BY DAVID NORTH
White Rock
If you installed a fast charger for your car, turn down your charging rate.
Why turn it down? The new “demand charge” is $1 per kilowatt for the hour of heaviest use during each billing cycle. Odds are charging will be the lion’s share of the trigger for any electric car owner with a fast charger.
If you’re just using a standard charger on a 120 volt line, it probably won’t make much difference: typically they max out at 15 amps, which would add perhaps $2* to your monthly bill with taxes (we turned ours down to 5 amps with no significant impact).
But the most popular fast charger runs 40 amps at 240 volts. That’s a 9.6 KWH rate that would add about $10 to your bill (on top of the dollar you pay for the electricity).
Not a lot of money, but there are other advantages. For one thing, you’ll be easing the load on the county’s system. Okay, it probably won’t be noticed, but it’s a feelgood point. For another, the slower you charge lithium batteries, the longer they last. Again, a minor advantage, but free.
And really, you probably don’t need that fast charge rate. Most Los Alamos residents don’t have a long daily commute, and overnight charging will eventually make up for any extra-long trip you might take.
Most common electrics in the US (Tesla, Kia, Hyundai, Ford) allow wide latitude in charging rates. Chevy, not so much, but you can still turn it down.
If you don’t have an electric car, this gives you some idea just how cheap they are to own and operate. Santa Fe and back for well under $3 in electricity. No oil changes, no tune-ups, no transmission.
In any household that has two or more cars, at least one of them should be electric. Most trips are short and local, which are not at all an issue for an electric. There is no warming up. Short trips do not cause additional wear. They’re faster off the line, handle better (low center of gravity), quiet, and much more fun.
And as of this month, quite a bit cheaper per mile.
* watts = volts x amps. So 120 volts x 15 amps = 1800 watts, or 1.8 kilowatts. If charging spreads over at least one clock hour — the county takes the measurement between exact hours, such as 11pm to midnight, for example — that is 1.8 kilowatt hours and would add $1.80 to your bill. But there are also charging losses and tax to consider. So, somewhere around $2, probably a little more.
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