2:03 Extension cord no-no-no

2:49 Wall Chargers

4:42 Solar

8:37 Safety

9:35 Charge to 80%? – Paul’s opinion

12:06 Type 1 charger explained

12:30 Type 2 charger explained

13:00 Speed of charging using 3 phase

14:01 Pricing expectations

15:16 Dynamic Load Balancing feature of wall chargers

(Partial Transcript)

Adrian
Hi. I’m Adrian Maidment from EQ Quest. And this episode I’m talking to Paul O’Connor from OEM Audio, and we are talking about all things home charging. Hello, Paul. I thought I’d start with my first question….what question do you get asked all the time?

Paul
How long will it take to charge my car?

And can I use it outside in the rain, on an extension cord, on a multi box? Using my next door neighbours solar? That often feels that’s a common question. The common answer for electric charging is the three-pin portable that you buy from us and it’s pretty common. We’ve been doing it for a long time.

Will charge the average car about 10 kilometres an hour. And it’s just math with electric vehicles….If you want to charge 16 amps per hour, you’ll need a special socket, and the car will charge at 20 to 22 K’s an hour. And the math just goes up higher from there.

Adrian
So, I’ve read a lot on the Facebook groups…So there’s always some sort of technical questions being asked. So, just simplifying it down, what’s the most important information to know?…If you’ve just bought your car…

Paul
If you just bought your car, you’ve been supplied with a three pin. I mean I should have brought one with me, there’s five of them sitting in the warehouse 10 meters from me…Is make sure it’s as close to being on its own circuit as you possible can.

So these devices are generally 8 amps. Your general household domestic devices are 10 amps.. and that’s fine. But you don’t want a lot of other things being drawn on the same circuit. For example, you don’t want the same plug, you don’t want to plug it into the fridge freezer, which is plugged into the air conditioning unit.. And I’m probably exaggerating, but I have seen some posts.

So you don’t want an extension cord. And the reason for the extension cord is that people buy too long of an extension cord and it coils, and they go to the nice man at Bunnings who will sell them a heavy duty extension cord, which is heavy duty exactly for powering their chainsaw for half an hour.

But it’s not heavy duty for 8 amps at 10 hours, and the cable inside is only 1 mil thick. And ideally you want the cable inside it to be two and a half mil thick. So I read all this time of the people extension cords and I have to stop myself from posting on this, because I can’t take it.

Adrian
What about buying the box? The wall charger?

Paul
We’ve been selling wall chargers for a while. We consider that now with the new cars coming into the country. Like the Nissan Leaf Plus, MG , the Tesla…gosh, everyone’s got one…Subaru have got one coming…I’m looking forward to that.

Toyota has got one coming allegedly, everyone’s got one. These cars can charge 32 amps. Right. And so in layman’s terms… That’s a good hunk of juice that’ll charge at 40 kilometres an hour. But 32 amps, your average house has only got about 63 amps going into it. So if you come home from a busy day at work, making podcasts and telling the students that they’ve let themselves down and their family down…

Adrian
It’s all positive.

Paul
You’ll come home, partners got the oven, there’s a spa pool going, the air conditioner is on…very quickly it can go above that 63 amps. So I believe, we believe, that the new thing coming up is Dynamic Load Balancing. Which means that you plug your car in and it’s got a sensor on there that says that my car is important, but it’s the least important thing in the house at 6 p.m. to be charging. So, it’ll take a look at 30 amps and so I can’t do 30 amps, so it’ll take at 8 or 10 or 12 amps.

So when the oven is turned off and all the other things are turned off, it will ramp itself back up – thus, Dynamic Load Balancing. So, we’ve got a new model of it actually on its way. It’s on the boat now. We’ve been looking at it quite hard for a wee while, we’ve just done all the testing, signed off all the stock to make sure it’s all compliant for New Zealand which is obviously the main thing, we’ll have those in the market very shortly for around $1100.

Adrian
I’ve read some people use the solar?…

Paul
So the solar what it does, you can divert the solar. We get a lot of people who perhaps charge at home during the day. And we’ve been cognisant of that for quite a while.

So we’ve made a portable charger, it’s a switchable between 6 and 8 amps. 6 amps is mainly for people on solar.

Adrian
Yeah. And so power companies are on board with the EV users, they have seen some deals.

Paul
Yeah. I look at them and I get a bit confused. I’m a bit guilty of just plugging it in and going. Some people here monitor that thing to the nth degree, and some people don’t.

I’ve noticed that in our charging products that we’ve had before with the Wi-Fi and the app access, and we have ones without, half the population still don’t really care. Oh, okay. If you own a workshop and you’re charging a few EVs, you don’t really want the app, because if Tom’s not here to plug the car in and he’s got the app, it’s a pain in the neck.

So for a lot of commercial guys, they want their car charging immediately. They don’t want to faff around with an app. But on the other side of it, you’re home and you do have a deal with Meridian, Trust Power, Genesis, Contact, Dave’s Power Company, whoever you’ve got, you might get a free hour of power. So you want to take that advantage of a free hour of power.

Adrian
So with that you shouldn’t notice as much in your power bill I guess.

Paul
I think I had the first Prius in the country, I think I had the 5th Leaf in the country back whenever it was. I’ve never really been able to work out exactly how much my power bill has changed since I’ve been into electric cars. I run through them for work here.

And I’ve never really been able to concretely say that me running around my house, keeping the lights off has made a difference to the power bill.

Adrian
Especially if you’re comparing it to petrol as well.

Paul
So theoretically I should be better off because.

Adrian
You can just with more people getting electric cars, just the national network or the network, t New Zealand wide is keeping up? Not the home charges.

Paul
Yeah, I think so. Look at ChargeNet, Steve West and CO. The man probably just deserves a knighthood for what that public charging network has done. the man has spent, I don’t know the commercial ends and it’s none of my business but I get the impression he’s his own money in there, and for what he’s done to make able for all us how to drive from you know the top to the bottom of the country and across it, I think is nothing short of miraculous. And if you look at the cost of those devices, much more to maintain them on what a huge in from them. Gee that’s a tough business model and you’ve got to really thank Steve, that Steve West is probably the reason we have so many EVs coming into the country.

Adrian
Are there any sort of safety tips people need to be aware of?

Paul
If you’re charging just at home with a 3point plug, don’t put it on an adapter. I know on our product we have a little yellow tag, don’t use an adaptor or an extension cord, know ones read it.

We have it written on the box and name and everything’s emblazoned proudly across the products. No one turns the product over to see where it came from, they just go on Facebook

I mean, just protecting you, your equipment is, it’s a fairly important thing.

Adrian
And what about charging? Does it depend on the model? Is it like 80%?

Paul
Honestly, I’ve never bothered like I just haven’t, I’ve had a few Leafs. The current leaf we’ve got here that my technician foreman I suppose uses now we’ve done 40 or maybe 40 or 50,000 Ks in that car. It’s been driven like it was stolen, every single day. It’s a 30 kilowatt Nissan Leaf. It runs extraordinarily well really.