Brian Culp

Article / Updated 12-19-2022

As you begin your journey with electric vehicles (EVs), you’ll quickly learn that charging your vehicle means plugging in to one of three kinds of charging levels: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. And, as you’ll further see, these levels have implications regarding charging voltage, frequency, and current. However, the most significant aspect EV drivers will associate with charging levels has to do with speed — as in, “How rapidly will each level of charging put range back into my car’s battery?” Getting up to speed with Level 1 charging Generally speaking, the higher the charging level, the higher the power delivered by that charger, resulting in a faster charge rate for your EV. At the slowest end of the charging spectrum is Level 1 charging. A Level 1 charger supplies power at a rate of between 1.3 kilowatts to 2.4 kilowatts, using (in the Americas) a 120-volt AC circuit. When using a Level 1 charger, sometimes referred to as a trickle charger, you can expect to refill the battery at a rate of about 3 to 5 miles of range per hour of charge. The good news about Level 1 charging is that you can find chargers almost everywhere. A Level 1 charger is simply a standard household wall outlet that provides power output at a rate of 120 volts. In most of North, Central, or South America, the 120V outlet is part of everyone's daily experience. This thing you’ve been around your whole life has a name other than power socket, and that name is the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) 5-15 outlet, which is a helpful thing to know if you’re the kind of person who likes to have lengthy conversations with electricians. If that’s you, you might as well know that NEMA also describes a standard for plugs, which in the case of the NEMA 5-15 plug, will also look familiar. See the image below. NEMA 5-15 describes a 2-prong plug — the positive and negative pins — with a ground pin underneath. Didn’t know those things had names, did you? Well, even if you did, I didn’t know before I purchased an EV. Now I do know, and I think it’s pretty cool. How do you use Level 1 charging? Throughout most of North America and South America, using Level 1 charging couldn’t be easier. Simply put, if you can plug in a lamp or toaster, you can plug in the car. All you need is your car’s mobile charger and, if it’s not attached already, the NEMA 5-15 adapter. Level 1 cheat sheet Outlet: A standard household outlet (in most of the Americas) Voltage/current: 120 volts, 60Hz AC Connector type: NEMA Power: 1.3–2.4 kilowatts per hour Rate of charge: Four to five miles of vehicle range per hour Cost to charge: $9.30 for 70 kilowatts (at 13.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, the U.S. average price for electricity, charging from empty to full) If you’re the type of insufferable person (like me!) who points out information nuggets like it’s the Berenstain Bears, not the Berenstein Bears, you’ll delight in knowing that American appliances run on 110 volts of power, not 120 volts. Your car, however, can pull all 120 volts of juice from that outlet. Turning things up with Level 2 charging As you might guess, Level 2 charging serves the same purpose as Level 1 charging — it just does so considerably faster than Level 1. Level 2 charging supplies between 3 and 19 kilowatt-hours of power using a power circuit of 208–240 volts. This translates to adding 20 to 50 miles of range per hour of charging, beating Level 1 charging by a factor of five times or more. In other words, Level 2 charging does in an hour what the Level 1 charger does overnight. You can charge at Level 2 speeds while out and about, either running errands or at the office, or while parked in your (home or apartment) garage. Level 2 charging at home Level 2 home charging works just Level 1 — you plug the car in and let it charge. In terms of the connectors used during a Level 2 charging session, we’re typically talking about a NEMA 14-30, 14–50, or 6-50 outlet/plug combination (throughout most of North America and South America), although other outlets/plugs facilitate Level 2 as well. The image below shows what each of these looks like. As with the 120V outlets, the good news is that most U.S. households already have the infrastructure necessary for 240V circuits (which are created by combining two 120V circuits at the fuse box). In fact, if your home has a washer and dryer, chances are good that they’re plugged into 240V outlets already, although they might not actually draw quite that much power. To use the Level 2 home charging, just plug your mobile charging cable in. Alternatively, some homeowners (and apartment landlords) are installing dedicated wall chargers in their garages so you don’t have to muck about with your mobile charger. I’ll discuss that option later in the chapter. Using an Airbnb or a VRBO and have an EV? Check the listing to see if it’s got a 240V outlet. Level 2 charging in public And the good news continues. Level 2 is by far the most frequently installed type of EV charger in the public space, having popped up in recent years in parking garages, grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, shopping centers, movie theaters, and other locations like the workplace. Office buildings are beginning to make Level 2 chargers standard issue, and workplace charging is offered as a perk from many employers. Yes, I work at an EV manufacturer, but we get 10 kilowatt-hours for free before the meter starts running — if we arrive early enough to claim a spot, that is. Level 2 cheat sheet Outlet: 240V household outlet (in most of the Americas) Voltage/current: 208–240 volts, 60Hz AC Connector type: NEMA Power: 3–19 kilowatts per hour Rate of charge: 18–40 miles of vehicle range per hour Cost: Varies. If you’re charging at home, the average cost is 13.3 cents per kilowatt-hour in the US, or from empty to full for roughly $10. Public stations charge roughly 30 cents per kilowatt-hour, so from empty to full for most battery packs is in the $20–$25 ballpark. Note that some employers or businesses now offer limited charging for free. Getting a really fast charge with Level 3 Perhaps the most recognizable, most often discussed level of EV charging is Level 3. Ironically, it’s also the least often used. (I don’t have data on this; it’s just an educated guess.) You might have heard Level 3 charging discussed as DC fast charging (DCFC), or just “fast charging.” These three terms are interchangeable and will be used that way in this section. Oh, and the reason it’s called DC fast charging is yet another topic I’ll address in a bit. And now let’s throw yet another synonym into the mix: because Tesla dominates both the mind- and marketspace for DC fast charging infrastructure, you may have heard it called supercharging. If you see the word supercharger, it refers only to something specific to Tesla. Got it? Level 3, DCFC, fast charging, supercharging — these all refer to the same thing, which is this: much higher charging speeds than either Level 1 or Level 2. Level 3 charging supplies between 75 and 250 kilowatts of output per hour, meaning that it can add between 3 and 20 miles of range every minute. In practical terms, a good Level 3 charger can take an EV battery from almost depleted to 80 percent in roughly 15 to 25 minutes. So, as you can see, this charging is most targeted and appropriate for those folks going on road trips — DCFC is analogous to the neighborhood or roadside filling station. You can see in the image below that the chargers themselves are even designed to resemble gasoline pumps. Level 3 cheat sheet Outlet: N/A. You don’t install Level 3 chargers in your home, and even commercial installations require limitations such as permitting and land acquisition. Level 3 chargers have their own charging stations, owned and operated by a variety of companies. Voltage/current: 400–800 volts DC Connector type: SAE/CCS Combo, CHAdeMO, Tesla connector Power: 75–350 kilowatts per hour Rate of charge: 75–1000 miles of vehicle range per hour Cost: Can vary widely. Most DC fast chargers bill somewhere between 32 and 36 cents per kilowatt-hour. In this case, adding 70 kilowatt-hours of power results in a fill-up cost of $22–$25. I have seen nonmember rates of 69 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Article / Updated 12-19-2022

When exploring your options, perhaps the best way to start is by identifying the different types of electric vehicles available for purchase. As you’ll see, just because it includes the words “electric vehicle” in the description doesn’t mean you won’t have to keep buying gasoline. In fact, some “electric vehicles” aren’t even the kind you have to plug in so that it can charge. If the car has a battery, and that battery at some point supplies power to the drivetrain, then it’s technically an electric vehicle. But within that broad definition is room for lots of EV subcategories, each of which defines how often the drivetrain is powered by a battery. The following describes three such categories. Hybrid electric vehicles HEV is the acronym for a hybrid electric vehicle. Any vehicle that has hybrid in its model name describes a car with both a gasoline motor and a (relatively small) battery that powers an electric motor. As a rule, the power from the electric motor allows the car to use a smaller internal combustion engine, thus reducing emissions from the tailpipe. One of the most important characteristics of a hybrid electric vehicle is that all energy for the battery comes from either regenerative braking or the gasoline engine itself. (The process is similar to how a fully internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle charges the 12-volt lead-acid battery needed for starting.) As such, you don't power the HEV battery by plugging it in. Hybrid electric vehicles are considered low-emission vehicles because their gasoline engines do, indeed, emit everything a non-EV does, although at a much lower rate. You’ll also notice that I don’t/won’t talk much about much hybrid electrics in my book Electric Cars For Dummies, favoring instead coverage of fully electric vehicles. First of all, hybrids are an over 20-year-old propulsion technology. And, while a hybrid car has better emissions than a traditional ICE car, if the whole world was going to go hybrid, there’s been plenty of time for the transition; i.e., the “book” on hybrids was written many, many years ago. Second, even HEVs are likely to be become functionally obsolete by decade’s end — they have a combustion engine, after all, and the future of combustion engines for personal transportation isn’t bright. Do keep in mind that, as of today, HEVs remain some of the cleanest vehicles available, and because many have already been manufactured, buyers of an HEV can take comfort in the fact that their purchase isn’t directly resulting in any additional carbon from product manufacturing. If you’re looking to lower your carbon footprint and lower out-of-pocket expense for the vehicle, a hybrid can be a fantastic choice. HEV options Compared to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and, certainly, battery electric vehicles (BEVs), buyers have more options for choosing a HEV vehicle. For example, the only way to drive an electrified pickup truck at the time of this writing is to opt for something like the Toyota Tundra Hybrid or the Ford F-150 Hybrid. And even though some manufacturers, like Ford and General Motors, have discontinued their HEV offerings, you still have some compelling new HEV choices from automakers like Hyundai (Elantra and Sonata), Honda (Accord and CR-V) and Toyota (Highlander, Camry, and, of course, the venerable Prius). Now, let’s tackle the question of cost. As a general rule, a new hybrid electric costs less than its PHEV equivalent. For example, I’m pricing a Toyota RAV4 as a reference point and seeing that the 2022 RAV4 Hybrid (an HEV) starts at $29,075 as I write this sentence — and that the RAV4 Prime (a PHEV) starts at $39,800. What’s more, the fact that hybrids have been on the road for about 20 years now means that the used-vehicle market is similarly awash with choices. If you have a teen in your life looking for their first car to get to work and school, you can find very affordable options to get them from point A to point B, and to do so with less environmental impact than a gasoline-only car. Were I so inclined, I could set my budget with a maximum of $10,000 and go shopping for a used 2013 Toyota Prius, a 2012 Honda Civic Hybrid, a 2016 Ford Fusion Hybrid, a 2016 Hyundai Sonata, or many others. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles As with hybrid electric vehicles, the hybrid here refers to a vehicle with both an electric motor and a gasoline engine. The difference is that, with a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, driver’s will — you guessed it — plug in the car in order to charge the battery. Note that plug-in hybrids also can recharge their batteries using regenerative braking. Whereas the typical range of a HEV is just 1 to 2 miles before the gasoline engine kicks in, a PHEV can typically go anywhere between 10 to 40 miles before needing help from the internal combustion engine. This is more than enough range for most daily driving in the United States. You can easily handle 10 to 40 miles of range with an overnight charge in most any Level 1 wall outlet, but plug-in hybrid vehicles can take advantage of Level 2 charging as well. (Level 2 charging means plugging into a 240-volt outlet — the same kind that powers appliances like dryers.) PHEV options You have lots of PHEVs to choose from in today’s market — over 30 available in the U.S. alone — so it’s difficult to spot the pioneer of the PHEV space in quite the same way you can for an HEV. If I had to say, though, I’d point to the Chevrolet Volt, which was brought to market in late 2010 (the first Volts were of the 2011 model-year vintage). When the Volt was introduced, it was a standout in the hybrid space by virtue of its plug. It could go about 35 miles on its electric power alone, a range that was improved to just over 50 miles in more recent model years. Other prominent examples of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are the Ford C-Max, the Fusion Energi, the Hyundai IONIQ PHEV, and the Kia Optima PHEV. All of these have been discontinued, though, so they might present an affordable electric option if you’re in the used-car market. Once again, it’s not just me who thinks that we’ve reached the end of an era when it comes to ICE vehicles. The auto manufacturers seem to be telling us something. PHEVs allow you to be ecofriendly while driving around and taking the kids to school, while still carting those same kids to hockey tournaments in far-flung locations without allowing for an hour or more of charging time to those hockey tournament road trips. The image below shows one potential soccer-team-chauffering machine. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that PHEVs (and HEVs) require all the maintenance of an ICE, because they are ICE cars. Gas stations, oil changes, spark plugs, timing belts … it’s all part of the package when using a hybrid. Battery electric vehicles What sets a BEV apart is that it contains nothing that produces tailpipe emissions — it uses rechargeable batteries that draw their power either from regenerative braking (while driving) or from the electric grid (while parked). In sum, all BEVs are zero-emission vehicles, and will therefore play a vital role in humanity’s collective effort to keep the earth a habitable place (or at least habitable by humans). As an added benefit, BEVs tend to be easier to maintain and simply more fun to drive. If you have children right now under the age of 10, chances are rather good that those children will never drive anything other than an electric vehicle. Looking to pinpoint the quintessential BEV? Well, as much as I might like to report, dear reader, that the leader in the EV space is General Motors, which parlayed its groundbreaking work with the EV1 into a decade of innovation and market dominance, facts simply don’t support this assertion. The leader in BEVs right now is Tesla — full stop. Its 2012 Model S was the EV that put EVs on the map. As of this writing, in early 2022, the general expert consensus is that everyone else is playing catch-up. Why might you consider a BEV? Let me count the ways. You’d consider an EV if you: Never want to stop at a gas station again Want to reduce carbon emissions into the environment Want a quieter ride Want lower total cost of ownership over the life of the vehicle What I’m saying is that if you have the financing or cash that can accommodate an EV in your budget, I can’t think of a reason not to drive a fully electric car (or truck, assuming that the truck you want/need is available).

Cheat Sheet / Updated 10-20-2022

People have questions about electric vehicles — this cheat sheet provides some answers. Whether it’s about the mysteries of charging, the vagaries of tax laws, extending battery life, or having a set of talking points you can use when people are asking you why you’re investing in an electric vehicle, this cheat sheet has you covered.