New Mitsubishi Approved Level 2 EVSE

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archie_b

Well-known member
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Dec 25, 2011
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126
Received a call Monday afternoon from Mitsubishi checking on the status of my Geek Squad garage survey. I was advised that as of Friday 2/10 AeroVironment is an Mitsubishi approved Level 2 EVSE supplier. This can include installation and testing. Time from start to finish is reported to be 4-5 days.

http://evsolutions.avinc.com/uploads/products/2_AV_EVSE-RS_B2B_061110_multi.pdf

http://evsolutions.avinc.com/
 
Two thoughts:

1) Pretty much any level 2 charger will work with the i. There is no real "approval" needed.[*] Here are four you can just order from Home Depot.

2) The hard part of the install is getting a dedicated 240v circuit to where you want the EVSE, but any licensed electrician can do this for you. Wring the EVSE is trivial (three wire nuts, you're done! some even just plug into a standard 240v outlet!) - So don't get fooled into thinking you need some special electrician to do this.

3) In my experience, Geek squad and Mr. Electric were, well, disappointing in the extreme. Geek squad knew almost nothing about what they were doing. Mr. Electric never got their act together to contact me in time, and when they finally did, their quote was absurd.

[*] EVSE technology is actually very very simple. Open up one of those boxes - you'll find it mostly empty, and the electronics present are painfully simple given the price tag. Remember - the actual charger is in the car. All the EVSE really does is switch on the circuit when the car tells it to!
 
Yayouright Mark! I advocate for a pluggable, portable EVSE. EVen if you're sure you'll remain in your current house for many years, having a 240V outlet instead of a hardwired EVSE allows you to occasionally use the circuit for something else, say a welder, other battery charger, etc... I'm charging two EVs off of one outlet right now, by putting the same plug on my EVSE as was already in use for my homebuilt conversion (NEMA 14-50). That and the choice of a super-portable universal input SPX charger means that I'm opportunity charging with a measured 1495 Watts at work instead of 960. That's also made regular overnight charging on 120V practical, and I'm now able to precisely log the kWh returned to the pack versus miles driven on each charge. Was getting around to that with an old glass-dome meter, but the kill-a-watt is so much more convenient.
 
At the advice of my Mitsubishi dealer, I went through Aerovironment's home assessment and installed AV's EVSE-RS home charging dock.

The experience with AV's contractor was comical- I live in northern NY near the Canadian border, and the contractor came more than 2 hours, from Montreal. Nobody made any money at $99 for a home assessment on that job! He was knowledgeable and professional, but had no idea how far it was to my house.

What's worse, the AV contractor wouldn't be able to do an install without a US work visa! Not really a problem, since I had intended to do the installation myself. I can't imagine what the charge would be to have him come from Montreal (think adding 5 hours of labor for travel time to the quote!).

What a headache getting Aerovironment to sell me a charging dock! :evil: They clearly do not want to sell to individuals, and most frustrating, they wouldn't share a pdf of the installation manual prior to sale! They cited "warranty reasons." Many of the other manufacturers provide pdfs showing installation details on their websites--- my main concern was whether the AV dock was stud-mountable or not. Jeez, what a pain.

Installation was a breeze and the equipment works fine.

However, discovered that the "approved" AV Level 2 charging dock has the same remote control quirks as other manufacturers. :cry:

All in all, a less-than-satisfying experience.
 
For those with only the OEM 'trickle charger' EVSE who need something that recharges faster, I highly recommend contacting Phil at http://www.evseupgrade.com - They will turn your 8 amp Level 1 charger into a 12.5 amp Level 1/Level 2 unit for about $300. You may one day decide you need to buy something else in the way of a fixed Level 2 unit, but you can take your time and shop around for exactly what you want at your price, rather than rushing out to buy the first one offered

http://code.google.com/p/open-evse/ is a good site for anyone wanting to build their own - It's not that hard

Don
 
Ok, now that I know how the charging works, can someone
Tell me what is better for battery longevity#1 a slow trickle
Charge or#2 a quicker level 2 charge?
 
Thanks Tony, that makes sense, I think I will still get the Level 2 and just use it when I need a quicker charge... Now the question is, which one??
 
Home Depot and Lowes offer multiple choices for a level 2 charger. The least expensive is the LeGrand L2EVSE16 at $749. I have this unit and it works perfectly. The coiled cord is a bit heavy but works fine.

If you don't mind an open box or used unit E-Bay can be a good source. They have the LeGrand unit right now for $629 and no tax. They also have a more powerful BMW unit listed for slightly more.

Choice is yours.
 
Petra1990 said:
Ok, now that I know how the charging works, can someone
Tell me what is better for battery longevity#1 a slow trickle
Charge or#2 a quicker level 2 charge?
This worried me a bit too when I first bought the car - I thought I was probably doing it a real favor only using the suppied 6 amp trickle charge rate

Actually, our car won't do anything near a quick charge - Even a full on Level 2 charge is relatively slow, so far as what's good for the batteries is concerned

Fisrt, I'm no expert and I don't know diddly squat about lithium ion battery technology, but from everything I've read, lithiums can be safely recharged at up to 2C - That is, twice the packs capacity, or amp rating. Ours is a 50 amp pack, so any charge rate of 100 amps or less is quite safe. Further reasearching this, I found a couple of places which claim that the 'ideal' charge rate for lithiums is about .7C, which in our case would be 35 amps. The charger built into the car is only rated at 3.3 Kw (about 14 amps @ 240 volts) which is only 10 amps at the 330 volt rating of the pack, so even using the maximum charge rate available to us, the pack is being charged at less than 1/3rd of that 'ideal' rate, and about 10% of the recommended maximum. Long story short - Don't worry about L2 charging

If you want to do everything possible/practical to ensure the longest possible life from the battery pack, it seems how you recharge it is more important than how fast. Keeping the pack between 30% and 80% SOC seems to be the best advice offered by those who claim to understand the proper care and feeding of lithium cells. Lithiums (in general, not specifically our lithiums) do not like to sit either fully charged or nearly empty, so keeping the fuel gauge between about 4 or 5 bars and 13 or 14 bars as much as you can should be good for it. If you need the extra range, by all means fully charge it before you leave home, but if it's going to sit for a day or two, try not to do that with the battery fully topped off. Frequent small charges keeping it in the mid-range should be better for it that running it nearly to empty and then fully recharging it

Mitsubishi does recommend keeping the battery between 2 and 4 bars for long term storage though (Owners Handbook pg 15) so I've gotta believe that keeping it below 14 bars is more important than keeping it above 4 bars . . . . since 4 bars is the top end of what's recommended for storage

Maybe more than you wanted to know - Just trying to share what I've been reading

Don
 
Thanks Don,
I pick my raspberry colored i up on Tuesday, can't wait, also my work is 10 miles each way, so that should be good to keep it in those ranges, I figure 25-30% of battery use then the trickle charge over night should be a good start!

Tom
 
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