I just purchased a 2021 Prius Prime and had a 240 volt outlet installed last year when I had my Solar Panels done. They installed a 50amp (NEMA 14-50R) plug. Question 1: I was wondering if this is too much Amps for a Level 2 charger Prius charger. I want to purchase a 30 amp or 40amp charger from Amazon but will this cause a fire since Outlet and fuse say 50Amp. What brand charger do you recommend that wont break the bank? Question 2: I see some posts about converting the OEM 120 volt to 240volt charger (I also saw some plug conversions online). Is this really possible and safe and will it charge my prius at the faster 2hr and 10mins?
1) No. more circuit amps is ok. Too little bad. 2) Yes. There is a board member with a cottage industry making the proper adapter. Search the threads or he might jump in.
A larger circuit is a good thing for the future and not at all a problem now. I had the electrician install a 60 amp wire and 60 amp circuit breaker for our new ChargePoint Flex because that recharger device can handle up to 50 amps at 240 volts. Our 2021 Prius Prime only takes about 16 amps at 240 volts but someday in the future some newer car might want all those 50 amps from the ChargePoint Flex. You can even tell the ChargePoint Flex to provide 50 amps now but the Prius Prime will only draw what it needs. By contrast, a smaller circuit like a 10 amp circuit would be a problem because the Prius Prime would try to suck 16 amps through that smaller 10 amp example circuit and the 10 amp wires would overheat and maybe cause a fire.
I would not trust messing around, trying to use a 120 volt device on 240 volts. The ChargePoint Flex costs about $700 and is safety rated to do the recharging properly. Your Prius Prime costs about $30,000 - so that $30,000 is your risk exposure if you mess around. Then add the potential additional damage if you start a fire and burn down your house, too.
Welcome, AJ! Whatever you plug in takes the amperage it needs as long as the circuit can supply it. Just because the circuit can supply 50A doesn't mean it has to jam 50A into what you plug into it. Have you ever plugged a 1/4-amp light into a 15-amp outlet? Didn't hurt a thing. Neither will it hurt to plug your 16-amp car into a 50-amp outlet. By the way, the charger is under the back seat of your car. The EVSE you plug into the wall and the car feeds power to the charger. If you buy a Charge Point, you bought a fancy EVSE, not a charger. (EVSE = electric vehicle supply equipment)
You can get a good level 2 EVSE from amazon for a fraction of the price of the charge point model. You can buy them with a NEMA 14-50 plug to fit your receptacle. The purpose of the ESVE is to safely transport the power from your house wiring to the car. Inside the car is a charger that takes the 110v or 220v and changes it to the voltage that the car battery needs to charge. I keep the level 1 ESVE in the storage space designed for it in the car and have not used it much. I use a level 2 for daily charging. That one is permanently plugged in inside the garage and the cable comes out through a gap under the garage door. The gap was made a little bigger by using an angle grinder to cut a groove a bout half inch deep in the concrete under the door gasket. Dan
I am in the same boat as AJ769 installed a 50amp breaker with a (NEMA 14-50R) plug. My thinking was buy the ChargePoint Home Flex when you get a 30% discount from the government and charge the car with 40 Amps-240V. Reading in this forum I see that the Prime only can take a charge of 16 Amps max, so the ChargePoint is overkill when the supplied Prius Prime charger can charge with 240 Volts. Does anybody know of a hack to give to Prius more Amps, thinking of 25 or 30 to cut the charging time to an hour or so.
With 220, it already charges in "an hour or so". The key is that the battery has enough charge capacity to travel as far as the average car goes in a day. That''s about 7 kWh BUT if you travel like most people, that will be several trips of 7 or so miles. That much electricity will take less than an hour to replace. Last Saturday I ran down the battery during normal use for the first time in recent memory. it took 3 cross town errands (without charging) and I was only on gas for the last mile. That would not have happened if I charged between errands. Fast forward to Wednesday, when the battery got me over the first mountain range and gas took care of the other 400 miles. Dan
No. The charger is inside the car. Unless you are willing to tinker with the internal electronics of the car, you are not going to accomplish the hack. Even if it is possible, which I highly doubt, it would take a major effort and will be a very expensive mod.
While the internal electronics are limiting current for charging, the real reason its limited is for heat management and battery life. Even if you were able to mod the hardware for more current, best case is that you would get stopped by over-heating.
