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by Robotbeat
3127 days ago
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I've noticed a big market gap, ever since I got an electric car. Every EV owner has a 120V AC charger that they can plug in almost anywhere with an outlet, however getting permission is a challenge. Owners of the outlets rightfully want compensation. But a full commercial charger rig is like $1000 at least. That's way too much! What I'd like is for outlets to have wifi or bluetooth connectivity on them. I just tell the outlet to turn on via some app, and the app/outlet keep track of how long the outlet is on and charges me a flat rate per unit time. Simple. The smarts for this need only cost $13 above what a regular outlet costs, as this project shows. This would be especially useful in apartments or parking garages. Provided you already have lights, it'd be cheap to run a 120V outlet to within reach of most (or at least a large number of) parking spots. $13 of electronics plus maybe $50 (i.e. a quad outlet of $200 split among 4) to install an outdoor outlet is all it'd cost to electrify a parking space. The owner of the parking lot could offer low cost electricity and, say, make a profit off the difference between residential and commercial/industrial electrical rates (might take a few months to pay for the outlet, but not more than a year for a well-used spot, then the owner makes an easy profit). Everyone wins, and urban EVs become practical for everyone (and a slow charge is fine. of course, you would still want fast chargers to top up if you were doing a lot of driving, but that can be done elsewhere). Also would be pretty cheap to install on all parking meters. Just need someone to develop that app and an outdoor outlet with a $13 bluetooth relay that talks to the user's app (only the user's app would necessarily need internet connectivity). Someone do this and be a hero. |
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If the main panel is out of spare breaker slots (or doesn't have enough amperage left on the feeder), it's going to expensive to upgrade the panel.
Most of the cost ends up in labor, so if you're going to go to all of the expense to install a 4x20A quad outlet, you may as well install a 30A 240V level 2 charge station.
Most of that cost is labor -- I looked into installing a charge station in my condo apartment garage -- coring and installing a home run back to the main panel would have cost $3000 - $5000, and I would have had to pay for a power study for the HOA owned panel.
There wouldn't have been much difference in materials cost between installing a 120V 20A circuit for level 1 charging and a 30A 220VAC level2 charge station.