You need to know the ABC's for EV - Always Be Charging, its not good to only charge once a week, will lead to degradation. Having access to a constant low AMP feed is much better than fast charging once a week.
Sure. But in a condo, it's not just your interest as an EV owner that matters. Most of them will have to balance giving up visitor parking against these needs. Low power charging is great if it can be installed at each parking spot. But we're not even close to doing that in most new buildings. Let alone retrofitting existing buildings.
Sure. But in a condo, it's not just your interest as an EV owner that matters. Most of them will have to balance giving up visitor parking against these needs. Low power charging is great if it can be installed at each parking spot. But we're not even close to doing that in most new buildings. Let alone retrofitting existing buildings.
You are thinking short term. In a decade or so, when a majority of the condo owners have (or will soon be getting) and EV, having a few charging stations in the visitor parking lot won't cut it. A board that doesn't respect the view of a majority of owners will soon get sacked.
While it is expensive to install one or two charging stations in a condo, the per station cost of installing dozens (if not hundreds) charging stations all at once will be much lower (likely even lower than installing one in an existing single family home). I admit it will be harder in the short term (which is why I fully support the incentives to condo and apartment owners), but in the long term, it will be better.
Agreed with this. The situation with the OnRoutes is a ridiculous joke at this point.
Name an OnRoute that isn't near an existing DC Fast Charging station. I agree that we will need to install DCFCs at OnRoutes, but the higher priority is to fill in the holes, especially on well used routes.
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Originally Posted by Truenorth00
The build out at grocery stores are primarily meant to service those who can't charge at home or work. And given the complications with installing chargers in Multi unit residences these numbers are going to be substantial for a long time to come. It also makes sense, because it's the one place where concurrent activity is routine and regular and of a sufficient duration to ensure a reasonable charge.
Do you really spend 2 or 3 hours grocery shopping? Or do you want DCFCs at grocery stores?
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Originally Posted by Truenorth00
I've been saying this for a while. But I get told us condo dwellers are irrelevant since there's way more people in homes who it's easier to cater to first. This is why fast chargers at grocery stores are a great idea.
Who is telling you that? It isn't about how many people live in homes, but the simple economics that it is cheaper to install a charging station in a garage that is near your breaker panel, than it is to install one that is far from a breaker panel. Once many people in condos want EV charing, it will be cheaper, as you can share the cost of installing a subpanel closer to your parking spot and have multiple charging points share a circuit (and thus a wire).
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Originally Posted by Truenorth00
Some of that is probably just to enable sharing of the spot by enabling multiple cars to fill up on a given day or evening. Especially since most condos are going to repurpose an existing visitor spot, they don't want to take up more spots than necessary. Put in 15-20 kW per spot and the average owner will use it for 2-4 hrs per week, which means each spot could easily support 20-40 cars. Reduce the power and you need another spot.
As I said before, that might be a short term solution to keep costs down, but it isn't a long term solution, when most owners want to charge their car.
Regardless, there is no need for all the charging stations. I've had my Model 3 for over 2.5 years and I only charged using public access charging at Ikea (because it was free and why not try?)
I use (well.. used to before COVID?) my car to travel, my clients are in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto region, use my Tesla all the time, I'm still surprised to see how many react to the lack of public charging as a barrier - not true!! There is just a lack of decent EVs (ie non-Teslas)
And that is starting to change. Sure Tesla is still in the lead, but if they weren't, they would be in big trouble.
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This is what is needed:
- Supercharding or DC Fast Charging Network along major highways, no less than 150KW.
Having a variety of charging options at the same location isn't a bad idea. It costs more to install the more powerful (faster) chargers. For those who don't need that speed (maybe they are planning to stay longer), having cheaper, less powerful chargers isn't a bad thing as long as both options are available in sufficient quantities.
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- Destination Chargers at all hotels and airports, not grocery stores!!
I would say any destination that people typically stay for several hours.
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- Need some sort of funding to enable condos and street parking charging. Condos are 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 EV owners, I've seen price like $15k for a charger install, ridiculous.
This is really the top priority. I would much rather see the subsidy for EV purchasing going to home charging installation (regardless of what type of home you live in). The infrastructure for home charging will last a lot longer than the vehicle.
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Also, here is a question you NEVER need to ask anymore -
"How long does it take you to charge at Home?"
I have 40AMP (32amp derated) at home, 56km/hr charging speed which is way too much, all I need in 240v 20AMP (this is my setup at my cottage). I think these Condo owners are overbuilding the infrastructure to accommodate power like 80AMPs, there's no need for this amount of juice!
Most people could actually work fine with a 120v, you would be surprised, if your car is sitting at home for 12 hours, you could get 100km of charge every night. People over-estimate the power draw and infrastructure needed for EVs
It really depends on the person and how much they typically drive in a day. While it is true you don't necessarily need to always be able to fully recharge the battery overnight, you need to always be able to get enough charge to do what you need to do the next day (road trips aside). While StatsCan says the median commute for those who commute by car is only 8.7 km each way, that means half of Canadians have a commute that is longer than that, and in some cases, much longer. On top of that, some use their car for work and thus drive more in a day.
A better option is to have smart charging stations in condos and apartments that will balance the charging rates based on the state of charge of the vehicle, and how much time there is to charge (either detected based on typical behaviour or set by the user). This way if I come home at midnight with an empty battery and have to leave early in the morning for work, I can charge faster than if I plug in at 5:00pm with a mostly full battery and don't have to leave until later in the morning. Optimally this would also be influenced a Hydro demand response programme, that allows them to adjust charging rates to meet high and low demands on the grid.
I currently rent. And I’ve called around a few of the new buildings like Hintonburg Connection and The Dale. They’ve mentionned they only wired maybe 4-5 parking spots to have an EV charger installed or would install a common J1772 parking spot.
I’ve never really seen anyone develop a technology or method that lets say spilt an 80 amp circuit with 8 parking spots and load share. Is there even a rough price estimate for even doing that?
And even if they develop the proper technology to load share with 100+ parking spots? Can the city even force that new buildings to meet the requirement? What about the type of chargers? Tesla has much more affordable chargers than the rest.
It seems the default method for condo underground parking owners is pay for their own cable from the panel / breaker to their spot and install their own charger.
——
And the 401 has more than enough chargers.
Focus needs to move onto new routes such as to Timmins, ON or between Quebec City to PEI, etc.
I currently rent. And I’ve called around a few of the new buildings like Hintonburg Connection and The Dale. They’ve mentionned they only wired maybe 4-5 parking spots to have an EV charger installed or would install a common J1772 parking spot.
I’ve never really seen anyone develop a technology or method that lets say spilt an 80 amp circuit with 8 parking spots and load share. Is there even a rough price estimate for even doing that?
Tesla Gen 2 Wall Connector would allow up to 4 vehicles to share up to a 100A breaker (80A output). The new Gen 3 Wall Connector allows up to 16 vehicles to share a panel (or sub panel) but each one needs to be on its own (max 60A) breaker. Other wall connectors also allow sharing, but I am not sure what their maximums are.
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Originally Posted by CyrusKafaiwu
And even if they develop the proper technology to load share with 100+ parking spots?
I don't see the need for 100+ parking spots to all share the same breaker, but I could see a situation where each connector will politely share not only the circuit, but the panel as well, so that it isn't overloaded either.
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Originally Posted by CyrusKafaiwu
Can the city even force that new buildings to meet the requirement?
It would more likely be a provincial responsibility and certainly they have the authority to mandate the change, if it came to that. I expect the pressure to come from the bottom up initially once demand for EVs grows. Currently the demand is so low that there isn't any pressure from the bottom.
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Originally Posted by CyrusKafaiwu
What about the type of chargers? Tesla has much more affordable chargers than the rest.
Prices will come down as volume goes up. I suspect Tesla is selling it closer to cost as they are making money on the vehicle. The reality is an EVSA isn't very complicated and once volume rises they should become very affordable. The big cost will be the installation.
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Originally Posted by CyrusKafaiwu
It seems the default method for condo underground parking owners is pay for their own cable from the panel / breaker to their spot and install their own charger.
Currently that is common, but once the the demand is high, the condo boards can (and likely will) roll out charging infrastructure that everyone can tap into.
I have said it before and I will say it again, as a society, we need to make it so that anyone can easily and affordably charge where they sleep.
That is a good article and EverCharge seems to be doing many of the things we are discussing here. The key is getting optimal use out of your electrical service instead of upgrading everyone to meet the theoretical peak demand. Not only is it more efficient, but there are advantages to having your car only just finish charging when you need it.
On a distantly related note, the zappi charger (sold in the UK) had a feature that allows you to connect Current Transformers (CTs) to the supply cables for your electrical service. This allows it to measure how much current is supplied to your home, and if it is too high, the zappi will reduce the charging rate by an appropriate amount to not overload the service.
This is similar to the DCC-10 device, but instead of cutting off the power to your charger completely, stopping the charge, it will slow down the charge to a safe level. It would be nice if someone were to implement this here.
You are thinking short term. In a decade or so, when a majority of the condo owners have (or will soon be getting) and EV, having a few charging stations in the visitor parking lot won't cut it. A board that doesn't respect the view of a majority of owners will soon get sacked.
I really doubt that a decade from now the majority of vehicles will be EVs. The EV30@30 campaign that we've signed on to has the goal of 30% of new sales being EVs by 2030. But even you're substantially optimistic than that, the fleet mix lags the sales mix by 5-10 years. So best case scenario is 20-30% of cars in a given condo as BEVs. Which means the talk of installing chargers at each spot is probably more than a decade away. The expense would be absolutely massive, especially when you start looking at multi-level underground garages. And we're talking the majority of owners agreeing to a special assessment of several thousand dollars at least. That's not going to be an easy sell. Even in 10 years. Maybe in 15 years. But at that point, maybe charging networks at grocery stores, gyms, malls are good enough that most owners won't want to pay several thousand to get a charger installed in their spot.
Do you really spend 2 or 3 hours grocery shopping? Or do you want DCFCs at grocery stores?
I think there's a case to be made for DCFC to be built at grocery stores. I'm hoping the grocery chains themselves fund the buildout. Good way to get EV owners to shop at their stores.
I don't think Level 2 really makes sense at a grocery store. I'm going to guess that the average 9-5er probably uses 30-50 kWh with their commute and other errands. A charge rate that can give them that much on one weekly 30-40 min grocery trip is probably enough. And really, these would almost exclusively be the folks who can't charge at home or work. Everyone else might just be topping up.
I currently rent. And I’ve called around a few of the new buildings like Hintonburg Connection and The Dale. They’ve mentionned they only wired maybe 4-5 parking spots to have an EV charger installed or would install a common J1772 parking spot.
I’ve never really seen anyone develop a technology or method that lets say spilt an 80 amp circuit with 8 parking spots and load share. Is there even a rough price estimate for even doing that?
And even if they develop the proper technology to load share with 100+ parking spots? Can the city even force that new buildings to meet the requirement? What about the type of chargers? Tesla has much more affordable chargers than the rest.
You're getting to the issues that multi-unit buildings face. Wiring up every spot in a building garage wouldn't be a minor undertaking. It would be a major engineering project requiring work from the utility feeding the building. Won't be cheap. And getting condo owners who quibble over condo fees going up a few dollars per year to agree to a special assessment costing thousands of dollars is going to be challenging (almost impossible) in most cases. There's an easier sell on just wiring up a handful of dedicated parking spots.
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Originally Posted by CyrusKafaiwu
It seems the default method for condo underground parking owners is pay for their own cable from the panel / breaker to their spot and install their own charger.
Yep. And this can easily be something that requires a five figure amount to make do (for a single spot). All but ruling this out for most condo owners.
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Originally Posted by CyrusKafaiwu
And the 401 has more than enough chargers.
Focus needs to move onto new routes such as to Timmins, ON or between Quebec City to PEI, etc.
Isn't Quebec supposed to be well covered with Electric Circuit? I'm guessing Ivy will target these routes to Northern Ontario.
I disagree that the 401 is sufficiently covered. At the point at which we really start getting substantial adoption, demand for the chargers will go up. And all the existing sites in Petro-Canada gas stations or motel parking lots will be insufficient and inefficient. It's only logical that the OnRoutes install chargers. May not even need subsidies to do that. They may get enough traffic to have a business case. The issue, as I understand it, is that the grids are usually insufficient to feed the OnRoutes. And that is the expensive work that needs to be done.
Last edited by Truenorth00; Dec 8, 2020 at 10:40 PM.
I really doubt that a decade from now the majority of vehicles will be EVs. The EV30@30 campaign that we've signed on to has the goal of 30% of new sales being EVs by 2030. But even you're substantially optimistic than that, the fleet mix lags the sales mix by 5-10 years. So best case scenario is 20-30% of cars in a given condo as BEVs. Which means the talk of installing chargers at each spot is probably more than a decade away.
That is why I said, "decade or so" (which means 10-20 years) and "have (or will soon be getting) an EV" (which means they are supportive of the expense even if they don't currently have an EV). You are right and 10 years is a bit optimistic, but I think 20 years is a bit pessimistic. Somewhere around 15 years will likely be closer to reality, though the support may come sooner than that (my crystal ball is a bit murky).
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The expense would be absolutely massive, especially when you start looking at multi-level underground garages. And we're talking the majority of owners agreeing to a special assessment of several thousand dollars at least. That's not going to be an easy sell. Even in 10 years. Maybe in 15 years.
I think you are over-estimating the cost. Ignoring the cost of the charging equipment itself (which can be installed on an as needed basis), I would guess the total cost of the underlying infrastructure for a multi-level underground garage would be in the neighbourhood of $100,000. Assuming 100 parking spaces, that is around $1000 per parking space. That is about the same as the labour cost for having one installed in a private home. Throw in some government subsidies, and the cost will be even lower.
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But at that point, maybe charging networks at grocery stores, gyms, malls are good enough that most owners won't want to pay several thousand to get a charger installed in their spot.
I don't think you understand the value of being able to charge at home. You are too accustomed to buying gas I guess.
That is why I said, "decade or so" (which means 10-20 years) and "have (or will soon be getting) an EV" (which means they are supportive of the expense even if they don't currently have an EV). You are right and 10 years is a bit optimistic, but I think 20 years is a bit pessimistic. Somewhere around 15 years will likely be closer to reality, though the support may come sooner than that (my crystal ball is a bit murky).
Going by my experience I don't think most buildings will even start the conversation for full conversion for 15 years. A decade from now if only 10-20% of cars in the building are EVs, most owners will still be arguing for the conversion of a few visitor spots to charging stalls. And paradoxically, if other infrastructure improves, the argument of those who don't need an EV charger at their spot will be that there's options for those who have BEVs that won't burden the condo.
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Originally Posted by roger1818
I think you are over-estimating the cost. Ignoring the cost of the charging equipment itself (which can be installed on an as needed basis), I would guess the total cost of the underlying infrastructure for a multi-level underground garage would be in the neighbourhood of $100,000. Assuming 100 parking spaces, that is around $1000 per parking space. That is about the same as the labour cost for having one installed in a private home. Throw in some government subsidies, and the cost will be even lower.
Very much depends on how the building is wired. If several hundred thousand is needed to upgrade service to the building, the price can go up substantially. But let's assume $1000-2000 just to enable 50A service to each parking spot. You're still talking about convincing the majority of owners to fork over $1-2k for something they see no immediate use for. If you think that's easy, I suggest you attend a few condo AGMs for a reality check.
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Originally Posted by roger1818
I don't think you understand the value of being able to charge at home. You are too accustomed to buying gas I guess.
I understand the value of it. But I think you vastly underestimate both the cost to do something like wire up every spot in a condo and the resistance that most owners would put up to such a huge bill.
Honestly, when was the last time you attended a condo board meeting and discussed a major expense that was seen as optional by the majority of owners? It's pretty easy to hypothesize sitting in your suburban home where you have full control over decisions.
On the topic OnRoute, I kinda envision something like a scaled up version of this UK chain of charging stations that is emerging. They were financed by Hitachi Capital. So not publicly funded. I've always wondered if the Canada Infrastructure Bank could provide a long and low cost loan to install solar canopies, grid batteries wine day chargers at all the OnRoutes, just like Gridserve is doing at these locations in the UK.
Going by my experience I don't think most buildings will even start the conversation for full conversion for 15 years. A decade from now if only 10-20% of cars in the building are EVs, most owners will still be arguing for the conversion of a few visitor spots to charging stalls. And paradoxically, if other infrastructure improves, the argument of those who don't need an EV charger at their spot will be that there's options for those who have BEVs that won't burden the condo.
My crystal ball is a little murky on that one, but I do think that once we get to BEV/ICEV cost parity, we will see much higher interest in EVs. Also, don't forget that even if "only 10-20% of cars in the building are EVs," a large percentage of owners who don't have an EV will expect to be buying one soon, and thus be supportive of the infrastructure.
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Very much depends on how the building is wired. If several hundred thousand is needed to upgrade service to the building, the price can go up substantially. But let's assume $1000-2000 just to enable 50A service to each parking spot. You're still talking about convincing the majority of owners to fork over $1-2k for something they see no immediate use for. If you think that's easy, I suggest you attend a few condo AGMs for a reality check.
Have you even been reading the posts by Tesladom, CyrusKafaiwu and myself? You don't need a dedicated "50A service to each parking spot." Doing some simple math (shown below), the average overnight draw is is about 6A. Even if we double that to 12A it is well shy of the 50A you are implying. The key is allowing peak capacity to be shared to have people only use peak capacity when they need it.
Assumptions: 16,000km per year,
100% of their charging is done at home (they never use pubic chargers),
charge for an average of 10 hours a day 5 days a week.
Vehicle efficiency of 5km/kWh
208V (3 phase) power
16,000 km/year / 52 weeks/year / 5 days/week ≈ 61.5 km/day
61.5 km/day / 5 km/kWh / 10 h/day ≈ 1.23 kW = 1230 W
1230 W / 208 V ≈ 5.92 A < 6 A
To do this, you could (for example) put 6 parking spacing on a single 100A phase (derated to 80A continuous) and have the charging points and efficiently share that power so that those who need more of a charge can draw more current and those who need less, can draw less.
Assuming the condo has 3 phase power (most large residential complexes do as it is more efficient for large scale distribution) that means a 3 phase, 100A circuit could power 18 parking spaces, so a garage with 100 parking spaces could be powered from 6, 100A, 3 phase circuits.
Given that most of this charging is done overnight, when the residents aren't using much electricity, this could most likely be fit into the existing electrical service (especially if the charging system monitored the electrical draw on the service and adjusted charging rates to compensate for peak power events).
This is not rocket science and the technology exists to do all of this. It just needs to be applied on a large scale and the article Tesladom shared shows that people are already doing this.
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I understand the value of it. But I think you vastly underestimate both the cost to do something like wire up every spot in a condo and the resistance that most owners would put up to such a huge bill.
Honestly, when was the last time you attended a condo board meeting and discussed a major expense that was seen as optional by the majority of owners? It's pretty easy to hypothesize sitting in your suburban home where you have full control over decisions.
The thing is it won't be considered optional by the majority of owners at some point in the future.
Last edited by roger1818; Dec 9, 2020 at 3:05 PM.
Reason: Clarified statement
On the topic OnRoute, I kinda envision something like a scaled up version of this UK chain of charging stations that is emerging. They were financed by Hitachi Capital. So not publicly funded. I've always wondered if the Canada Infrastructure Bank could provide a long and low cost loan to install solar canopies, grid batteries wine day chargers at all the OnRoutes, just like Gridserve is doing at these locations in the UK.
I had seen it on Fully Charged and have a few thoughts:
While it is nice having the canopy with solar panels on it, to me it would be more efficient to have vehicles parked either at an angle or perpendicular than having parallel parking. They will also need longer, pull through spots for those towing a trailer.
There seems to be a lot of wasted space in the service building. That might work a luxury service centre with fees to "weed out the peasants" , but for the masses, you need a more space efficient environment.
This is also based on the false premise that you need to sit around waiting for your car to charge. The reality is with the faster charging that is rolling out, in the time you need to go to the washroom and grab some drinks/snacks you can get enough charge to get you to the next place you are wanting to take a quick break.
I don't think you understand the value of being able to charge at home. You are too accustomed to buying gas I guess.
Yup that's why I say that the biggest impediment to EV adoption is people's ignorance... and bad EVs as well (I'll say it again - the non-Tesla EVs). I have a full tank of "gas" every morning
I said it before and say it again, charging is not an issue if you ensure that all private overnight parking spaces have access to a charger, and all destinations (hotels, airports) have basic infrastructure as well. For an airport, all you need is standard 120v to trickle charge, no biggie
It doesn’t have to be an OnRoute. As long as there is proper amenities around, I think it is a good placement for EV chargers.
My favourite on the 401 is Quinte Mall, Belleville. It has a food court and 20 tesla stalls. And only a 300 metre deviation off the highway.
This approach works well for now for Teslas, but as mass market manufacturers do release their EVs they will need a spot to recharge, assuming a 10x increase in EVs in the next 5 years on the road (not difficult to imagine), these malls will need 100+ stalls.
Tesla Superchargers are still boutique
By 2030 would estimate that 75% of new vehicle sales will be BEVs, with many jurisdictions mandating it to be 100%. By 2040 gas stations will be relics of the past.
Today, if you are spending $50k+ on a gas car (approx 25% of sales), and not buying a BEV, give your head a shake... sorry I'll be this blunt about it
The thing is it won't be considered optional by the majority of owners at some point in the future.
The quibble is when that point is. This is what you don't seem to understand. You are imagining that plenty of owners would agree to such a scheme. I don't see that number of owners being a majority before 2030.
How many condos have you heard of that have pursued wiring up every single resident parking spot? Do you know of any (that weren't done so right from construction)? This is just not a thing. And won't be a thing for a while. Much as you or I wish it were different.
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, but for the masses, you need a more space efficient environment.
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