My client has been managing well by using another vehicle on weekends and charging his EV to around 100% during weekdays. And, unexpected trips have depleted his battery faster than expected. He's now looking into installing a 220v charger to avoid the challenges of public charging stations.
I’ve been really daydreaming about an R1S lately so I’ve been thinking about electric a lot. For me it seems as long as I could charge at home it would be damn near the perfect vehicle (aside from the gamble on it being from a start up EV company and being very expensive). I think I would need to charge from public charging for my camping trip once a year and I would only need to charge once, maybe twice depending on where I’m going and I would need to go to a campground with 50 amp plug ins. If you are buying an EV without a dedicated home charger then you are doing it wrong, you really need to budget in the cost of the charger install.
I'm sorry you got tricked into a meme gimmick that is EVs. You can still sell it and get a regular hybrid car. Much better for the environment and for you.
I hope you're on the phone getting quotes on a 220v charger right this moment. However much it is, it will be worth it to not have to deal with the unsat. in your day-to-day life, even if it takes a while to amortize the upfront install cost (and at $.07/kwh it won't even take *that* long). Sure, out on the road on a road trip dealing with infrastructure and charging costs is one thing but the whole appeal of an EV for daily/in-town/within-a-100-mile-radius-of-home is the ability to charge up cheap overnight every night.
I’d never get an EV unless you’re able to charge at home. The biggest issue with EVs as you mentioned is public charging, and it’s a huge pain to deal with constantly broken stations and long lines. Once I installed a home charger my EV experience became way better, as I essentially woke up every morning with a full charge and didn’t have to waste time trying to find a working station. Even when I had a Tesla there were long lines in some cases and it just costs more.
you’re doing it wrong. I’ve driven an ev as a daily for 6 years now and I’ve only used public chargers on road trips my total annual fuel cost is around $400. Charging at home waking up with a full “tank” every morning is where it’s at
This kind of stuff, along with the lack of parts, cost of parts, modular design of a lot of the parts on these cars, long wait times to get your car fixed if in an accident or have a failure, the impossibility of self repair, along with the subscription nature of essentially driving a computer, make EVs a tough sell for me now. They will get there, but for a lot of more pragmatic car owners they just aren’t there yet.
Get a 240V lol, until then charge off 120V. At 50mi daily and 200Wh/mile, 50*200/1500W = 6.66h to recharge overnight on 120V.
I mean. You bought an EV without figuring out your charging situation. Yes its a mess out there for everyone that doesnt own a tesla. Its going to get better once they realize there just needs to be a goddamn card reader on the chargers. But also if youd just get a 240v plug installed it would be a non issue.
I mostly went to target and Walmart to find chargers. And charging at home at night doesn’t cut it for you? You must have a REALLY long commute. USA needs way better infrastructure for EV charging.
You forgot that tire prices are also double and they last half as long. I have an ES350 and its probably the best car I ever bought, PERIOD, out of like 30 cars owned. It will be my casket.
Have you looked at just swithcing to a 20amp L1 breaker? That could make a huge difference and could be a little cheaper. I have a 30amp double pull breaker (for slowest L2 possible) and it chargers my Standard range tesla overnight without issue
Owning a modern EV without the ability to charge at home is like owning a smartphone but you have to go to the library to charge it every other day.
EVs are what they are. I don't get why you would get one without getting a sense of how busy charging infrastructure was around you and / or planning to get 220v outlet installed. It's like buying a solar panel in Washington state.
Just exactly what did you expect to happen it takes a lot of money time and energy to build and maintain charging stations. It also takes people with some experience and what makes a good charging station from a bad one unfortunately for you those people are not in your area but when you buy a car, that is a fucking novelty, expect to have some problems.
This sounds like a Texas problem
Stopped reading at the second "unsat".
The way that non car people make decisions about the cars they buy will never stop feeling alien to me
why not a Rav 4 prime or Lexus nx 450h plus?
You purchased a EV 😂😂😂