AeroVironment TurboCord

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PV1

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Check out AeroVironment's new TurboCord. Dual Voltage or 240 only, ultra-compact EVSE brainbox, and cheaper than the Mitsu or Nissan cords and most charging stations. Sounds cool.

http://evsolutions.avinc.com/turbocord
 
Yes, I noticed their ads on this forum. Their light weight is much appreciated for a portable unit.

We can quibble with some of their numbers regarding recharge times for the iMiEV, and they don't point out that the current (and thus charge times) are limited by the car's onboard charger.

Actually, I'm surprised they came out with this product (which is about 2-1/2 years too late), as the trend is going towards higher-power onboard chargers (e.g., 6.6kW) that this can't feed. Nevertheless, this thing sure works for our iMiEV.
 
What rate a car can charge at and what rate you actually need to charge at are often quite different.

Our miev has L1, L2 3.1 kw limit and QC capbility.

We used to use only L1. As daily drives where less than 50 miles, often less than 20 and car sat for 12 hours most nights L1 kept up fine. It really isn't necessary to bring car up to full charge. If we ran out 70 miles the night before the next day we might be at 70% charge in the morning, more than enough for the typical day. By the following day we woul be full up again.

L2 came in handy on a long run to the airport as a way to extend range. QC would have been better, but none available near by.

For instance people look at Tesla's L2 capability and say the would need expensive electrical updates for 80A load. Why not a 16 A L2? It would return at a 10 mi/hr rate. Over night you would put back in 80 to 120 mi range. Unless you run your batter out every day you will tend to have a full battery every morning. When you pull into an L2 station in public you can drink as fast as any L2 can put out, good when you are on the road, but not needed at home.

16A L2 at home easily supports 100 mi daily habit. That covers nearly all.

Not meaning to being argumentative here. I would really like to hear your thoughts on this as I am trying to understand how other's use and perceive their EVs
 
Mattmiev said:
What rate a car can charge at and what rate you actually need to charge at are often quite different.
Mattmiev, you're absolutely right and if you peruse this forum you'll find plenty examples whereby many of us use the wimpy 8A Mitsu L1 EVSE for the majority of our charging. For our iMiEV, doing the EVSEUpgrade.com to our stock Mitsu EVSE is probably the most cost-effective way of getting us both 240vac and 120vac, with the added feature of being able to program current from 6A to 12A in 1A increments.

The point I tried to make is that since this is a newly-released universal product, then perhaps they should have also catered to the latest generation of 6.6kW chargers.
 
Forgive the ignorance of a poor Southern boy, but what was the reason behind using an 8 amp EVSE. Is this because ICE block heater circuits used in garages are commonly 10 amps, or do the Japanese only use 10 amp circuits at home as opposed to the US standard construction of 15 or 20 amps?
 
Mart said:
Forgive the ignorance of a poor Southern boy, but what was the reason behind using an 8 amp EVSE. Is this because ICE block heater circuits used in garages are commonly 10 amps, or do the Japanese only use 10 amp circuits at home as opposed to the US standard construction of 15 or 20 amps?
IMO, lawyers won the battle over marketing - thinking that they could ensure that even a clueless person plugging into a marginal circuit wouldn't burn their house down, to the detriment of functionality. Happily, Mitsubishi came out with the 8A/12A unit in Canada and it looks to be standard on the 2014 US i-MiEV. Wonder if they'll add a thermal sensor into the plug, like Tesla?
 
Joe S wrote:

The point I tried to make is that since this is a newly-released universal product, then perhaps they should have also catered to the latest generation of 6.6kW chargers.
------------


Back to your original post, i do agree that the product may have limited market appeal. I think it would work well for many, but I think 6.6 kW will be soon be the new minimum. People tend to buy things that are more capable, regardless of need, if the cost differential is too much.

So while this device fits my philosophy of "no more than necessary" a 6.6 kW unit would have more market appeal and would be an easy upsell (future proof yourself).

I've been reading this forum since 2012, but have just started posting. If I go off topic or break the rules please feel free to educate me!
 
The media has made a great deal of recharging time vs. time to pump gasoline. The original 8 amp i-MiEV EVSE was widely reported as taking 20 hours to fully recharge the battery at Level 1, 120v charging. A fact that was repeated to prove the impracticality of the vehicle. The media has never reported, and probably rarely understands, that what matters is watts not volts, i.e. charging should be the same for 120v/20a as 240v/10a. They do understand time, and presume that less is better. As one blog recently explained, it doesn't matter if recharging from zero takes 4 hours or 8 if the car is parked from 8pm to 7am while you watch TV and sleep. Not everyone get's a good night's sleep, and I suspect they want 4 hour charges, even if their battery is nowhere near fully discharged. But that's the American way, bigger, stronger, faster must be better, right? :roll:
 
Mattmiev said:
I've been reading this forum since 2012, but have just started posting. If I go off topic or break the rules please feel free to educate me!
Matt, no worries, and happy to have you contribute - I've probably been a bigger culprit than most :cry: I personally really appreciate that our forum membership is so well-informed, articulate, and courteous. BTW, whereabouts are you located - you might consider updating your Profile in the User Control Panel, as it's always interesting to see in what part of the world our forum members reside?

Anyway, this AeroVironment TurboCord would certainly be suitable for someone wanting another EVSE for their i-MiEV.
 
JoeS said:
Mart said:
Forgive the ignorance of a poor Southern boy, but what was the reason behind using an 8 amp EVSE. Is this because ICE block heater circuits used in garages are commonly 10 amps, or do the Japanese only use 10 amp circuits at home as opposed to the US standard construction of 15 or 20 amps?
IMO, lawyers won the battle over marketing - thinking that they could ensure that even a clueless person plugging into a marginal circuit wouldn't burn their house down, to the detriment of functionality. Happily, Mitsubishi came out with the 8A/12A unit in Canada and it looks to be standard on the 2014 US i-MiEV. Wonder if they'll add a thermal sensor into the plug, like Tesla?

After a bit more research, it seems that 8 amps is the maximum recommended continuous draw on an undedicated 15 amp household circuit. The 12a EVSE should be fine on a 15a line that's dedicated. I guess that Panasonic/Mitsubishi couldn't guarantee no one would start up their circular saw on the same circuit while charging.
 
I think the main reason they didn't go with 6.6 kW capability is the plug on the unit. Of course, the 240 volt only model could be 6.6, and the dual voltage be lower current. Also, the thicker cord required for 6.6 kW may make the unit too bulky for portable use, though I could be wrong.

NEMA 5-15 blades can't handle much current, so 6.6 kW capability would require constant use of an adapter for level 1 charging.
 
Phximiev said:
Chademo link:
wmcbrine said:
Link to the product johnr is talking about: https://www.evseadapters.com/en/home/136-portable-chademo-or-ccs-fast-charger.html

It's $3750. That doesn't include the J1772 adapter, which, I haven't found yet. (For just the $3750 you can hook it up to a NEMA 14-50.)

We have a Turbocord charger with a 6-20 plug. To travel to RV campsites, we needed an adaptor, which I just bought from EVSEadaptors. Its their universal 14-xx adaptor. I'll post my experience with it once received.

Ok, we received the NEMA 14-50 to 6-20 adapter, tested it at a local plugshare home site ( http://www.plugshare.com/?location=94829# ) with a NEMA 14-50 plug and it worked perfectly. The unit cost $62.00.

Per Matthew, the plugshare owner, our 'Miev used 2.5 kWh per hour at his house.

Pic 1:

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Pic 2:

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Post successfully moved from Portable CHAdeMO to here regarding the TurboCord.

Glad to see that the TurboCord works with the i-MiEV.
 
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