What home charging station for an electric car should I choose? / S1E5 MPEA

Buying a charger for your electric car will go hand in hand with buying your new car, so we've put together some information. First the basics of e-mobility! The battery size of an electric car is measured in kWh. The average mid-range electric car has somewhere 60 kWh large battery (Cupra Born, ID.3). Larger and more expensive cars use around 80 kWh (ID.4). There are also such s 100 kWh or more (Mercedes-Benz EQS). The average consumption of an electric car (we are talking about the average in all seasons, at different temperatures) is 20 kWh per 100 kilometers driven. Smaller cars use around 18 kWh, larger, heavier and "more" SUVs can also use 22 kWh and more.

Video: Which home charging station for an electric car to choose?!

So if you have a car with a battery 60 kWh, you will do on average with one battery charge about 300 kilometers. These are rough calculations that are the basis for choosing a domestic filling station. In the case of the latter, the time required to charge a battery of a certain size is important.

1. A charging station, which is part of the equipment of every electric car

Each car has an added charger that allows you to charge from a classic home socket, into which you can also plug in a vacuum cleaner or multi-tasker. From such a socket, the battery is charged at a rate of approximately 2.3 kWh per hour. This means that you will car with 60 kWh charge the battery in 24 hours. For smaller electric cars that have a battery of around 25 kWh, this charging station will be sufficient, as you will charge the car in 10 hours.

2. Portable charger, universal charger

If your garage has an industrial socket, to which you have already connected more demanding and more wasteful working devices (concrete mixers) and behind it there is one phase and a 32A fuse, then you will be able to charge the car from this type of socket at a rate of 7.4 kWh. This type of installation is mainly used in newer buildings. In this case, you will be able to buy a "portable" charging station, which you will use to charge the vehicle at home and also on the road. before a long trip, you can easily store it in the trunk of the car.

With this 7.4 kWh "portable" charger, you will charge the empty battery of your 60 kWh car in about 8 hours. So overnight or while working at work.

This charging option is one of the better ones, because the vehicle is charged relatively quickly, but at the same time it is slow enough to optimally maintain the battery. But about battery maintenance or battery handling in the next post.

Another note that is quite necessary. For all of you who do not yet own an electric car and are not familiar with it.

In principle, the battery of an electric car is only charged up to 80 percent of its capacity, mainly to preserve the life of the battery. We charge the battery up to 100% only before a planned longer journey and then only an hour or two before departure. The rule is that the battery has the maximum load as few times as possible.

As the car battery is usually only charged up to 80 percent, the charging time of the battery is shortened as a result.

3. Classic 11 – 22 kWh home charger for an electric car

Most electric cars allow bidirectional charging of up to 11 kWh, and some even up to 22 kWh. However, most "main" fuses or combinations on a three-phase current can handle approximately 14-15 kWh, so only a few will be able to charge at home with the option of 22 kWh. With a charger that charges with 11 kWh, you will charge a car with a 60 kWh battery in 4-5 hours. This means that you will gain about 65 kilometers of range every hour of charging.

There are two things you need to pay attention to with this home electric car charger:

• First time: The most important thing when choosing a home charger is that the charger enables communication with your network via a special "load balancing module" and thus dynamically adjusts the charging speed according to the simultaneous electricity consumption of your apartment or house. Otherwise, if more than 14 - 15 kWh are consumed, with the washing machine, induction plate and car charger turned on at the same time, the network would be overloaded and the main fuse would fail. Therefore, your charging station must detect network loads and adapt to these loads and, if necessary, reduce the car's charging power.
• Second time: A home charging station for an electric car should enable network regulation, but it is not necessary to be connected to the Internet. Most of the settings related to battery charging, such as charging schedules and the like, are set on the car itself, which is always connected to the Internet, so it would be completely unnecessary to set it on the charging station itself.

If an electric car is not your primary car in the family, then we don't even see the need to install it 11 kWh charging station, because you always have another vehicle at your disposal. However, if you plan to use an electric car as your "first" car, this type of charging station will also be necessary for convenience. Of course, everything also depends on the range and capacity of your vehicle's battery.

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Podcast: My First Electric Car

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