I try. If its not much more, if they have it, and its not more hassle
than it should be.

Lets start by saying the people at the local KIA dealership should
really know their products better. My wife just signed a 3 years lease
on a new Kia Niro full EV. (Don't lecture me. She chose that.) If
anything her time is more valuable than mine, so driving out of her way
to use an EV charging station and having to sit around waiting is just
plain stupid. It made no sense to me, and the eyes of the smartest
people at the local Kia dealer just glazed over like they couldn't
imagine not using the free (500 KW included free) charging stations at
their dealership, their sister Hyundai dealership, or one of the local
public charging stations.

When I started asking questions I already knew decent name brand
chargers were available from old names like Schumacher. The dealer
folks kept going on about how slow it would be to use a cord, and we
should have a Kia "Level II" charger professionally installed. I hadn't
really looked at price, and their price wasn't outrageous as dealerships
go. They just couldn't answer my questions about what is level I, level
II, and why a hardwired level II was better than a corded level II.
They suffered from clue deficiency. They didn't even seem to have a
definition of what level II was other than its a bigger number than level I.

I gave up and went home where I took a quick look on the Schumacher
website where with the most casual of study I quickly figured it out.

Many of the plug in cord type charges are both Level I and Level II with
the only difference being input voltage. You can plug it into a 20 amp
240V outlet and charge at 16 amps. With an adapter you can plug into
120V outlet and charge at 16 amps. 240V is Level II. 120V input is
Level I. If there is anybody in this group who doesn't already know
what that means: Total power is watts. Watts is amps times volts.
Then I looked a the wall mounted chargers and discovered that they were
somewhat configurable. For example the SEV1600HW (HW stands for hard
wired) can be configured with a plug upto a 50 amp range type on a 50
amp breaker. It can also be hard wired directly to larger breakers and
set for higher charging current.

I opted for a new 50 amp breaker on the sub panel in the garage and a 50
amp range plug. The recommended switch settings are to charge at 40
amps in this configuration. Its not as fast as it could be, but we
already did a test with a Schumacher cord charger last weekend with it
plugged into the 120V ceiling receptacle next to the garage door opener.
It was enough after one week of normal daily use back up to 100%
charge. I am sure 40 amps at 240 input will be plenty enough faster
than 16 amps at 120V that she won't complain.

The big bonus, is that now I have an outlet in the garage where I can
plug in a welder. That's the main reason I went with a 50 amp
breaker/outlet instead of hard wiring into a 70amp breaker instead. I
no longer have to drag things through the field to the back of the shop
or string extension cords (I have some heavy 240V extension cords) all
the way through the shop to work out in the driveway.

I don't think the Schumacher is much different (other than price) from
the Kia charger and I would have paid the Kia premium, but they just
couldn't answer any of my questions. If I pay dealer premium price I
expect the dealer to know their products.

.... Oh I'm not done yet. I decided to just buy all the electrical stuff
locally at the big box store, so it would be here when I was ready to
hang the bigger wall mounted charger and set it up. Whichever one
showed everything in stock. Home Depot showed everything in stock
on-line, but alas they didn't actually have the 4 pin 50 amp plugs their
website said they did. Then I grabbed the wrong breaker... and it all
just annoyed me. I checked Lowes and they didn't show any 50 amp (range
plugs) on their website as in stock locally. I ordered one on Amazon,
and it should arrive today. I wound up getting the correct breaker over
at Lowes, and on my way to the check out I happened to see on a bottom
shelf a box over flowing with 50 amp 4pin plug cords in just the right
length for the job.

In the end I would have been better off just buying everything from
Amazon. I'd have had the job done two days ago. Next time somebody
lectures me about buying locally I won't punch them in the mouth, but
I'll probably think about it. Oh, yeah, I had plenty of 8awg wire on
hand already. More than I will probably ever use.

As to the lease / EV. Well I'm not ready for EV for a whole host of
reasons. The big one being that often when an EV battery bricks the car
it costs more to replace than the car is worth, and EV batteries don't
seem to last as long as a gas engine at this point. My wife has had an
illogical desire to buy an EV for a while now. I argued. I pointed out
the less than ideal logistics. I detailed the longevity issues. I even
pointed out that a paid off gasser would cost less to operate (no
payments) than a new EV. She wasn't having any of that. She didn't
disagree with me. She just wanted an electric car. Generally I am
against vehicle leases as well. About the only one its better for is
your accountant if its a business vehicle. Otherwise you are just
paying rent and gaining no equity. In this case though I think its the
right thing to do. In three years battery technology will have
improved, and three years is well within the average life of an EV
battery at this time. She won't be stuck with a large paper weight when
it bricks the car. It will be somebody else's problem.

FYI:
The Kia Level II wall charger was $750 plus installation.
The Schumacher on Amazon was $550 with free shipping. I spent less than
$100 on breaker, box, connectors, outlet, and misc, and I had wire and
smurf on hand.

--
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message news:ueich5$3mq7r$1@dont-email.me...
....
The salesman at the Ford dealer who tried to sell me an EV was unshakably
convinced that regenerative braking kept it charged. When I was young I made
an effort to learn about electricity but found vanishingly little help, so I
can't fault others for knowing only that flipping a switch turns the lights
on and not paying the bill shuts them off. In high school I studied
transistors from the physics teacher's private library. In Army electronics
school the dropout rate was high while we were still at the Volts, Amps,
Watts level, and the consequence was likely carrying a rifle in Nam so they
had good reason to pay attention. Around 100 started, 4 graduated. The other
three were EEs and I had studied it in college Physics up through the level
of AC circuit analysis with differential equations.

Southern NH has a high concentration of defense contractors. When a clerk
finds that I understand electronics the usual reaction is "Oh, you must be
an engineer", spoken as a put-down of someone expected to be difficult to
deal with.

I'd like to know how many miles per KWH it actually gets and what she
complains about. I test-drive new cars and trucks to narrow the focus of
what to buy if/when my 23-year-old CRV fails and so far have concluded I
like my old one as much or better, although it's often jacked up for
repairs, right now to patch some rust for instance. That first model was
designed by and for engineers, some from Land Rover, subsequent ones by
stylists who had no use for the practical features I liked.

In <ueifuq$3nkq0$1@dont-email.me> "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:

[snip]

>I'd like to know how many miles per KWH it actually gets and what she
>complains about. I test-drive new cars and trucks to narrow the focus of

Real world experience, Gord C-Max "Energi" model.

Typically 4 miles per kw-hr when driving 60 mph. Cut that
down by a third if using air onditioning...

Larger veh's would, of course, be less.

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

That's a FORD, not a GORD. Ouch

In <ueiive$nf6$1@reader2.panix.com> danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> writes:

>In <ueifuq$3nkq0$1@dont-email.me> "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:

>[snip]

>>I'd like to know how many miles per KWH it actually gets and what she
>>complains about. I test-drive new cars and trucks to narrow the focus of

>Real world experience, Gord C-Max "Energi" model.

AAAARRRHHHHGGGHGHGH. That's a FORD C-Max.

>Typically 4 miles per kw-hr when driving 60 mph. Cut that
>down by a third if using air onditioning...

>Larger veh's would, of course, be less.

>--
>_____________________________________________________
>Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
> dannyb@panix.com
>[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

"danny burstein" wrote in message news:ueilfk$6d6$1@reader2.panix.com...

FORD C-Max.

>Typically 4 miles per kw-hr when driving 60 mph. Cut that
>down by a third if using air onditioning...

--------------------------

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/people/doug-field.html
My boss at Segway.

In <uein3l$3oo1r$1@dont-email.me> "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:

>"danny burstein" wrote in message news:ueilfk$6d6$1@reader2.panix.com...

>FORD C-Max.

>>Typically 4 miles per kw-hr when driving 60 mph. Cut that
>>down by a third if using air onditioning...

>--------------------------

>https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/people/doug-field.html
>My boss at Segway.

Looks like he's the point person in trying to bring
all the various (currently outsourced) pieces of software
under the Ford umbrella so they'll all talk nice to
each other and Ford can upgrade without HUGE problems.

I heard a report a week or two ago that all this
segmentation and outside contracting for the different
modules was a big reason Ford was pulling out
its hairs..

And I can tell you as an owner that this SUCKS and we
had to install a 12V battery cut off switch so we
could force full computer resets...

Every few months the various systems in the
car (radio, headlights, climate control, oh, and
the speedometer and what "gear" were we were in)
would go kablooie [a]. There was no simple way
to reboot everything, so we had to unscrew the
grounding cable from the chassis - which was a
very LONG screw in the back. Oh, and it sparked
and sparked and sparked as I applied the socket
wrench to it.

Forcing my teeth to clench as I worried as to what
that might be doint to the electronics.

So we paid the shop an hour or two to wire
a simple cut-off switch. (I could have done
it if my eyes and hands were ten years younger).

And yes, we still have to force the resets..

[a] these work off the 12V system, as opposed
to the electric motor which is high voltage.

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

"danny burstein" wrote in message news:ueiqkh$dig$1@reader2.panix.com...

>https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/people/doug-field.html

Looks like he's the point person in trying to bring
all the various (currently outsourced) pieces of software
under the Ford umbrella so they'll all talk nice to
each other and Ford can upgrade without HUGE problems.

------------------------------

I'd rather be unemployed than take that job, or Production Manager. I just
got off a chat with my low cost ISP whose programmers are incompetent, after
much squeezing the agent finally admitted the login problem I see was their
fault.

When I was a circuit board designer I learned all the standard manufacturing
specs and tolerances and put the necessary ones in the bids to board makers,
many times they'd cut their price by ignoring the ones that were difficult
for them. Eventually the salespeople learned they couldn't BS me and I
learned who could meet the harder specs for controlled impedance digital
microwave radio circuits and sent bids only to them. The hard proof was that
they would add a test pattern for their impedance measuring equipment to the
panel of circuit boards.

It's the same with software, many programmers are better graphic artists
than engineers, in fact a programmer who understands complex (or even
simple) electronics is rare, I've been put in that spot and had to take
programming courses to do it. At Segway where Doug Fields was head of
engineering the mathematical basis of controlling the brushless motor is
similar to and as difficult as the NASA space communications coding I
learned at Mitre. My one interaction with him made me question his expertise
in electronic math.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_analysis

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message news:uek3om$8gs6$1@dont-email.me...

"danny burstein" wrote in message news:ueiqkh$dig$1@reader2.panix.com...

>https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/people/doug-field.html

Looks like he's the point person in trying to bring
all the various (currently outsourced) pieces of software
under the Ford umbrella so they'll all talk nice to
each other and Ford can upgrade without HUGE problems.

------------------------------

I'm not articulate, persuasive and diplomatic enough to keep them from
becoming defensive, sullen and uncooperative when I find their errors and
display them on an oscilloscope. One reason for buying machine tools was to
make models to demonstrate solutions I couldn't convincingly explain. Doug
did apologize via his secretary when I solved his request literally and he
hadn't expected the consequence.

On one project I was given responsibility for the backplane which
interconnected the boards designed by the individual engineers, so it's
signal specifications acted to coordinate them. The project engineer did the
negotiation while I managed the documentation and saw how tricky it was to
make them work together. On another project two board designers had
stubbornly conflicting ideas on ribbon cable connectors and I had to make
custom cables with each signal/ground pair separated and twisted 180 on one
end and hand staked into the connector notches. Amazingly it worked, at
least on the ground. I and most of the other techs left before it was flight
tested.

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message news:uek99i$9po0$1@dont-email.me...

On another project two board designers had
stubbornly conflicting ideas on ribbon cable connectors and I had to make
custom cables with each signal/ground pair separated and twisted 180 on one
end and hand staked into the connector notches.

------------------------

A problem with engineering playgrounds and "country clubs" is that they all
want to be in charge which means they all end up working by themselves.
Either the project manager or their techs need multi-disciplinary skills to
help coordinate them.

Top posting on purpose here. Any of you who are interested already read
the rest anyway. Skip down and review first if you need to.

When we were picking up the KIA Niro EV we noted it did not have any
kind of charging cord or charger included. The sales people kept acting
like it did or it didn't depending on whatever point they were trying to
make badly at the moment. It was physically not present. At one point
the junior sales person told us he was sorry that he had told us it came
with a charger, but there wasn't one. He was willing to split the cost
of one with us and pay it out of his pocket. The senior sales person
later said he would get us a charger (Level I) on the dealership's dime,
but when I asked when we could expect to get that he back pedaled and
said he had to check see if it was supposed to come with one first.

As documented below I bought a cord type level I / level II (16 amp)
Schumacker charger and a wall mounted hardwired Level II charger. The
cord type arrived the next day and we used it already. I finished
mounting and wiring the wall mounted charger the end of last week after
some trials and tribulations.

The local Kia dealer called yesterday to let us know they were in fact
giving us a plug in cord charger. The first thing I noticed is it
appears to be Level I (120V) only. There is no plug for any type of
220V. You may recall the Schumacher portable cord charger can be
plugged into either a 20amp 120V outlet or a 20amp 220V outlet. It
charges at 16 amps with either voltage giving it a faster charging
capability if you are one of those people who have a 220V 20 amp outlet
in your garage. I do. I used to use my Delta radial arm saw in the
garage. Its behind boxes on a shelf now, but its there.

So far for my wife's daily driving (work/shopping/meetings) the vehicle
looks like it can run 3(+) weeks on a charge using the air conditioning
every day. This means the pressure to clear space in the garage so she
can pull in (mostly her garbage) is not as high. I do have a couple
saws I'll either move to the other side of the garage or out to the
shop, but there is, well, a lot of her garbage.

I installed the Level II wall mounted charger right under a sub panel in
the front of the garage on purpose for a few reasons. One it was
"easier," but I had a secondary reason. If she has to pull her car in
to the garage to charge it then she'll be less likely to pile the garage
full of sh__! If she runs for a couple weeks without charging (I hope
she doesn't) she'll need to use the faster charger to recharge. She
also doesn't know where that 220V outlet is that I used to use for the
radial arm saw. The curse of marrying a smart women is its real long
term work to win any battles like the garage is not a garbage dump.

On 9/21/2023 2:28 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
> I try.  If its not much more, if they have it, and its not more hassle
> than it should be.
>
> Lets start by saying the people at the local KIA dealership should
> really know their products better.  My wife just signed a 3 years lease
> on a new Kia Niro full EV.  (Don't lecture me.  She chose that.)  If
> anything her time is more valuable than mine, so driving out of her way
> to use an EV charging station and having to sit around waiting is just
> plain stupid.  It made no sense to me, and the eyes of the smartest
> people at the local Kia dealer just glazed over like they couldn't
> imagine not using the free (500 KW included free) charging stations at
> their dealership, their sister Hyundai dealership, or one of the local
> public charging stations.
>
> When I started asking questions I already knew decent name brand
> chargers were available from old names like Schumacher.  The dealer
> folks kept going on about how slow it would be to use a cord, and we
> should have a Kia "Level II" charger professionally installed.  I hadn't
> really looked at price, and their price wasn't outrageous as dealerships
> go.  They just couldn't answer my questions about what is level I, level
> II, and why a hardwired level II was better than a corded level II. They
> suffered from clue deficiency.  They didn't even seem to have a
> definition of what level II was other than its a bigger number than
> level I.
>
> I gave up and went home where I took a quick look on the Schumacher
> website where with the most casual of study I quickly figured it out.
>
> Many of the plug in cord type charges are both Level I and Level II with
> the only difference being input voltage.  You can plug it into a 20 amp
> 240V outlet and charge at 16 amps.  With an adapter you can plug into
> 120V outlet and charge at 16 amps.  240V is Level II.  120V input is
> Level I.  If there is anybody in this group who doesn't already know
> what that means:  Total power is watts.  Watts is amps times volts. Then
> I looked a the wall mounted chargers and discovered that  they were
> somewhat configurable.  For example the SEV1600HW (HW stands for hard
> wired) can be configured with a plug upto a 50 amp range type on a 50
> amp breaker.  It can also be hard wired directly to larger breakers and
> set for higher charging current.
>
> I opted for a new 50 amp breaker on the sub panel in the garage and a 50
> amp range plug.  The recommended switch settings are to charge at 40
> amps in this configuration.  Its not as fast as it could be, but we
> already did a test with a Schumacher cord charger last weekend with it
> plugged into the 120V ceiling receptacle next to the garage door opener.
>  It was enough after one week of normal daily use back up to 100%
> charge.  I am sure 40 amps at 240 input will be plenty enough faster
> than 16 amps at 120V that she won't complain.
>
> The big bonus, is that now I have an outlet in the garage where I can
> plug in a welder.  That's the main reason I went with a 50 amp
> breaker/outlet instead of hard wiring into a 70amp breaker instead.  I
> no longer have to drag things through the field to the back of the shop
> or string extension cords (I have some heavy 240V extension cords) all
> the way through the shop to work out in the driveway.
>
> I don't think the Schumacher is much different (other than price) from
> the Kia charger and I would have paid the Kia premium, but they just
> couldn't answer any of my questions.  If I pay dealer premium price I
> expect the dealer to know their products.
>
> ... Oh I'm not done yet.  I decided to just buy all the electrical stuff
> locally at the big box store, so it would be here when I was ready to
> hang the bigger wall mounted charger and set it up.  Whichever one
> showed everything in stock.  Home Depot showed everything in stock
> on-line, but alas they didn't actually have the 4 pin 50 amp plugs their
> website said they did.  Then I grabbed the wrong breaker... and it all
> just annoyed me.  I checked Lowes and they didn't show any 50 amp (range
> plugs) on their website as in stock locally.  I ordered one on Amazon,
> and it should arrive today.  I wound up getting the correct breaker over
> at Lowes, and on my way to the check out I happened to see on a bottom
> shelf a box over flowing with 50 amp 4pin plug cords in just the right
> length for the job.
>
> In the end I would have been better off just buying everything from
> Amazon.  I'd have had the job done two days ago.  Next time somebody
> lectures me about buying locally I won't punch them in the mouth, but
> I'll probably think about it.  Oh, yeah,  I had plenty of 8awg wire on
> hand already.  More than I will probably ever use.
>
> As to the lease / EV.  Well I'm not ready for EV for a whole host of
> reasons.  The big one being that often when an EV battery bricks the car
> it costs more to replace than the car is worth, and EV batteries don't
> seem to last as long as a gas engine at this point.  My wife has had an
> illogical desire to buy an EV for a while now.  I argued.  I pointed out
> the less than ideal logistics.  I detailed the longevity issues.  I even
> pointed out that a paid off gasser would cost less to operate (no
> payments) than a new EV.  She wasn't having any of that.  She didn't
> disagree with me.  She just wanted an electric car.  Generally I am
> against vehicle leases as well.  About the only one its better for is
> your accountant if its a business vehicle.  Otherwise you are just
> paying rent and gaining no equity.  In this case though I think its the
> right thing to do.  In three years battery technology will have
> improved, and three years is well within the average life of an EV
> battery at this time.  She won't be stuck with a large paper weight when
> it bricks the car.  It will be somebody else's problem.
>
> FYI:
> The Kia Level II wall charger was $750 plus installation.
> The Schumacher on Amazon was $550 with free shipping.  I spent less than
> $100 on breaker, box, connectors, outlet, and misc, and I had wire and
> smurf on hand.
>
>
>

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message news:uev3oh$2jfj6$2@dont-email.me...

Top posting on purpose here. Any of you who are interested already read
the rest anyway. Skip down and review first if you need to.

---------------------------

The Ford dealer had several vehicles on the lot that couldn't be bought and
driven away because they were waiting for missing parts, which were on back
order because all that could be obtained were going into new production.

It was like the Army's severe parts shortage in Europe when everything was
going to Vietnam. We solved that via J. C. Whitney and driving our own cars,
which was nice because it meant we didn't have to park and stay overnight on
post somewhere when travelling.