Costco.ca - now available GE Wattstation Commercial Wall Plug In

Interesting. They only have the 25A Sun Country highway charger. I know they had higher Amperage ones before. They must have sold out.

Looking it up, seems to be same as any other Level 2 charger out there.

The commercial one seems to have a system for charging people via internet.
http://www.geindustrial.com/product...ing-stations/wattstation-wall-mount-networked

Wow, overpriced!
Even with Ontario 50% rebate program, I haven't needed to purchase an EVSE.

I charge my Smart ED on 120V OEM EVSE, and our Tesla is fed by the UMC on 24A circuit. Both of these EVSE's came with the cars, and I never use them as a "portable charger", rather, they stay plugged into outlets in the garage. Haven't had a road trip where we would need to plug in to an outlet at our destination, and we've been all over Ontario and into New York.

Those are expensive compared to a HPWC considering the much higher utility of a HPWC. But why would you buy one of these residential units rather than just use a standard 240V outlet.

For a Tesla, you wouldn't!

Home Depot Canada used to have a nice selection, now they don't have anything decent.

But even if you don't have a Tesla, let's say you have a Volt or Leaf - why would you buy one of these residential charge units over just putting in a 240V plug like a NEMA 30 (or whatever they are called)?

wayner said:

say you have a Volt or Leaf - why would you buy one of these residential charge units over just putting in a 240V plug

Click to expand...

Tesla UMC is capable of 240V and 120V charging. Most OEM EVSE included with EV's like Leaf, Volt, Smart ED are all 120V only charging. Therefore, there is a market for 240V EVSE like those listed in Costco.

As me, if I was in the market for an EVSE, I'd go with Sun Country Highway to support their mission.

Also do not see very good details on the spec sheet, how long is the cable for example (I did just a quick scan), but the chargepoint solution on amazon looks like a better solution anyway if you were to head down this route.

After having gone through a (so far) futile battle with a strata to allow me to install a 14-50 socket in the garage, connected to my electric meter, at MY cost... I can see that a happy mid-point device is needed. That is, a Level 2 box with decent current capacity that can be installed in semi-private strata locations (or businesses I suppose) and offers simplified billing.

And by 'simplified', I mean 'crude at best'. In order to allow for electronic billing, the unit jumps in price significantly. And from the snooping around I've done, they seem to require a monthly fee to maintain a data connection (typically cellular) and billing system.

Consider the early years strata scenario... one EV driver, maybe two or three drivers to start. A typical ICE mentality on the strata board. 'Giving' the power to the EV drivers is a non-starter, no matter how minor the cost would be compared to the rest of the strata expenses. So the consumption must be billed. Now comes the problem... the charging system cost to allow billing jumps way up over the simple and commonsense solution of a socket on the wall. The strata doesn't want to invest that much for the benefit of a few drivers and the drivers don't want to pay for a champagne solution on their beer budget... especially if there is no latecomers agreement to even out the cost as more EV's arrive. The monthly cost of the system connection and accounting could exceed the value of the power pumped into the car or cars. Who's going to pay for that? The strata probably won't want to absorb that either, not for (potentially) one driver. So it goes in circles.

I'm beginning to see a market for something mid-way between 'free' and 'RFID electronic billing'. What, I don't know... maybe a keypad to enter a user number and PIN and onboard memory to retain the 'transactions' until downloaded. Maybe a wifi connection to a cloud service that allows management to pull the data and bill it accordingly in-house. Heck, maybe an old-school coin-operated timer that powers up the charge station!

I just think there needs to be something that bridges the gap between 'no free ride' and 'too costly to implement and maintain'.