The future cost of RV stay

The main will not handle all my loads which is why I posted about a new service feed. Switching between loads on one circuit prevents overloading the main feed by only allowing one or the other load to run.

Bedlam wrote:
In my garage, I have a switch that allows me to feed power to the water heater or an arc welder. The feed can power one or the other, but not both. My compressor shares a feed with the garage door opener and both cannot operated off that circuit either.

That is already a bit makeshift. Better to pull new wire and have an electrician measure your load.

EV can draw up to 80% of the supply circuit rating.

time2roll wrote:
I recently added a 20a electric oven, 20 amp microwave, 30 amp EV charger to a rental house with 100 amp service. (all 240v) Electrician said it was fine. Does have a gas dryer.

Can or can't... I did it. No issues.

At your house turn EVERYTHING electric on and measure the main feed with your clamp-on ammeter. Probably less than 50 amps.

It's about duty cycle of the devices you add to that circuit. If the charger will be drawing close to maximum the entire time it is connected, that leaves less reserve for the other circuits. Here are a couple of examples in my world:

My 30A camper circuit can pop a breaker when multiple items compete for the same limited resources - If I have the electric fireplace heater going while the hot water heater and fridge are on electric, I can choose between the convection/microwave oven and coffee pot but not both without shutting one of those off or switching to LPG.

In my garage, I have a switch that allows me to feed power to the water heater or an arc welder. The feed can power one or the other, but not both. My compressor shares a feed with the garage door opener and both cannot operated off that circuit either.

Bedlam wrote:

time2roll wrote:
As long as they are remodeling the bathhouse maybe add just two circuits for night charging an EV.
Way less than a million $$$ and probably cover the need for the next 10 years. Every journey just needs to start with that first small step.

You cannot just add additional circuits if your existing feed was sized for your current load. If it was that easy, I would just keep adding circuits to my 100A feed at home rather than spending big money to upgrade it from the local transformer (if that transformer even has more capacity).

Well, yes and no. Most panels/feeds are oversized to allow for future expansion. My (educated) guess is that adding half a dozen 6.6 KW EVSE’s wouldn’t be a stretch for many operations. And they would all be revenue generators. Maybe put four on sites and 2 as general use.

The service industry is in a state of constant change. This is just another one. No campground operator or hotel should be required to keep up to date. Those that do will continue to do business.

For the hotel business there are apps that let EV drivers know which hotels have EV charge infrastructure. EV drivers on road trips pretty much live by these Apps. It’s pretty much a binary decision for us. If it has charging facilities we consider staying there. If it doesn’t we don’t. If will be the same for campgrounds in a couple decades.

Bedlam wrote:

time2roll wrote:
As long as they are remodeling the bathhouse maybe add just two circuits for night charging an EV.
Way less than a million $$$ and probably cover the need for the next 10 years. Every journey just needs to start with that first small step.

You cannot just add additional circuits if your existing feed was sized for your current load. If it was that easy, I would just keep adding circuits to my 100A feed at home rather than spending big money to upgrade it from the local transformer (if that transformer even has more capacity).

I recently added a 20a electric oven, 20 amp microwave, 30 amp EV charger to a rental house with 100 amp service. (all 240v) Electrician said it was fine. Does have a gas dryer.

Can or can't... I did it. No issues.

At your house turn EVERYTHING electric on and measure the main feed with your clamp-on ammeter. Probably less than 50 amps.

time2roll wrote:
As long as they are remodeling the bathhouse maybe add just two circuits for night charging an EV.
Way less than a million $$$ and probably cover the need for the next 10 years. Every journey just needs to start with that first small step.

You cannot just add additional circuits if your existing feed was sized for your current load. If it was that easy, I would just keep adding circuits to my 100A feed at home rather than spending big money to upgrade it from the local transformer (if that transformer even has more capacity).

time2roll wrote:
As long as they are remodeling the bathhouse maybe add just two circuits for night charging an EV.
Way less than a million $$$ and probably cover the need for the next 10 years. Every journey just needs to start with that first small step.

That's the point. Don't need to upgrade squat to charge 2 Nissan Leafs. Can doo that off of a 30A or 50A ped as long as only a couple people are doing it.
Aren't we talking charging tow vehicles and RVs here?
So you take that small first step, buy the super overpriced low mile range electric truck or motorhome. Now you can go 200 mi a day before plugging it in. But only 20% of the campgrounds have taken that small first step, so now what. And the campground owner who does take that step now wants $120 a night when you pull in, in your 2025 model Tesla 30' double slide Class C, which is ok, because you can afford it because you paid 3x as much for your RV.
Problem is, there's only 1000 campgrounds on the continent that will charge that rolling Energizer Bunny commercial, so you plan your trip around 100 mile jaunts to places you don't want to go.

Glacier Nat park? Nope, you'll need to tow a 30kw genset behind you to get there....and the NPS hasn't spent $250 million upgrading remote national parks to charge Tesla semis...
Anywhere else outside of a 100mi radius of a large town? Nope, cause only 200 of those "small step" forward thinking campground owners has upgraded.





I'll repeat, I'm as much for EV as anyone, but your statement above should read more like "most dreams are just that....dreams."

Maybe it's because I've been educated, trained and experienced at finding answers to problems my whole career and 2/3 of the people I deal with are primarily problem finders and not answer finders, but at the same time they firmly believe there is an answer to their problem but have no desire to figure out or even help with the answer. They actually penalize you when you don't find the answer that they have conjured up in their dreams!

They want to concentrate on "every journey starts with a small step" and then magically have people like me provide them all the steps without having to worry their little brains about how the steps got built...

Grit dog wrote:
How many campground owners public or private are going to go drop $1millon or more to upgrade their grid and distribution and electric services when they have trouble spending $10k to remodel the bath house?

As long as they are remodeling the bathhouse maybe add just two circuits for night charging an EV.
Way less than a million $$$ and probably cover the need for the next 10 years. Every journey just needs to start with that first small step.

Bedlam wrote:
Apple?

Classic!

colliehauler wrote:

4x4ord wrote:
Well if we're talking future I'm going to say there will be a power transmission rail embedded somehow in the roadway so electric vehicles will recharge while driving. They won't need to plug in.

I don't understand why induction charging is not talked about for the future. Heck we can set our phones on a base and charge them. As our infrastructure needs replaced I would think this would be a option.

Lose at least 10% of the power with inductive charging. Would you pay 10% extra for full serve petrol? Some would but most would go with the selfie.
However it is available for home use at 3x the price of a plug in wall unit.