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Here's a thread on doing this with a Nissan Leaf.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=5792

From that and similar threads on Teslas, the caveats seem to be:

- Need a sine wave generator vs the cheaper square wave ones.

- Some cars allow you to adjust the current draw to match lower output generators, some don't. Cheap generators probably don't output enough current.

- You have to tie neutral to ground and use a real ground rod.




I'm guessing that these Bollinger guys won't stand for any of that sissy "pure sine wave" or "ground rod" crap, and would let it charge with just about anything that puts out a voltage.

Not that a pure sine wave generator isn't superior to noisy, cheap square wave 'inverters' or that grounding a charging EV is a bad idea, but that's the attitude I have picked up from seeing ground pins cut off of various farms and tools. I'm sure their EEs would make sure that the thing was double-insulated and otherwise capable of dealing with this need.


Regarding current draw, it should be possible to regulate it with the external equipment if you really need it. All US EVs support J1772, and the J1772 plug tells the car how much it's allowed to draw. Some cars let you tell it to draw even less, but it will always respect the equipment's limiter.

For a simple example of this, Tesla's mobile connector will signal different maximum currents depending on which outlet adapter you have on it. If you have a NEMA 14-50 adapter it'll tell the car to draw up to 40A, but if you swap in the NEMA 5-15 adapter it'll tell the car to only draw 12A.


> - Need a sine wave generator vs the cheaper square wave ones.

That seems really weird; I'd expect that the big charging station you install in your garage would convert from home AC into some high-current DC. Batteries don't actually charge on AC, do they?


Not directly, no. But electric vehicles convert AC since that what consumers have easy access to.

And their rectifiers expect nice sine waves.


J1772 plug (the one that every EV has) is an AC connection and there is a converter in the car that converts it to DC.

The super charge ports (CHAdeMO/CCS/etc) use DC power and are basically direct hookups to the battery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAdeMO


I think some of the newer one have a high speed DC charging option. I think the Chevy Bolt has a DC option.




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