I tried charging an EV at home and it was a shock I wasn't expecting

[Biffslamalot]

I use a level 1 charger for my kia niro and get about 6 miles per hour of charge. 30 miles of charge in 14 hours is awful. I agree with other commenters the author should have checked settings before charging.

 

[SeaJ]

Maybe a better article would have been Hyundai setting the amperage for level 1 charging too low and how to fix it. You should be getting about double what you are getting on a 15 Amp circuit or about 3 miles of charge for every hour. Unless you are also running an air conditioner or a space heater in that circuit, the higher amperage is fine.

People saying level 1 charging is only for emergencies don't know what they are talking about. The average American drives about 33 miles per day. A level 1 charger with the charging set properly should be getting that overnight easily.

 

[craig2web]

L1 works fine for this retiree at home with my Nissan Leaf. With its smaller 40 kWh battery, I'm able to add about 3% to the battery each hour. Since I'm mainly running errands close by when I do go out, I rarely have to plug the car in more than a few hours at a time. And sure beats the cost of gas!

 

[Blade of Terror]

The main criticism I have of this article is that it could have either been entirely made redundant with a little bit of googling and researching home charging, or it could have turned into an actually meaningful and useful article. Knowing the difference between 6/8 Amp charging, which many cars initially default to in their onboard software, and 12 A charging, which is what you can safely draw from most 110 V outlets unless it's a 20 A circuit, makes a difference of almost a factor of two in charging speed. You can safely add 1 kWh per hour at 12 A, which for a 75 kWh battery pack means 1.3% per hour. If you live most of your life within a 15% daily driving range of home, like many people in our post-Covid world do who work from home, you may never need more than L1 charging. I've owned three EVs in six years and have never used more than the L1 chargers they came with. Needing to install a L2 charger, and in particular a high-amp one, is not as common as newcomers to electric mobility initially may think. Start with L1 and only move up if it absolutely ends up not working for you.

 

[Tim Eckel]

What did you expect? Treat the domestic plug in as an emergency only. 120V is barely adequate to charge an iPhone.
A dedicated home charger will fill your battery overnight and should be factored in when you buy the car unless you are lucky enough to have one at home already.

My Tesla Model 3 Long Range charges 6 miles every hour, which is also 1% every 30 minutes. So an overnight 12 hour charge adds 72 miles or about 1/4 battery. Which is more mileage than I drive in a day, so a standard plug easily keeps it topped off at 80% every day, basically without fail.

 

[Tim Eckel]

I use a level 1 charger for my kia niro and get about 6 miles per hour of charge. 30 miles of charge in 14 hours is awful. I agree with other commenters the author should have checked settings before charging.

Same with my Tesla M3LR

 

[1point21jiggawatts]

You were shocked? Why would you be shocked? How could you be shocked? EV charging is not a mystery, it's simple math. There's over a decade of EV charging data out there. What's shocking to me is that people are getting paid to publish articles containing such ignorance.

 

[DrObnxs]

I finally got to charge my first EV at home, but I was shocked by how it turned out. Here's what every new and first time EV driver needs to know about charging at home.

I tried charging an EV at home and it was a shock I wasn't expecting : Read more

Maybe you should stick to phone reporting. Or do some basic math.

L1 charging isn't useful for a decent range BEV. It's just too slow.

Not all cars come with chargers.

A plug based L2 charger requires no permits, if you have the plug in your garage already.

What's a bit of a surprise to me us that you're supposedly a tech writer, yet you're more than a decade behind the curve on EVs. Step up your game! Do your homework! This article NEVER should have seen the light of day.

 

[gwest12]

Sounds like mostly lack of research and preparation.
I ordered Tesla's level 2 charger at the same time I purchased the car and had received it before the I took delivery of the car.
Indeed, that first week was a stress-inducing hunt for charging stations that worked and fit my cord or the provided adapter since the provided level 1 cord plugged in overnight couldn't replace my daily commute's consumption.
That first weekend I installed the $500 charger with about $40 worth of conduit fittings and breakers. I already had the wire.
Even if I chose to have someone do it for me, that would have cost about $400.
That's about 7 weeks worth of gas for my old vehicle, closer to 3.5 weeks by installing the charger myself.
So instead of adding 1-2 miles of range per hour of charging with level 1, I now add 34 miles per hour, a perfectly workable number and it's free if the sun's out over our solar panels.
In the 2-1/2 years of EV ownership, I've used Superchargers about 5 times due to forgetfulness or unexpectedly high mileage additions to that day's itinerary.
The rates are a rip compared to using my own power, but still cheaper per mile than gas was with my last vehicle.

 

[roybrander]

Nobody seems to have done the simple arithmetic here. If you get 361 miles from 77.4 kWh, you're getting 4.6 miles from every 1 kWh, so if you only got 26 miles, you were only charging at 413 watts!

A 120V socket can put out over 1800 watts, it should have charged up well over 100 miles of range if the charger was able to use the available power.

And nobody seems to be explaining the appalling inefficiency, everybody's just saying "120V is the problem". It's the car.

 

[jrharbort]

Nobody seems to have done the simple arithmetic here. If you get 361 miles from 77.4 kWh, you're getting 4.6 miles from every 1 kWh, so if you only got 26 miles, you were only charging at 413 watts!

A 120V socket can put out over 1800 watts, it should have charged up well over 100 miles of range if the charger was able to use the available power.

And nobody seems to be explaining the appalling inefficiency, everybody's just saying "120V is the problem". It's the car.

For safety reasons, you can't (or shouldn't) charge at a rate higher than 80% of the circuit capacity. So for a 15 amp circuit, that's 12 amps, or about 1500w on a 120v socket. Still enough to easily add 50 miles of range overnight for the long range Ioniq 6.

 

[raehl]

Not expecting? A 120v outlets charging slow is basic EV knowledge you'd almost have to wilfully avoid.

If your daily work commute is 6 miles round trip, a level 1 charger works just fine for you. Your mistake was waiting until the battery was low to start charging. You just put it on the charger all the time, and you'll easily recharge from your work commute and also have your work week to recharge from longer drives on the weekends.

Although, at a 6 mile per day round trip commute, you might just be better off with a gas car - you're not driving enough to realize savings from home charging.

 

[raehl]

Nobody seems to have done the simple arithmetic here. If you get 361 miles from 77.4 kWh, you're getting 4.6 miles from every 1 kWh, so if you only got 26 miles, you were only charging at 413 watts!

A 120V socket can put out over 1800 watts, it should have charged up well over 100 miles of range if the charger was able to use the available power.

And nobody seems to be explaining the appalling inefficiency, everybody's just saying "120V is the problem". It's the car.

It's probably not the car. It's probably the charger settings, or he's using an extension cord.

 

[jrharbort]

It's probably not the car. It's probably the charger settings, or he's using an extension cord.

Charger settings would be "the car", as those settings are in the car. Most portable EVSE are designed to detect if they're plugged into an extension cord and trigger a fault/error. So this shouldn't be possible unless you used a heavy gauge cord. And in that case it still shouldn't slow the charge rate.

 

[Amber777]

I finally got to charge my first EV at home, but I was shocked by how it turned out. Here's what every new and first time EV driver needs to know about charging at home.

I tried charging an EV at home and it was a shock I wasn't expecting : Read more

Had my Chevy Bolt 2.5 yrs. Almost always charge at home. Yes, about 30 miles per night. Only need to fast charge if doing back to back or multiple long trips weekends, etc.
Also had read battery prefers slow charge to retain best life expectancy!
Also, don't even notice a difference in electric bill...

Didn't even bother splitting the 220, just had elecrician verify, change out the old 110 plug as a precaution.

Luv luv luv EV!

 

[tirebiter31]

The Hyundai L1 charger operates between 6 to 12 amps of current. It defaults to 6 amps. If you raise it to 12 amps (1,3kw), it will, of course, charge twice as fast. But it's still much slower than L2 (up to 48 amps or 11.5kw) or DC fast charging (up to 300 amps or 240 kw).

 

[SeaJ]

Maybe you should stick to phone reporting. Or do some basic math.

L1 charging isn't useful for a decent range BEV. It's just too slow.

Not all cars come with chargers.

A plug based L2 charger requires no permits, if you have the plug in your garage already.

What's a bit of a surprise to me us that you're supposedly a tech writer, yet you're more than a decade behind the curve on EVs. Step up your game! Do your homework! This article NEVER should have seen the light of day.

Level 1 charging is perfectly fine for most people and will get you 3-4 miles of charge per hour. Hyundai sets the amperage for the charging cable to 6A but it can be changed to 12A pretty easily. The author was unaware so they only got a little over a mile per hour of charge. If you don't have the extra $1000 to drop for a 30A 220V line, your standard 15A 120V outlet will be okay and you will likely only need a DC fast charge for long distance.

 

[mrosenquest]

I finally got to charge my first EV at home, but I was shocked by how it turned out. Here's what every new and first time EV driver needs to know about charging at home.

I tried charging an EV at home and it was a shock I wasn't expecting : Read more

The default setting on the 120V charger that Hyundai includes with the Ioniqs is super slow at 6A, it sounds like the author of the article had it on the default setting.

I have an Ioniq 5 with the same default charger, but turned all the way up to 12A, this delivers 1.3kW per hour, or about ~1.6% charge per hour, so in 14 hours I'll get 20%+ charge, not 6%.

This is more than enough for my needs, commuting and running errands, and I've been relying on the included 120V charger for home charging the entire 2 years I've had the car so far.

PLEASE update the article to include this information as it's incredibly misleading as-is.

 

[martalli]

Level 1 charging off a regular 110v wall outlet is slow. This is something all EV owners and renters should know. 1% charge per hour would be pretty typical for most cars and small SUVs. With that in mind, if you plan to rely on level 1 charging, you pretty much need to keep the car plugged in all the time while you're at home. If you had access to even a lower power 240 v outlet, you could charge fast enough to go from 10-20% to 80% every night. This article feels a bit disingenuous in its discovery that a 110 volt outlet is not enough to charge a car overnight.

 

[rsjolly]

Local man finds that level 1 charging works well enough for his commute, but is shocked nonetheless.