Evs in our region are primarily the few commuters or as tows behind MHs to use as tour the area vehicles. Commuters recharge at home maybe at work, though I do not know of any companies here that offer that service yet, What I want you to post is as you travel with an EV towed, perhaps someday as a tow, how do you expect camp power supplies to be equal to charging your vehicle. An argument that EVs popularity growth will be met equally by growth in power generation and distribution has merit in metropolitan areas with steady power use curves. where the increase is anticipated. Its not so well defined in areas with regional high power use times, Camps built yesterday did not -could not - put in the infrastructure to meet such massive electrical loads that serving the rvs and EV recharging. Where once 4/0 al cabling served by a 200a main to x # 50a rv sites, will quickly by overloaded with only a couple of recharging vehicles. How is an existing camp to meet that load, pass the costs on? How is a new camp to design for that potentiality, Pass the costs on? I do not have a dog in this fight, we sold our camp last year and retired.

SDcamperowneroperator,If I were an owner, I would immediately move to power meters on every site that could be remote read at the office.Another perhaps easier system would be to have credit card readers on the meters at every site.The wiring at campgrounds is already inadequate to the needs of many 50 amp RV's.If every site has to have 12000 watts "on tap" then the supply transformer may not be up to the task.This reminds me of campgrounds providing wifi, in some senses. Some campgrounds could not possibly offer video streaming at all sites. Their bandwidth feed was not capable of being upgraded.The same may be true for electricity.One not very satisfactory solution would be to limit vehicle charging to level 1 (1500 watts).I hope you have had a good retirement so far--but I'm sure covid is....in the way.

"how do you expect camp power supplies to be equal to charging your vehicle"Good eveningI do not expect any RV Campground or Resort to supply my EV (do not own one yet) with power, the same as they, RV camps, do not supply my gasoline powered vehicle with gasoline. If your EV needs fuel the go to the charging stations just like I go to the gas station.That said I do believe some of the bigger campgrounds and resorts will install charging stations for there guests for pay or free depending on the amenities of the camp.Just my 2¢JimR

Cost to fully charge a low battery to full is about $15. Meter the site or charge an additional fee.Restrict charging to be 10pm to 10am and see how it goes. Additional restrictions as needed.Possibly only allow one EV per electric connection loop. Or provide some modest power L2 stations with metered charges.Not a big deal really.

I think it'll be a non-issue in most places as they need to design for peak air conditioning loads during the heat of the day. So long as the EVs are charging at night they won't be pushing the branch circuits any harder than that unless/until EVs are a much higher percentage of vehicles than they are today (US sales are about 1% of new vehicles the last few years, even California is only about 10% plugins)

I know of no campground set up for EV charging and most have a "one cord to a customer" rule as well (though some do not enforce it all that well)If your EV can charge off 15 amps at 120 volt (or less the outlet is not really good for 15 amps) plug into the patio outlet.. i'd upgrade the wireing to that outlet however as I said the "uni-box" type outlets are not that good.

Ev charging in camps expectation of availability, cost

119 Replies

valhalla360
Navigator
Feb 12, 2021
Tvov wrote:
Do EVs need super power turbo charger pedestal things? Can't they charge, even if it is a "trickle charge", off a regular outlet?

A 90kwh battery bank is not uncommon in an EV.

At home, you might use 10-20kwh on your daily commute. So if you plug into a household outlet and draw 1.5kw, 12-16hrs overnight and you've replaced that usage.

If you arrive at a campground with the battery bank down to 10kwh, it will take 53hr at 1.5kw. That's over 2 days plugged in, not being able to use the car. If you take the car out for a day trip, you stop charging and use more kwh. Plus as some suggested, if they limit charging to late night, you may be looking at 4-5 days to recharge.

If we are talking an EV motorhome, you can expect a battery bank 3-4 times larger with power demand 3-4 times as large.

Plugging into a 15amp 120v outlet may be a stopgap measure but only to get you to a nearby high output charger.
valhalla360
Navigator
Feb 12, 2021
time2roll wrote:
Cost to fully charge a low battery to full is about $15. Meter the site or charge an additional fee.
Restrict charging to be 10pm to 10am and see how it goes. Additional restrictions as needed.
Possibly only allow one EV per electric connection loop. Or provide some modest power L2 stations with metered charges.
Not a big deal really.

Adding meters and then having staff monitor those meters is expensive.

Also, it introduces complications for short term stays. At monthly stays with meters, we've been ready to leave but had to wait until the maintenance guy got in so he could read the meter. Not a huge issue when it's once a month but if you have 200 rigs on sunday afternoon trying to get home on a schedule, I see it as a mess.

Restricting charging times means the park owner has to police usage. That's a source of conflict that owners really don't want.

Many RV parks struggle with air/con...adding more than a handful of EVs in a park will increase the number of times the power goes out and the park gets complaints. That's not desirable.

Urban parks may be able to upgrade the power but more remote parks, it can be in the tens of thousands to upgrade the main park feed plus tens of thousands more to upgrade the internal systems.

As someone mentioned, it likely will be like park wifi where they struggle to keep up with demand.

If we are talking about a situation where there are more than a handful of EVs, it's a huge deal.
pitch
Explorer II
Feb 12, 2021
I don't see an issue at this time. I doubt that there is one in a thousand that tow EV,s.
In the future when EV's become main stream infra structure will grow to accommodate need.
In the mean time, just tell the customer, "Sorry but we do not have the demand for EV charging to make it feasible."
Now if you want to go to the expense to upgrade for EV,s, make sure that your capability is upfront and center in all your marketing brochures and advertising.
Tvov
Explorer II
Feb 12, 2021
Do EVs need super power turbo charger pedestal things? Can't they charge, even if it is a "trickle charge", off a regular outlet?

As mentioned above, air conditioners use a lot of power already.
wa8yxm
Explorer III
Feb 12, 2021
I know of no campground set up for EV charging and most have a "one cord to a customer" rule as well (though some do not enforce it all that well)

If your EV can charge off 15 amps at 120 volt (or less the outlet is not really good for 15 amps) plug into the patio outlet.. i'd upgrade the wireing to that outlet however as I said the "uni-box" type outlets are not that good.
afidel
Explorer II
Feb 12, 2021
I think it'll be a non-issue in most places as they need to design for peak air conditioning loads during the heat of the day. So long as the EVs are charging at night they won't be pushing the branch circuits any harder than that unless/until EVs are a much higher percentage of vehicles than they are today (US sales are about 1% of new vehicles the last few years, even California is only about 10% plugins)
time2roll
Nomad
Feb 12, 2021
Cost to fully charge a low battery to full is about $15. Meter the site or charge an additional fee.
Restrict charging to be 10pm to 10am and see how it goes. Additional restrictions as needed.
Possibly only allow one EV per electric connection loop. Or provide some modest power L2 stations with metered charges.
Not a big deal really.
Community Alumni
Feb 12, 2021
"how do you expect camp power supplies to be equal to charging your vehicle"

Good evening

I do not expect any RV Campground or Resort to supply my EV (do not own one yet) with power, the same as they, RV camps, do not supply my gasoline powered vehicle with gasoline. If your EV needs fuel the go to the charging stations just like I go to the gas station.

That said I do believe some of the bigger campgrounds and resorts will install charging stations for there guests for pay or free depending on the amenities of the camp.

Just my 2¢
JimR
pianotuna
Nomad III
Feb 12, 2021
SDcamperowneroperator,

If I were an owner, I would immediately move to power meters on every site that could be remote read at the office.

Another perhaps easier system would be to have credit card readers on the meters at every site.

The wiring at campgrounds is already inadequate to the needs of many 50 amp RV's.

If every site has to have 12000 watts "on tap" then the supply transformer may not be up to the task.

This reminds me of campgrounds providing wifi, in some senses. Some campgrounds could not possibly offer video streaming at all sites. Their bandwidth feed was not capable of being upgraded.

The same may be true for electricity.

One not very satisfactory solution would be to limit vehicle charging to level 1 (1500 watts).

I hope you have had a good retirement so far--but I'm sure covid is....in the way.

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Ev charging in camps expectation of availability, cost

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