Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Tempted by Renault 5 Electric

As John suggests, it seems the main fuse rating on the cable head may determine whether or not you can have a circa 30 amp connection to an EV. For sure one is inclined to think that if I have a 60 amp main use then there should no problem to have the load of 30 amps fed from it.... However it is the length of time that is key, as very little in a household will draw high currents for long periods of TIME.

From a dull memory ... there are factors applied to calculations relative to electrical supply, one of which is diversity, in other words averaging out expected real world loading on mains supplies and where the TIME relative to any peak expectations on that loading plays a part...Most folk understand that there seem to be expected peaks at half time in a big football match when folk put the kettle on and the sewage system pump stations might also see an increase in demand, though only for a relatively short period of TIME.
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As a childlike example, you can perhaps lift and transport a heavy LOAD for a while, but to carry it for any length of time/distance may cause you to begin to sweat, dependant on the length of time you need to carry it.... Same goes for electric cables and fuses etc. Thus demanding circa 30 amps for many hours is likely to put more LOAD on to a household electricity supply than it was ever designed to cope with.

With all that in mind, and the arrival of EV`s in in the marketplace, it seems understandable that electricity supply networks require to be upgraded to match an increase in load, and more so as EV`s increase in popularity as will home charging for those who might have a driveway and a suitably sized cable head which is deemed capable of carrying the expected circa 30 amp load long enough to charge an EV over the period of hours.

Dependant on the type of battery in the EV it seems there may no need to wait till the battery runs down to say 20% before charging, thus if you are a light user perhaps using a 13 amp supply to just keep it topped up, and with a smart meter, selecting a time of day/night to do so when your tariff may be cheaper....?

I suspect that trying to supply 22 kw from a normal household supply could require more work than one might imagine if allowable unless one had a three phase supply... Though as I suggested things seem to be changing at a rate of knots.... And households with solar generation becoming ever more popular, battery storage smart inverters I suspect the grid will look nothing like it has done over the years in the passage of time.... I note that battery storage seems to be cropping up adjacent to grid switching stations..

I think wi-fi range issues for some folk caused cable manufacturers to create a cable of the appropriate size and type to carry both circa 30 amps and the hard wired connection for data required by the wall connectors.

I think that wi-fi was required to set up the wall connector with the vehicle I.D, in order that only an otherised vehicle could be charged from the connector, Thus in some cases where wi-fi was incabable of reaching the connectors location, it would be programmed wherever the wi-fi was available in the property, prior to mounting it in it`s required position.

I know nothing of sims capabilities.... Duh!

As ever just thinking in type and more than happy to read of alternative thinking and/or be corrected if I have got things wrong in any way..