EV use the 30 amp 110V?

[thomas201]

Can any EV's use the 30 amp plug that is so common to governmental parks and older campgrounds? What I mean not an adapter, but can they draw the full (most) 30 amps, so they can charge faster then using the 15/20 amp plug? I understand the 50 amp advantage, but the 30 amp seems to be more widespread.

Thanks, and thinking into the future. I shared a slot at Banff this spring and the other camper was in a Tesla. They appeared to be asleep when we walked home, and when we left in the morning. They were plugged into the 15 amp, just wondering does a 110v 30 amp charger exist?

Lighting and a light truck camper???

Thanks again.

[Reisender]

thomas201 wrote:
Thank you again Reisender for answering my question. I am not ready to give up the 5er and the F250, but it does sound (and from my experience it looks) like we are working out the kinks with the new way to travel.

Down in the lower 48, I see a lot of 50/30 amp sites, with no extra charge. My guess is that as the future unfolds, we will work it out.

I do admit that I often arrive at a campsite low on gas, if I know gas is handy, I drop and fill. My truck is gas with an aux tank, not diesel.

Yah for sure. We don’t assume that we will be able to charge at a campsite so we always arrive with enough reserve to go to the nearest supercharger or DC fast charger. It’s a good habit to get into.

Cheers.

[thomas201]

Thank you again Reisender for answering my question. I am not ready to give up the 5er and the F250, but it does sound (and from my experience it looks) like we are working out the kinks with the new way to travel.

Down in the lower 48, I see a lot of 50/30 amp sites, with no extra charge. My guess is that as the future unfolds, we will work it out.

I do admit that I often arrive at a campsite low on gas, if I know gas is handy, I drop and fill. My truck is gas with an aux tank, not diesel.

[Reisender]

valhalla360 wrote:

Reisender wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:
Do you explain to the staff how much extra power you are using and what it is costing the park? Particularly for government parks, they may have no idea and effectively its driving up the cost for your neighbors.

If it's one in a thousand sites, your neighbors will never notice but when it hits significant numbers they will bear most of the cost as the park recoups power costs .

Do I explain? No. But EV’s are common here. Many times the park staff are driving them too so I’m sure they know what’s involved. And keep in mind that on 30 amp sites which is mostly what we rent it’s either the EV or RV not both so consumption isn’t that much higher. Probably 30 or 40 kWh over a few days. There are occasionally up charges although we have never been charged additional fees on a 30 amp site. That’s just luck of the draw though as I know some do. In quebec we stayed in a park that had signs indicating EV/RV combos had to rent 50 amp sites but there were none available the 5 nights we were there so he just told us to make sure we only plugged in one thing at a time. He didn’t charge us anything extra. We charged the first night and then topped up the day before we left.

We are seeing more and more parks put in a couple or even four centralized. 8 kw EVSE’s for charging and they just indicate that any EV charging must be done using those EVSE’s (Charge stations) and not on the sites. Some are stand alone and complimentary and some are networked usually thru FLO and typically charge a dollar or two an hour based on speed. On our last trip there were two new FLO units at the shower house which was maybe 4 or 5 sites from our site. I think it was 2 bucks an hour. We got set up on our site and I drove over and plugged in. It was all charged up by bed time.

If they provide dedicated EV charging stations, that's a different ballgame as the owner/manager has made a conscious decision to provide the service. If they spent thousands of dollars installing EV charging stations, I can buy the argument, they should inform themselves.

But in normal usage: Presuming the staff has any clue is wildly optimistic. If they are staff vehicles, they likely never see the bill. If you highlight the amount of power you are consuming and a rough estimate of the cost...a much better chance it gets back to the owner/manager who then can make an informed decision rather than just flying under the radar.

As far power consumption on a 30amp being similar...on a hot day, we are pulling around 12-14amps when the air/con is running and it typically cycles dropping to 3-4amps when the air/con is off. You indicated your telsa is set to pull 24amps as a baseline and presumably does that until the batteries are full:
- Let's say RV is 16hr at 14amps + 10hr at 4amps ~ 31kwh
- EV is 24hr at 24amp ~ 69kwh
- On a cold day (no air/con), RV only is ~ 11kwh and the resulting cost differential is much higher.

That's an extra 38kwh (best case scenario) and won't fill the car if you are coming in empty and splitting off some of that power for RV use (even more if you use the 15amp for the RV while the EV is plugged into the 30amp as you showed in one of your pictures). Works out to around $10 extra at $0.25/kwh. If you have a 200site park and 25% are doing this, that's an extra $500/day in electrical consumption.

Yah some good points. But a couple of counter points.

-When I am hooked to 120 volts our heat and hot water is 120 volts so that’s an additional load. (Our trailer uses boiler heat and hot water).
-On a typical 3 or 4 day stay we typically only charge one of those days. Or maybe a little bit the night before we leave to top up.
- I have never arrived at a campground with an empty battery anymore than I would arrive with an empty gas tank. So i am never charging from empty.
- Most campground owners understand exactly what kind of consumption and draw an electric vehicle is. They are very common here. Those that are concerned charge a fee. It’s not uncommon although as I said so far no one has charged us anything on a 30 amp site. They have on occasion directed us to certain sites though so maybe they have a technical reason for doing that.
- Those that are uncomfortable with any charging can simply not allow it. It’s nothing we have ever run into but we have heard of it. It’s best that they put that on their website though so people can make informed decisions.

As I said, generally speaking most campground operators are very accommodating and many have gone out of their way to insure a good charging experience, and yes sometimes for a fee.

Hope that helps.

[valhalla360]

Reisender wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:
Do you explain to the staff how much extra power you are using and what it is costing the park? Particularly for government parks, they may have no idea and effectively its driving up the cost for your neighbors.

If it's one in a thousand sites, your neighbors will never notice but when it hits significant numbers they will bear most of the cost as the park recoups power costs .

Do I explain? No. But EV’s are common here. Many times the park staff are driving them too so I’m sure they know what’s involved. And keep in mind that on 30 amp sites which is mostly what we rent it’s either the EV or RV not both so consumption isn’t that much higher. Probably 30 or 40 kWh over a few days. There are occasionally up charges although we have never been charged additional fees on a 30 amp site. That’s just luck of the draw though as I know some do. In quebec we stayed in a park that had signs indicating EV/RV combos had to rent 50 amp sites but there were none available the 5 nights we were there so he just told us to make sure we only plugged in one thing at a time. He didn’t charge us anything extra. We charged the first night and then topped up the day before we left.

We are seeing more and more parks put in a couple or even four centralized. 8 kw EVSE’s for charging and they just indicate that any EV charging must be done using those EVSE’s (Charge stations) and not on the sites. Some are stand alone and complimentary and some are networked usually thru FLO and typically charge a dollar or two an hour based on speed. On our last trip there were two new FLO units at the shower house which was maybe 4 or 5 sites from our site. I think it was 2 bucks an hour. We got set up on our site and I drove over and plugged in. It was all charged up by bed time.

If they provide dedicated EV charging stations, that's a different ballgame as the owner/manager has made a conscious decision to provide the service. If they spent thousands of dollars installing EV charging stations, I can buy the argument, they should inform themselves.

But in normal usage: Presuming the staff has any clue is wildly optimistic. If they are staff vehicles, they likely never see the bill. If you highlight the amount of power you are consuming and a rough estimate of the cost...a much better chance it gets back to the owner/manager who then can make an informed decision rather than just flying under the radar.

As far power consumption on a 30amp being similar...on a hot day, we are pulling around 12-14amps when the air/con is running and it typically cycles dropping to 3-4amps when the air/con is off. You indicated your telsa is set to pull 24amps as a baseline and presumably does that until the batteries are full:
- Let's say RV is 16hr at 14amps + 10hr at 4amps ~ 31kwh
- EV is 24hr at 24amp ~ 69kwh
- On a cold day (no air/con), RV only is ~ 11kwh and the resulting cost differential is much higher.

That's an extra 38kwh (best case scenario) and won't fill the car if you are coming in empty and splitting off some of that power for RV use (even more if you use the 15amp for the RV while the EV is plugged into the 30amp as you showed in one of your pictures). Works out to around $10 extra at $0.25/kwh. If you have a 200site park and 25% are doing this, that's an extra $500/day in electrical consumption.

[Reisender]

CA Traveler wrote:
Reisender, Thanks for all of your detained information.

My pleasure.

[CA_Traveler]

Reisender, Thanks for all of your detained information.

[Reisender]

valhalla360 wrote:
Do you explain to the staff how much extra power you are using and what it is costing the park? Particularly for government parks, they may have no idea and effectively its driving up the cost for your neighbors.

If it's one in a thousand sites, your neighbors will never notice but when it hits significant numbers they will bear most of the cost as the park recoups power costs .

Do I explain? No. But EV’s are common here. Many times the park staff are driving them too so I’m sure they know what’s involved. And keep in mind that on 30 amp sites which is mostly what we rent it’s either the EV or RV not both so consumption isn’t that much higher. Probably 30 or 40 kWh over a few days. There are occasionally up charges although we have never been charged additional fees on a 30 amp site. That’s just luck of the draw though as I know some do. In quebec we stayed in a park that had signs indicating EV/RV combos had to rent 50 amp sites but there were none available the 5 nights we were there so he just told us to make sure we only plugged in one thing at a time. He didn’t charge us anything extra. We charged the first night and then topped up the day before we left.

We are seeing more and more parks put in a couple or even four centralized. 8 kw EVSE’s for charging and they just indicate that any EV charging must be done using those EVSE’s (Charge stations) and not on the sites. Some are stand alone and complimentary and some are networked usually thru FLO and typically charge a dollar or two an hour based on speed. On our last trip there were two new FLO units at the shower house which was maybe 4 or 5 sites from our site. I think it was 2 bucks an hour. We got set up on our site and I drove over and plugged in. It was all charged up by bed time. Handy. Here is a pic. FLO seems to be getting pretty popular in these situations. They are super reliable and I can’t remember ever coming across a FLO station offline. We use a prepaid FlO RFID card but most people use the FLO app. There was a Rivian towing an airstream base camp at that campground and he was charging when I disconnected. I think he charged all night but he has a significantly bigger battery than us.



We did a local trip to silver star mountain where we did 4 days of hiking and they had two complimentary charge stations on the wall at the pit toilets. This is technically a ski hill but they have one parking lot set up as camp sites for mountain bikers and hikers. I think they were 7 kw machines. They had two more in another parking lot and I think they were 11.5 kw machines. (According to the app). They were also complimentary but were more directed at the skiers staying in the hotel. Here are a couple pics of the four charge stations in the parking lots. We used the two at the campground obviously.



We have seen these clipper units a lot in these situations My guess is they must be pretty tough all weather units. We have a little 12 amp unit at our house for our outside unit. These two are 48 amp units so 11.5 KW units.



Every campground does it different but there is usually some charging solution offered.

[valhalla360]

Do you explain to the staff how much extra power you are using and what it is costing the park? Particularly for government parks, they may have no idea and effectively its driving up the cost for your neighbors.

If it's one in a thousand sites, your neighbors will never notice but when it hits significant numbers they will bear most of the cost as the park recoups power costs .

[Reisender]

valhalla360 wrote:

Reisender wrote:

mkirsch wrote:
All this assumes the campground is wired up to standard.

I've been in campgrounds with some pretty sketchy wiring and some serious voltage drop.

True. But then again, the Tesla compensates for voltage drop and ramps down charging. An RV doesn’t.

True but a 30amp RV rarely pulls more than 50% of the 30 amps except for a second or so on start up of the air/con compressor. EVs max out the pedestals for extended periods of time. Proper wiring in campgrounds assumes not every aircon is running simultaneously (I believe they derate by 70% when accounting for this)...and many campgrounds are still pushed to the limit on hot summer weekends. A stray EV likely won't make much difference but dozens of them certainly can depending on the size of the park and condition of the electrical system.

Also, if the car is smart enough to dial back the amps, you now have 12amps at 106v (or something)...it's going to take 3 days to fill an 80kwh battery bank that is near empty.

Yah for sure I can see that. When we tour we are quite often 3 or 4 days in each spot anyway so it doesn't affect us much. Hike the hikes, see the sites etc.

More than a few times we have had campground staff put us in a site that has an extra 20 amp receptacle. Handy for us as we just leave the trailer plugged into the 30 amp and the car plugged into the 20 amp. When on a 20 amp circuit the car limits to 16 amps unless the voltage is low and them it limits to 12 amps. Here is a site where we did that.



I believe that was here close to comox.



Campground staff are generally pretty accommodating. Sometimes there is a fee although if its just a single TT30 plug on the site we have never been charged. If they have 50 amp sites they usually ask us to upgrade to a 50 amp site and then we just split the pedestal with one of these. The car gets its 24 amps and the trailer is free to use its 30. We use one of these.



If you are wondering what these smart adapters look like here is a pic. From left to right this is what you are looking at. The adapter plugs into the top of the EVSE. There are many more for dryer plugs, welding plugs etc etc but these are the 4 we use when camping.

-The tesla mobile charging cable otherwise known as an EVSE
-the 14-50 adapter which allows 32 amps at 240 volts.
-the 5-15 adapter that allows 12 amps at 120 volts
-the 5-20 adapter that allows 16 amps at 120 volts
-the TT30 adapter that allows 24 amps at 120 volts.



Here is an example of the low voltage situation. Here it is limiting to 18 amps but if it stays at this voltage for X amount of time it lowers to 12 amps etc. It does it in 6 amp increments.

Untitled by radar231, on Flickr

Anyway. Probably more info than anyone wanted but hopefully some may find it interesting.

[valhalla360]

Reisender wrote:

mkirsch wrote:
All this assumes the campground is wired up to standard.

I've been in campgrounds with some pretty sketchy wiring and some serious voltage drop.

True. But then again, the Tesla compensates for voltage drop and ramps down charging. An RV doesn’t.

True but a 30amp RV rarely pulls more than 50% of the 30 amps except for a second or so on start up of the air/con compressor. EVs max out the pedestals for extended periods of time. Proper wiring in campgrounds assumes not every aircon is running simultaneously (I believe they derate by 70% when accounting for this)...and many campgrounds are still pushed to the limit on hot summer weekends. A stray EV likely won't make much difference but dozens of them certainly can depending on the size of the park and condition of the electrical system.

Also, if the car is smart enough to dial back the amps, you now have 12amps at 106v (or something)...it's going to take 3 days to fill an 80kwh battery bank that is near empty.

[Groover]

Reisender wrote:

mkirsch wrote:
All this assumes the campground is wired up to standard.

I've been in campgrounds with some pretty sketchy wiring and some serious voltage drop.

True. But then again, the Tesla compensates for voltage drop and ramps down charging. An RV doesn’t.

Air conditioners and battery chargers may ramp up amperage to maintain wattage on low voltage. That could go into a death spiral on weak circuits.

[Reisender]

mkirsch wrote:
All this assumes the campground is wired up to standard.

I've been in campgrounds with some pretty sketchy wiring and some serious voltage drop.

True. But then again, the Tesla compensates for voltage drop and ramps down charging. An RV doesn’t.

[mkirsch]

All this assumes the campground is wired up to standard.

I've been in campgrounds with some pretty sketchy wiring and some serious voltage drop.

[Grit_dog]

Considering the vast majority of campground power (in my experience) is somewhere between somewhat run down and dilapidated, the prospect of a campground full of granola-mobiles pulling max juice out of an old system, just trying to let the smoke out of them, is not a very attractive scenario.
Maybe if you keep it to cool weather when no one is running their air conditioners and in the summer you sweat at night while everyone else is using their AC, it would work.
And by “you” I don’t mean YOU personally. But the royal “you” all.