Had the first two (2) electric car chargers to inspect today.

Seems like PSE&G is starting with two chargers at the Conference & Training Ctr. Cars are supposed to be Chev. Volts.

We'll be putting in 8 stations on an upcoming military project in conjunction with 640kW of carport PV. From what I've seen so far there's several turnkey charging stations available now.

We just had a Nissan Dealer move into town this week. Should be interesting how many chargers they want to install. It's not a new bldg; 6=7 year old, former Volvo dealer moved out.

I got this in Email the other day

From: Fecteau, Jeffrey [mailto:Jeffrey.Fecteau@ul.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2011 11:47 AM
Subject: Leviton and Ford Receive UL Certification for EV Home Charging Station

Fully charging a Ford Focus Electric’s battery in a little over three hours, more than four times faster than the standard portable charger.

http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=41916&minisite=10026


Jeffrey A. Fecteau CBO, ECO

Lead Regulatory Engineer

Ahh, there seems to be an all electric Ford Focus on the ear horizon??

Yep I guess electric cars will be all the rage until people actually run the numbers and until the states start taxing car chargers to get their road tax back.

As an electrician I should be enamored with electric cars...

But, they can't pencil out, EVER.

Natural gas is most efficiently burned right in the vehicle rather than at a distant power plant with all of the conversion losses.

Since natural gas prices are cratering...

And America is now the world's largest producer...

And, apparently, has the worlds largest reserves...

Methane burning hybrids are going to beat out any EV ever designed.

EV's make sense for Hawaii and the Virgin Islands.

But when you go north, they stink. Cold ruins battery performance across the board. Without waste heat from our Otto Cycle engines how do we stay warm?

EV's make the most sense in the third world. That is if they could afford them.

BTW, they'll need noise makers. EV's and hybrids are SO quiet that they've become traffic hazards -- especially to the blind. Yeah, they're THAT quiet!

I have to agree with tesla on this..."BTW, they'll need noise makers. EV's and hybrids are SO quiet that they've become traffic hazards -- especially to the blind. Yeah, they're THAT quiet!"

My Twp car is a Prius, and we also have a few escape Hybrids....they are quiet!

Realistically though the sound emitted is irrelevant since half the pedestrians ae on the phone while walking and the other half are listening to their MP3 player so they're not going to hear the Mack truck OR Electric car that hits them.......

How many times have you seen someone walk right into an intersection against a red light while they were on the phone or listening to their MP3?

I still remember my sisters '85 CRX with the 1.3 liter engine that I would borrow for long trips. It would routinely get 65-71 mpg on regular unleaded, I could drive from San Diego to Phoenix and back for less than $15 all in one day while cruising at 80 mph to boot.

I'd like to see a hybrid or electric do that!

Vin:

Best I can tell ya is the Prius has 38.4 MPG on the dash computer. All city driving, 25k miles on the odo.

My personal Civic gets 35-36 MPG, 90% highway (Commute). (55 k on the odo.)

City driving is where a hybrid is supposed to be the best. At highway speed it is just a car with a small engine.
It would be interesting if they would let you swap cars for a week or two.

My Prelude is more like 24-28, all in town and I run it pretty hard for an old geezer. I hear the cam timing shift a lot. (5k RPM and up)

In defense of the Prius, I do tend to leave it 'on' for short inspections. Summer for AC, winter for heat.

The old CRX got 50-55 around town and she paid $5500 for it new.

There has got to be a reason they never went back to that powerplant, probably emissions reasons, but it was great while it lasted.

It looks like the Chevy Volt may have already had a couple of fires due to possible lithium battery issues.
Should be interesting to see what comes of this.

Chevy Volt Article

Kjay:

Thanks for the info & link. Reading thru the link, the 'fire' happened approx 3 weeks after a side impact controlled NHTSA crash test. As there are no details, I would assume the 'fire' was internal to the battery pack, as they said there was damage to it from the side impact.

One would think that in a real world situation, the battery pack is isolated from the 'load', usually by the first responders to an accident. And, one would think that the battery pack would be 'pulled' from the car IF it showed any damages.

I guess that Reuters article was incomplete. A couple of other articles I was reading on the subject say that there may have a couple of other possible incidences involving fires with the 2011 Volt. Supposedly one in North Carolina caught fire while it was charging in the owner’s garage. It sounds like it could turn out to be a charger issue and maybe not with the actual Volt itself.
The link below is to a better article with some more info.

Chevy Volt

I believe on Yahoo there was a story about an electric car that caught fire. I forget which one it was, and I believe it was being tested by a company that rates cars for their crash ability. Anyone see it?

Harold:
That story is in Sat APP and I believe the Star ledger. Site is in Wisconsin, test facility for Highway Safety Crash Testing. Side impact on a Chevy Volt; after a period of time (2-3 weeks) car caught fire. I believe it is the same story as in this thread.

John,

I believe you are correct. I think the article also stated that the car caught fire and the Safety Crash testing site was criticized by Chevy for now following proper procedures or something like that.

A recent fender bender on a Twp Prius (not mine) resulted in the battery pack being isolated as a mandatory first step. The pack was physically removed from the car for the period of time in a body shop. I don't know if that is 'factory' OR the shops choice.

Dale Electric has a 3.8KW Leviton car charger on the cover of their catalog this month with a cord cap on it. $921

The solution they seem to be going to in Iceland is to use their massive cheap thermal energy to do things like split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then they have the cleanest gas around which can then fuel a specially designed engine that only puts water vapor out the tail pipe and doesn't gum up the engine.

John,

Did anything happen to the battery?

Harold:
No issues with the battery pack. The car had all the body work done, and has been back in service.

I believe the body shop had the battery pack pulled for their own reasons.

In case everybody did not see todays newspapers:

GM offers to buy back Volts!!

GM CEO makes offer to anyone who would like to return a Volt for a buy back to keep all the customers happy. This is due to the battery related fires after the NHTSA crash testing.

Also mentions that the Volt battery pack is liquid cooled, and the On Star system will notify GM of any Volt involved in a crash (real world), and a GM response team will be at that vehicle in 48 hours to secure the battery pack.

John,


That doesn't sound good. I also just read somewhere ( I believe) that battery car charger cords have been burning up too.

If I was going to guess what burns up on the cord I would say the connector/cap. I know the plug on my golf cart gets hot if it is not plugged in tight.

I second that guess Greg. Had a comm toaster 'fire' last week in a food service area. 5Kw toaster, 30 amp, cord&cap......toasted.

I thought that the industry had moved to pin & sleeve...

For this reason...

Pin & sleeve with the 'lock latch' like Meltrics I have seen. No straight blade units yet.

So, I guess the latest story is that GM is … or at least was … offering to buy back the Chevy Volt from owners who were concerned about the situation with the batteries. I don’t know if this is actually occurring or how many owners have taken GM up on the offer though.

Heating and cooling on electric cars should probably still be done with gas. Small gas motor to run an AC unit and heater. Maybe even removable for weight savings.

My wife will be in the market for a new car a yr from now. I would really like to get an electric vehical. It would need to go 80miles on a charge and/or be a gas,electric hybrid. Haven't looked into the specs on EVs, but that's what I would take to get us into one... oh ya and be around $30k.

I wanna know when the electric vans are coming out? I dream, I dream...

I looked into electrifying an F-150. I had people make coffee shoot out of their nose, laughing.

Electric cars are, by nature, light with the battery being the heaviest part.
It is still hard to pencil out an electric car and make financial sense. They are toys for rich people.
Car and Driver did it with a Volt and a Cruze, similar platforms, one hybrid electric, the other simply a small engine car. The Cruze won on all counts.

Coming very soon to the BMW dealership....two (2) charging stations. 208 volt, 30 amp, hard wired.

When they are in, I'll do my best to get pics.

Interesting...paid a visit to the new Nissan dealer this AM., found out that they do not have any of the certifications required to sell or service a Leaf.

I was at a lunch meeting today with a couple of Leviton reps and they were pitching two car charging systems.
The small one is a back pack sized portable charger you can throw in the trunk and it charges at 800w or 1400w, switch selectable. The lower rating is for places where you might be tripping a breaker if you used the whole nut.

The big charger is fixed mount with a couple of mounting options but all are NEMA 3R. This one can either be cord and plug connected to a NEMA 5-20R and supply 2KW or be hardwired to a 40a circuit supplying 7.2KW.

This system supports "smart card" billing and is network connected (LAN or WAN).
The plan is you can go to chargepoint.com, enter your zip code and find the nearest charging station. It will also tell you whether the station is being used at that time. The bill for the power you use comes directly to you (credit card, bank etc) plus a service fee. The host gets a kickback for rent on the space and charge point takes their cut. I didn't hear what the fee was going to be.
This web site is still under construction.
The plan is also to incorporate this in a car dash GPS system but that is really a dream more than a plan.

Just added one pic of a prototype charger that is awaiting UL field certification. DC output, 50 amps I believe.

Pic is in the Photo Gallery!