All Charged Up About Buying a New Electric Car? What You Need to Know
The new electric vehicles are here! The 2011 Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf are just hitting showroom floors across the country. Electric vehicles by Ford, Mitsubishi and others will be following soon. There’s a lot of buzz and excitement about these cars in the world of green technologies. There also seems to be a great deal of confusion about the various options for charging the new vehicles.
There are 3 types of charging stations for electric vehicles. The Chevy Volt is an extended range electric vehicle (EREV), and the Nissan Leaf is an fully electric vehicle (EV). Both types of cars can be charged in a variety of ways. Article 625 of the National Electrical Code has specific requirements for EREV and EV charging stations. From these requirements 3 levels of charging have emerged.
Level I charging is the simplest option. You drive your new car home, park it in the garage (or driveway) and plug it into a standard 120 volt, 15 amp GFCI receptacle. Depending on the vehicle and battery type it will take between 8 and 16 hours to fully charge your vehicle. (Some sources say it will take up to 20 hours to fully charge the Nissan Leaf with Level I charging, which Nissan calls “opportunity” charging.) The only equipment required for Level I charging is the interlocking cable specifically designed for electric vehicles.
Level II Charging requires a 240 volt, 40 amp circuit and takes 4 to 6 hours to fully charge a vehicle. 1 hour of Level II charging is said to give the Nissan Leaf a range of 15 miles. Level II charging stations are designed to be installed in your garage or on the exterior of your home near the driveway. Level II charging stations for home use are now being manufactured by several companies including:
In most cases these charging stations will need to be installed by licensed electrical contractors. Early estimates for the installation of level II charging stations are coming in at around $2,200.00. Many of these charging stations can be programmed to charge at off hours when the load on the electrical grid is lighter.
Level III charging is often called rapid or fast charging because it can charge a vehicle to more than 50% of capacity in about ten minutes. Because these charging stations require extremely high voltage and current levels they are not intended for in home use. Thousands of public Level III charging stations are expected to be installed in the U.S. over the next few years.
Public charging stations are just beginning to appear in major cities throughout the United States. This summer Coulomb Technologies installed the first U.S. public charging station in New York City and they have plans to install 4,600 more stations throughout the U.S. by the end of 2011. Over the next few years thousands of public charging stations are scheduled to be installed through private/public partnerships backed by the federal government. The EV Project, for instance, intends to employ 14,650 public Level II chargers and 310 Level III chargers in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Tennessee and the District of Columbia over the next 14 months. Through this and many similar projects a network of electric vehicle charging stations will cover the U.S. within a few years.
Date: November 8, 2010
Categories: Electric Vehicles, Green Living
