Off grid charging

[Hodgey29]

Hello all. What is the best option to charge Mach e without access to electricity? Is there a portable charger available? Thanks in advance.

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[AKgrampy]

I do not believe there is an economic solution to “off grid” charging unless you have a solar energy system available. I imagine a 10 kW generator could also be used.

 

[B177y]

A 240 volt inverter generator or a large solar power system. Generator would obviously require a steady fuel source (gasoline, LPG, or natural gas). Either option is quite expensive.

 

[Hodgey29]

Dang, I guess I’ll plan accordingly.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Hello all. What is the best option to charge Mach e without access to electricity? Is there a portable charger available? Thanks in advance.

Can you describe your use case? Under what conditions are your trying to operate?

 

[Hodgey29]

I am travelling to a place that will have to plugs. I’ll just have to charge before somewhere before. I was hoping there was a portable charger

 

[E90alex]

The cars battery is the entire underside of the vehicle and weighs thousands of pounds.

How can you expect any portable battery that’s significantly smaller and can be lifted by hand to miraculously give any meaningful amount of charge to the car?

 

[Hodgey29]

That’s why I’m asking. Not looking for a miracle.

 

[dking1981]

If you do go the generator route, there is some funkyness with a special plug that is needed on the generator side. I have seen it on the forums before.

 

[vscottjensen]

Solar + battery would work. Any off grid option will be very slow. The power output of the battery is governed.

 

[Raymondjram]

You have to calculate how much energy you need. Based on a average of 4 miles (6 km) per kilowatt-hour for the Mach-E, you can estimate how much energy for the distance you need to travel.

The largest one-person portable power source you can handle is a power station holding 4 kWh. That can give you up to 16 miles or 24 km. But it charges your vehicle very slowly at 12 A and 120 VAC, or 1.4 kW per hour. A complete charge will be over six hours.

Do you believe this is a solution?

 

[GreaseMonkey]

I am travelling to a place that will have to plugs. I’ll just have to charge before somewhere before. I was hoping there was a portable charger

You mean like this?

 

[RickMachE]

You have to calculate how much energy you need. Based on a average of 4 miles (6 km) per kilowatt-hour for the Mach-E, you can estimate how much energy for the distance you need to travel.

The largest one-person portable power source you can handle is a power station holding 4 kWh. That can give you up to 16 miles or 24 km. But it charges your vehicle very slowly at 12 A and 120 VAC, or 1.4 kW per hour. A complete charge will be over six hours.

Do you believe this is a solution?

A few corrections.

Most people rarely get more than 3 miles per kWh unless they are driving slow.

The Mach-E charges at 12amps, yes, but 1.4kW is the gross. Net to the vehicle is 1.1.

I don't know what you meant by "A complete charge will be over six hours". If you mean the 4kW power source, that will be exhausted in 4/1.4 = 2.86 hours, and most people will then be able to drive 2.86 x 1.1 = 3.14kWh x 3 = 9.4 miles or so. Really slow, maybe 50% more.

In short, there really are no off-grid charging solutions absent solar on a house that is off-grid. Setting up a massive portable solar charging setup yields very little.

 

[rhougey]

That’s why I’m asking. Not looking for a miracle.

It does seem that you are looking for something miraculous.

I have a cabin in the mountains that is at the very edge of “the grid”. We have electricity, but it goes out fairly often, so I have a portable Generac generator to power the house minimally when we lose power. It weighs approximately 200 lbs and I believe it holds around 8 gallons of gas and will run 7-8 hours on a full tank of gas. I wouldn’t try, but it is conceivable that you could fit it in the back of the car to take it with you (might need to fold down the back seat, and might need a couple friends to get it in and out). If I wanted to take it with me and charge the car, I think I would need to also take with me an EVSE that could be de-rated to 24 amps at 240 volts (80% of the generator’s rated max output of 30), and an adapter for the twist-lock outlet on the generator, and if I wanted to charge the car from 10% to 80%, I would need somewhere around 12 gallons of gas and run the generator for around 12 or more hours. And it would make a heck of a lot of noise for all that time.

This scenario is laughable I think.

 

[Snakebitten]

That’s why I’m asking. Not looking for a miracle.

You'll look back a few months from now and grin. (if you have a healthy sense of humor)
In the meantime, don't let the snark get to ya.
And remind YOURSELF a year from now NOT to be too hard on the fella that shows up in the shoes you are currently in.

By the way, the second day I owned my Mach-E, I had to charge it from my F150 Powerboost (built-in inverter) to get the Mach-E charged up enough to get off Galveston island.
I had impulse purchased the Mach-E late Friday, on the way to a beach weekend. Thankfully, I had let my son take my truck to haul a bunch of grandkids.

Also note that there are a few portable EVSE that allow you to adjust the charge rate of your EV. So it gives you lots of options for the various 240V sources you might find while traveling.

You are going to love your Mach-E.
And you are going to KNOW what you currently don't know that you don't know.

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