Level 2 charger at home?- Help I have no idea what I'm doing!

My electric provider request electric vehicles register their cars for capacity planning.
I registered mine without any problem. Not sure how many others here do the same.

https://secure.comed.com/SmartEnergy/SmartMeterSmartGrid/Pages/RegisterYourElectronicVehicle.aspx

 

Install a NEMA 14-50R receptacle because they are what's called "Future Proof". Like already stated, the maximum amperage your Prime can accept is 16 amps, so no matter what it can't charge up any faster than that. Your next car will most likely have a much bigger battery, so it's a good idea now to install a 240v receptacle that can charge at a higher rate when you need it to.

As to L2 EVSE units, you can spend big $$$ for a quality non-chinese EVSE unit or you can use your current Toyota 120v EVSE at 240 volts and charge up your Prime in 2:28 minutes for less than $70 dollars.


Rob43

 

Welcome!

Your choice of charging configurations for PRIME are only three.

1. Authentic L2 charger will let you have full battery from empty in ~2 hours.
   
2. If you go with what @Rob43 is suggesting and use OEM cord (L1 EVSE) with a pig tail adapter into 240v outlet, you will finish charging ~2.5 hours.
   
3. On the other hand OEM L1 at 120v will take ~6 hours of charge time.

If you just got the car, you should just try using L1 charger and see how it affect your drive and life style. If you really need to have faster charging capability, such as need to drive a car more than 25 miles multiple times within a day.

I rarely need my car driven more than once a day, and I can simply do over night charge using L1 EVSE. I found benefit of having L2 is very minimal and installation cost would never be recovered for my situation. Thus for 3 years I am using only L1 EVSE and doing fine.

 

I am with the Salamander. I have a 120V outlet in my garage and have been happily using it for the last three years. However, I am looking at the easiest way to add a 240V outlet there in the near future. I plan to upgrade to the RAV4 Prime if they become available at a reasonable price this year or next. Haven't looked at the specs, but I suspect that larger battery will take much longer to charge at 120V.

 

Simple glossary:
Volts = the force of the electricity
Amps = the rate of flow of the electricity
Watts = volts times amps
Charger...it's built inside the car
Charging station...the smart power supply for the car's charger
EVSE...electric vehicle supply equipment = charging station. The black box on the Prime charge cord is an EVSE.

80% rule...your electrician will install a 20 amp, 240 volt, circuit to provide 16 amperes. As noted above, a 50 amp circuit for a future 40 amp charging station will future-proof your station. If you plug your Prime into a 40 amp station...the charger inside the car communicates with the charging station and only takes what it needs...16 amps in this case.

So...evaluate why you want to spend the money for a faster charge. The only benefit is speed. If you decide to proceed have your electrician install the largest one you may ever use on a future electric vehicle. Or just have a 240 volt receptacle installed on a new circuit and use Rob's adapter with your current Prime EVSE charging cord. Do have the electrician pull wire suitable for the highest current your panel can provide, up to 50 amps, again planning for the future. The cost of bigger wire is a small increment on the job.

 

As with a lot of things in life, it just depends. If staying in EV is a MUST and multiple daily trips surpass your range, then faster charging can make more sense/cents but.....if you have a larger battery like our Honda Clarity (and the Rav4P), it may not. Wait, what?

Well, for local driving we get anywhere from upper 40's to low 60's miles per charge depending on weather and have yet to run out of EV range during the day. Our longer drives are out of town so a faster charger in our garage doesn't help there. Plus, we can "recharge" 300 miles in about :45 secs at the gas pump during those trips so we would even skip public charging (if we had that option which for most of trips there aren't any but that's our particular world).

But we do have a ClipperCreek 16amp 240V charger and have used it for years. Why? We have a free nights electricity program so level II charging makes sure the Clarity gets fully charged within that timeframe.

 

/Trying not to be jealous. /Trying not to be jealous./ Congrats!

I think the length of the warranty is a fair indication of the manufacturers confidence in their product.

I got a level II Clipper Creek charger in 2013. The cost to have an electrician run a wire is constant, doesn't matter how heavy the wire is. The cost of twice as capable a wire is not twice the cost of a lighter wire. I only got, I think it was a 15 Amp(?) charger, (the first gen PiP could only pull 13 Amps), but I had him put in a wire and breaker that can handle 40 Amps.

The idea was that if I get something bigger/stronger I can just replace the charger and the wiring is already done for a bigger unit. Or I can plug in just as it is now and it will work with anything that takes a SAE J1772 plug, just not as fast as a 40 amp unit. As long as he was at it I had him put in a 120 volt outlet next to the car charger, didn't cost much more and now I can power things outside without snaking an extension cord through the doorway.

I think those words do not mean what I think you think they do.

 

That's the chinese junk I was referring to, the one I bought & opened up had cold solder joints in it, it weighed nothing when compared to your OE Toyota EVSE, but the worse thing is that the charge handle doesn't fit our Prime properly (it's tight as hell).



Rob43

 

Yep, totally agree...

***********************

OP, if I were you I'd either buy a ClipperCreek EVSE for ~2 hour charging, or use your Toyota OE EVSE with an adapter for ~2.5 hour charging. Both will work perfectly, one will cost you a bit, the other is virtually free.


Rob43

 

That's the one I use but with a different wall plug. Like @Rob43 mentioned, the connection to the car is scary tight. At the risk of destroying the connectors in the EVSE I did some minor surgery on my plug to make it fit the car better. Still not perfect, but it no longer feels like I'm going to slide the car across the garage when I disconnect it.

It has worked fine otherwise for the three years I've been using it.

 

A few people with an aftermarket charge station have noted the tight fit of the connector. Some have commented that it doesn't work; their car doesn't charge. Actually they didn't slide the connector all the way in. It must be fully inserted for the charging process to start. A thin coating of dielectric grease, actually a silicone lube, will help it slide in, or maybe some minor surgery like Jerry did. A bit of fine sandpaper surgery, Jerry? With the lube here, the less used the better.

 

I removed the pin receivers from the EVSE handle and checked the fit individually. One of them was really tight a couple others were tighter than I liked. I drilled them out, which, unfortunately, removed the copper plating. Then, after reassembly, I reapplied the dielectric grease I had been using. It's still more snug than the OEM, but it's not scary tight anymore.