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Quote:

Originally Posted by gduke2010 (Post 10410728)

Don’t know about all electric cars. I owned a Prius until a reckless driver totaled it out. It was a great car and would be hard to find a more economical car. However, an all electric would make a great commuter. But, would rather have a hybrid for the occasional long trips.

Mine does exactly what I wanted it to do, get us 100 miles a day (two 50 miles round trips to my sons private school and back home) with little to no need for gas.

It has a 2cyl gas motor that drives a generator, and in a typical week we may use about 1 gallon of gas on a bad week 2, with us covering 500-600 miles a week.

We tried to take ours on a road trip and it is really not suited for sustained high speed driving. It prefers to be running from red light to read light and not going much over 55 MPH. When it is in that environment, it shines, it sips battery power and needs no gas.

On the highway it eats up 2 gallons of gas in 110 miles (gets 50 to 55 mpg) and uses about 10% battery at the same time. Not ideal. But doable it you REALLY wanted to road trip with it.

Not what my BMW i3 was intended for. But man, for what we need it for, it shines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wdfifteen (Post 10410718)

That would depend on the car. A Chevy Volt draws 3500 watts while an electric stove uses 110000.

There are different levels of charging. For home systems there are level 1 charges which are frequently supplied with the vehicle. These run off standard 110 volt outlets, so are limited to around 1,500W. These are still Ok to charge your vehicle overnight, but the slower you charge, the less efficiently they work. There are then level 2 chargers which run off 220 volts and will plug in to your dryer outlet, or can be hardwired to your panel. The lower end of these charge around 3,500W. We have one of these at home, but also a dedicated level 2 which is capable of charging up to 10,000W. I believe you can go up from there, but not many home panels are going to handle more than about 15,000W even if you can charge the vehicle that fast through it's AC charge port.

The next level up are DC fast chargers at charging stations. These are significantly faster, and this is where the Leaf can be charged from empty to 80% in 20 to 30 minutes. These typically charge from around 50,000W to 120,000W but you're not likely to have one put in at home.

The DC fast charging is where a lot of the research is going at the moment. The problem is keeping everything cool with such high energy transfer rates. Porsche are reputed to be looking at a system working at 450,000W which will add 100km of range in 3 minutes. You're starting to talk about liquid cooled cables at this point though.

I suspect the story about residential transformers isn't true.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wdfifteen (Post 10410718)

That would depend on the car. A Chevy Volt draws 3500 watts while an electric stove uses 110000.

My oven uses 3500 Watts, cooktop, 1500, 1000, 1000, 1000, that is NOT 110,000, However to most of oven cooking in a toaster oven that uses only 1500.

I want to be the first guy to backdate one

From what I have read the currently sized transformers won't be able to handle 100% electric. 50% of residences charging will probably stress the current rated transformers which will decrease transformer lifespan.

Smart charging can keep everyone from charging at the same time.
Some neighborhood transformers are probably already stressed.