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TechyDad t1_je9n0iy wrote

Reply to comment by w1n5t0nM1k3y in Stanford study warns against charging electric cars at home overnight by Kodiak01

Maybe someone could design a charger that you plug in, but don't immediately start charging with. Perhaps you use an app to schedule the charging to start at 2am. Then the car trickle charges just enough to not lose all power until 2am at which point it switches to full charging mode.

I'll admit that I don't know all that much about electric cars, but this shouldn't be too hard of a problem to crack. It might even be doable with current technologies. I know some chargers intelligently stop charging when your battery is full, switching to trickle charging afterwards. This would basically be the opposite with a timer built in.

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w1n5t0nM1k3y t1_je9nprf wrote

I'm pretty sure that a lot of cars can already do this. Alternatively, you could also just slow charge your car on a regular 120 volt outlet. This will ensure that the power draw isn't too high at any one time. A level 1 charger can get you about 8 km of charge capacity per hour. So for most people, charging on a basic outlet is enough to charge a car for their daily needs overnight. Most people aren't driving hundreds of kilometers every day.

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TechyDad t1_je9okh8 wrote

This is interesting. One of my obstacles to buying an electric car, besides the price of the car itself, was the cost of getting a charging station installed. If I could charge it nightly from the regular outlet on my porch, that would save some money and make an electric car more affordable.

I'm hoping my current gas car lasts for awhile, but it's 14 years old so it might not keep going too much longer. When it finally dies, I want to at least get a hybrid if not full electric.

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Tederator t1_jeap26u wrote

GM recently advertised that they offer something towards the cost of charging stations. Of course, those rebates are added to the cost of the car anyway.

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ossuary-bones t1_je9o8v2 wrote

Most of your better chargers can do that, they have a setting for off peak hour charging. Others rely on your settings in your car.

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TechyDad t1_je9pzmz wrote

I figured that this would be easily doable with current technology.

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celtic1888 t1_jeahypz wrote

I’m pretty sure all the EVs out there allow for scheduled charging

All models of Teslas have it. It’s built into the software

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CAPSLOCKCHAMP t1_jeb5wmv wrote

The Tesla app lets you specify when it starts charging at home to avoid high rates. We pay reduced rate in evening so my home charge starts after midnight

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