Electric car thread

[californiagrown]

IANAE, but that sounds pretty ghetto, and kinda dangerous. Like burn the house down dangerous. But IANAE.

Plug a powerstrip into your laundry room's outlet. Now, plug your dryer and your EV charger into the powerstrip. Problem solved. I Am An Engineer.

*just not the kind of engineer you ever want working on or designing electrical shit*


that said, the amount of shit in my garage i have plugged into a single power strip might make you queasy.

[altacoup]

How ghetto would it be to run a home charger off a dryer outlet? I'm EV curious, but my house only has a 100A panel with no extra space for a new 220 circuit. Upgrading to a 200A panel on top of installing a home charger would be $$$$$ and not happening. But, my laundry room shares an exterior wall with my carport so I could theoretically use the dryer outlet since that is 220 and the dryer is only in use a few hours per week.

I would not use a dryer plug for an EV charger. At minimum you want that to be a twist lock recordable and cord for safety especially with kids and a dog in the house. By code the EV charger should be a dedicated circuit but as a home owner you don’t have to follow code. Although it could become and issue if/when you sell the house. Also you’ll need to know if your dryer circuit is straight two forty or two forty with a neutral. That would determine what nema receptacle and plug got the charging unit you will need. You could parallel up the two receptacles and never run the at the same time, maybe wire in a rated switch that only allows one receptacle at a time to be powered. Not up to code, but would function. Depending on what your of panel you have you might be able to find a couple twin twenty amp breakers. It’s two breakers that occupy the space of one and create space for another circuit that way. That’s probably your best option if you have a square d panel. If by chance your house has a federal pacific panel you should definitely get that replaced asap.

[Dantheman]

It is a 14-50 outlet. Panel was installed new in 2007 by a licensed electrician.

[bobz]

Worth mentioning that EVs need an EV-grade 14-50 outlet. Cheaper 14-50s, even with a 50 amp rating, have been known to melt and then blow due to EVs having continuously high current.

[toast2266]

For whatever it's worth, as a practical matter my car is programmed to only charge at night. So being on the same fuse as some other appliance (in my case a welder) hasn't been an issue at all. If I was on the same circuit as a dryer, I'd just program the car to not start charging until 11 pm. That's plenty of time to get a normal (20% up to 85%) charge done.

I'm sure that's not code compliant though.

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[Dantheman]

Worth mentioning that EVs need an EV-grade 14-50 outlet. Cheaper 14-50s, even with a 50 amp rating, have been known to melt and then blow due to EVs having continuously high current.

Well that's less than ideal.