Charging at home via 110?

[Lenni]

My commute is pretty short (5 miles each way). Is there something wrong with just using the free charger from Ford every night rather than buying and installing a faster charger? Even if I drive more than that sometimes, I figure the slow charger will catch up. There's also an EA fast charger near my house if need it. Am I harming the battery or being inefficient to just use the basic setup?

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[JamieGeek]

Nope, not at all.

Just keep in mind that 120V slow charger is sloooooow. It likely won't take long before you'll want something faster.

Even your short 10 mile round trip commute will take a long time (like 2 hours) to recover on 120V.

Especially when you first get the car and are taking it all over the place showing friends and plug in at night with 25% to wake up in the morning having only gained 10-20%.

 

[generaltso]

You’re not harming anything. But be aware that if you ever do run the battery down, it will take 4 days to fully charge back up. Also, if you precondition, you’ll have to use some of the battery for it because a 120v outlet doesn’t supply enough power to run the heater.

 

[Billyk24]

About 3 miles of range gained per hour of charging if you are not using it also to heat the cabin.

 

[BadgerGreg]

If you ever feel you need a bit more juice each night, you can always have a 240V outlet installed in your garage and use the charging cables that come with the car. This gives you about 20 miles per hour of charge (using the 240V outlet). This isn't a bad compromise, and is probably the next cheapest option to sticking with a 120V plug-in.

 

[SteelMach]

My commute is pretty short (5 miles each way). Is there something wrong with just using the free charger from Ford every night rather than buying and installing a faster charger? Even if I drive more than that sometimes, I figure the slow charger will catch up. There's also an EA fast charger near my house if need it. Am I harming the battery or being inefficient to just use the basic setup?

Nothing wrong with that at all. That's exactly what I'm doing.

It's *technically* less efficient as the vehicle's modules need to stay awake longer, but rounding error compared to the price of a level 2 charger.

Even those days you have to pop over to EA to top up, you'd have to do that A LOT to match the price of a Level 2 installation.

 

[AllenXS]

I have no capacity in my fuse box and moving soon. I'm using the 110 and so far it's okay. Only 230 miles this week and it's kept up okay.

Will definately go to L2 at next house though. The 110 is slow but effective.

 

[dbsb3233]

My commute is pretty short (5 miles each way). Is there something wrong with just using the free charger from Ford every night rather than buying and installing a faster charger? Even if I drive more than that sometimes, I figure the slow charger will catch up. There's also an EA fast charger near my house if need it. Am I harming the battery or being inefficient to just use the basic setup?

Nothing wrong with that. You'll likely want to plug in all the time when at home. If you're plugging in around 12 hours/day, that'll add maybe 40 miles in good weather, 30 in colder. If you leave the car home and plugged in a whole day (36 hours), you can "catch up" with about 100 miles added.

Best to have nothing else plugged into that circuit in the garage. It's a constant 8A draw. Can probably have a few smaller things plugged in but not much.

 

[Phoney]

If you have a garage and your 240v dryer is in there you might want to look into dryer buddy or NeoCharge. Using the travel charger that comes with the MME I’m adding about 22 miles per hour.

 

[RedStallion]

I ordered Splitvolt splitter that sits on 240v dryer outlet and automatically switches between a dryer and an EV. Hope to avoid ordering a multi-thousand dollar installation of a dedicated charger.
Haven't tried it yet.

 

[Maquis]

I ordered Splitvolt splitter that sits on 240v dryer outlet and automatically switches between a dryer and an EV. Hope to avoid ordering a multi-thousand dollar installation of a dedicated charger.
Haven't tried it yet.

You will need an EVSE that can limit the charging current to 24 amps. If you use the portable unit included with your MME, it will try to charge at 40 amps and trip your breaker.

 

[mr_raider]

Nothing wrong with that. You'll likely want to plug in all the time when at home. If you're plugging in around 12 hours/day, that'll add maybe 40 miles in good weather, 30 in colder. If you leave the car home and plugged in a whole day (36 hours), you can "catch up" with about 100 miles added.

Best to have nothing else plugged into that circuit in the garage. It's a constant 8A draw. Can probably have a few smaller things plugged in but not much.

Can you set it for 12a? GM gives you the option on their cars.

 

[Maquis]

Can you set it for 12a? GM gives you the option on their cars.

I think it is actually 12A.

 

[dbsb3233]

Can you set it for 12a? GM gives you the option on their cars.

I don't see any setting on the included charger, on the charger or the car.

The 120V pigtail says 12A on it, but I don't know if that's what the charger actually pulls or whether that's just the max the pigtail is rated for. Last year I saw it reported on as an 8A charger at 120V.

That also lines up with the miles Ford advertises. Ford says at 240V (the pigtail says 30A), it adds 20 miles each hour. While at 120V, it adds 3 miles each hour. 240V x 30A = 7.2 kW. 120V x 8A = 0.96 kW. That's a 7:1 difference, which matches the 20:3 miles difference they advertise.

If it were really a 12A charger, that's 120V x 12A = 1.44 kW. That would be 4 miles each hour added. If it really did that, I would think Ford would be advertizing 4 instead of 3. But maybe?

Since the car doesn't tell us the power level it's charging at, it's hard to really know whether it's 8A or 12A.

 

[dbsb3233]

OK, I was wrong. I forgot I had a Kill-A-Watt meter for 120V. So I went out and plugged the included charger into it and started charging. It was drawing 10.97A and 1.247 kW.

Figure about a 10% loss in the charging process, that's 1.1 kW per hour added. At 3 miles/kWh, that's about 3.3 miles.

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