The last couple pages had some chatter about Level 1 vs Level 2 charging.
I can confirm - level 1 charging takes a long time. Our car gets about 450km range. My wife uses about 300km range per week. So we plug in to our Level 1 charger on Friday after work and then leave it plugged in until Monday morning. Call it 5pm Friday to 7am Monday, less 2 - 4 hours that we use the car over the weekend to shuttle the kids to sports or run errands. So about 60 hours of charging. We typically recover about 300km - 325km range in that time.
It works nicely for us for the the time being. If my wife ends up teaching at a school that is any further away, we may have to plug in more frequently.
Fortunately, almost every rec. centre or facility that we take our kids to for sports or other activities has a level 2 charger that is free to use (as long as you have the free BC Hydro App and/or card). I don't always take advantage of this free energy, but usually I do. If someone offered you 10 - 20 litres of free gas just for parking at their facility while you watch your kid practice would you say no?
Why don't we install a Level 2 charger at home?
For one, we don't really need it - but it is a luxury we do want eventually, I think. The barrier of entry is that our old electric panel is full. So we could install a switch and route the Level 2 charger off of our clothes dryer, but then we cannot dry clothes' when charging or vice versa.
Replacing the electrical panel is not a simple or cheap endeavor. I was quoted $2500 - $5000 for the panel, depending on what we want. But there is also about $4000 - $5000 in labour to dig the trench* needed to replace the wire since it is highly unlikely that they will be able to pull it through the existing buried conduit (assuming there is even buried conduit). BC Hydro also has a flat connection fee of like $1500 you have to pay as well.
SO even though the cost of the Level 2 charger is not all that much, and it is subsidized, I have to spend $9,000 - $12,000 before I even factor those costs into the equation.
At this point we know we are within a a couple years of doing renovations - and at that time we would like to upgrade the furnace and/or install a heat pump - which will require a new panel.
So we are basically making due until we are ready to do it all at once - because I don't want to do it twice... I just paid $5000 last summer to dig a trench when our water main burst, so I have bad memories of that still :)
*Yes I know I could dig the trench myself but I won't. Two summers ago the neighbour and I dug about 14 post holes when we replaced our mutual fence and that's the last digging I am doing on my plot of land. The top 30 inches is basically rubble, rocks, roots, and backfill, with just enough soil to sustain sod over top.
