I tried charging a Hyundai Kona Electric at home — here's what happened

[admin]

I got to test drive a 2024 Hyundai Kona Electric for a week, so I wanted to see how it performed with using a Level 1 charger at home. I was surprised by the results.

I tried charging a Hyundai Kona Electric at home — here's what happened : Read more

 

[rakeshcbhardwaj]

This hypocrite's review of the Cadillac didn't go into this detail of how long it would take to charge the car. Cadillac added 28 miles overnight while the Kia added 26. Same ballpark yet singing praises for a US car and damning the import. The problem isn't the car. The problem is the US electricity system..120v instead of 240 like many countries. I can FULLY charge my 280 mile range car overnight in 10 hours in the UK. Furthermore since my electricity costs peanuts for 5 hours every night then the cost is negligible. The car isn't the problem.

 

[USAFRet]

This hypocrite's review of the Cadillac didn't go into this detail of how long it would take to charge the car. Cadillac added 28 miles overnight while the Kia added 26. Same ballpark yet singing praises for a US car and damning the import. The problem isn't the car. The problem is the US electricity system..120v instead of 240 like many countries. I can FULLY charge my 280 mile range car overnight in 10 hours in the UK. Furthermore since my electricity costs peanuts for 5 hours every night then the cost is negligible. The car isn't the problem.

US electricity IS 240v. Just that for most outlets, is is split into 2 lines of 120v.

US stoves and clothes dryers run on the 240v line.

While maybe not 'free', it is easy to get a 240v outlet for your car.


But yes, if you connect to a Level 1 charger (120v), it will be slow.

 

[bjrosen]

When you buy an EV you put in a Level 2 EVSE, it's a one time cost and it makes your life so much easier. Think of it as as an option for your car. When I got my first Tesla five years ago I bought an 11KW Tesla EVSE for $450 and my electrician charged me $750 to run a 60A 240V line an install it. By way of comparison I just traded in my five year old Tesla for a new one, I splurged on red paint, that cost me $2000. So the EVSE, which I will have forever, cost less than the paint option on the new car.

 

[UsedToLevel1Charge]

I think the writer made some kind of mistake; his level 1 charger is running at HALF the normal charging speed. The picture shows he is getting 0.7 kw charge rate, but 1.3 kw is standard when you're plugged into a normal wall socket. I suspect the charger he is using is set to a lower charging rate and he didn't notice.

I had a 2013 LEAF and charged it from a normal wall socket for ten years; you get 50 miles of range, approximately, from an overnight charge. If you don't drive more than 50 miles a day, the Kona should be fine using just Level 1 charging. I have an Ioniq 5 now and still just plug it in to the same wall socket (in fact, I use the same Nissan Leaf charger, which I kept )

 

[bjrosen]

This hypocrite's review of the Cadillac didn't go into this detail of how long it would take to charge the car. Cadillac added 28 miles overnight while the Kia added 26. Same ballpark yet singing praises for a US car and damning the import. The problem isn't the car. The problem is the US electricity system..120v instead of 240 like many countries. I can FULLY charge my 280 mile range car overnight in 10 hours in the UK. Furthermore since my electricity costs peanuts for 5 hours every night then the cost is negligible. The car isn't the problem.

Just to expand on what USAF said. In the US 240V split phase power comes in to the house. The phases are 180 degrees out from each other. Ordinary circuits use a single phase and a neutral which gives us 120V which is sufficient for lamps, it's original purpose, TVs, computers and small appliances. For high power applications like dryers, stoves and EVSEs we use both phases which gives us 240V. The advantage of the US system is that it's safer. Our plugs are much smaller than UK plugs and we don't need switches on our outlets. The advantage of the EU system is that it requires less copper. The historical reason for the difference is that the US got electricity much earlier than the EU. Edison's carbon filament bulb could only handle 110V which is why 110V was selected as the standard, later bumped up slightly to 120V. By the time Siemens invented the tungsten filament bulb the US already had a million buildings that had been wired so it was too late to change. By contrast the number of buildings in Europe and England with electricity was much lower so they just sent everybody new light bulbs and switched to 240.
The EU/UK also have three phase power in the home, in the US three phase is only used in commercial buildings and factories. Because of three phase power the max sized EVSE is 22KW in the EU vs 19.2 on the US, this doesn't matter at all for cars because their chargers are generally 7.2KW to 11KW. It does matter for trucks which have much larger batteries and higher power chargers.

 

[ZuliMuli]

I think the writer made some kind of mistake; his level 1 charger is running at HALF the normal charging speed. The picture shows he is getting 0.7 kw charge rate, but 1.3 kw is standard when you're plugged into a normal wall socket. I suspect the charger he is using is set to a lower charging rate and he didn't notice.

I had a 2013 LEAF and charged it from a normal wall socket for ten years; you get 50 miles of range, approximately, from an overnight charge. If you don't drive more than 50 miles a day, the Kona should be fine using just Level 1 charging. I have an Ioniq 5 now and still just plug it in to the same wall socket (in fact, I use the same Nissan Leaf charger, which I kept )

This was the most confusing part to me, on a 15amp circuit you should see 3-4 miles an hour easy.