Just added second EV- What is my best charging option?

[RallyG]

I have a 2022 Taycan CT (and love it). I just added a Q4 E Tron (so far so good).

What is my best charging option? Is it to use the supplied Audi charger and run another 50 amp circuit or to buy a new charger that can charge both vehicles? If I buy another charger and charge at the same time will be be at 50%? What is the best buying option for another charger for both.

Ideally I would like to charge both cars at the same time at 100%. As an aside, I know the Porsche charger will work on the Audi (they look identical except for badging) but it will not reach the Audi by a couple of feet.

Much appreciated.

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[DerekS]

If it were me I'd buy two of the Tesla universal wall connectors.

Set them up to load balance.

 

[daveo4EV]

If it were me I'd buy two of the Tesla universal wall connectors.

Set them up to load balance.

+100 for this - a load sharing arrangement is the best approache - Tesla Wall Chargers, WallBox or ClipperCreek all support load sharing.

 

[Hanny]

If it were me I'd buy two of the Tesla universal wall connectors.

Set them up to load balance.

would these both have independent feeds from dist board, if only one supply then the load would have to be shared/halved to feed both at the same time?

 

[DerekS]

would these both have independent feeds from dist board, if only one supply then the load would have to be shared/halved to feed both at the same time?

As I understand it you wire them to the same breaker if you want to load balance. For example let's say all you have space for is a single 60 amp breaker. You'd have both wall connectors share it and they could run up to 48amps if you're charging one, but would slow down to 24/car to share when both are charging.

If you have space for two 60 amp breakers you don't need to load share, both could run up to 48 amps independent of each other.

 

[daveo4EV]

consult an electrician - but essentially - sharing or sepraate breakers is not the issue - it's total capacity the two(or more) chargers are sharing

I have each of my 3 Tesla Wall chargers on a 60 amp breaker and circuit - but all 3 are confirgured to be "shared" and paired with each other - and they are configured to share 80 amps of total capacity - which is the capacity (100 amp breaker) of the feed to the sub - panel

as to how the separate wall chargers are wired, that is in essence an un-important detail - the importable bit is that you configure each of them to know about each other - and configure each of them for their maximum power and the total capacity being shared between the separate chargers.

 

[Pereiks]

May not be the advise you need, i have tesla and taycan, and use tesla charger for both and charge each car every other night, which seems to work really well and saved on hustle on setting up second charger/outlet.

 

[bn8959]

It may be different in the US, but in the UK an EVSE must have a Current Transformer (CT) on the main feed from the grid. This allows the EVSE to monitor the total power draw for the house and limit it, eg if you turn ovens and kettles on so you’d exceed you main incoming feed, the EVSE will dial back.
If you have two EVSE then this can allow power sharing. Each would need its own internal breaker, but they can be configured to not cause an overload on your main breaker.

 

[daveo4EV]

It may be different in the US, but in the UK an EVSE must have a Current Transformer (CT) on the main feed from the grid. This allows the EVSE to monitor the total power draw for the house and limit it, eg if you turn ovens and kettles on so you’d exceed you main incoming feed, the EVSE will dial back.
If you have two EVSE then this can allow power sharing. Each would need its own internal breaker, but they can be configured to not cause an overload on your main breaker.

different in North America…no overall load monitoring of the household - just master breaker for the whole house - and independent breakers for each dedicated circuit - building codes/inspections keep things in line in terms of "oversubscribing" service, and the main breaker on the house will trip if you'rd pulling too much total power for the whole house.

 

[Warrior 6]

I have a 2022 Taycan CT (and love it). I just added a Q4 E Tron (so far so good).

What is my best charging option? Is it to use the supplied Audi charger and run another 50 amp circuit or to buy a new charger that can charge both vehicles? If I buy another charger and charge at the same time will be be at 50%? What is the best buying option for another charger for both.

Ideally I would like to charge both cars at the same time at 100%. As an aside, I know the Porsche charger will work on the Audi (they look identical except for badging) but it will not reach the Audi by a couple of feet.

Much appreciated.

I use my wife's Audi charger that was supplied with her 2021 Audi etron. Works perfectly for her car and my Taycan GTS.

 

[JustWatching]

We have a Chargepoint. If you really have to charge both at the same time, follow suggestions posted, but...

We have a Q8 e-tron and of course a Taycan.

I switched to the Chragepoint because I assumed the PMC+ would eventually die and the Chargepoint had a 25ft cable which reaches all 3 spots in our garage.

It has been a little over a month since the Q8 arrived, we don't have a set schedule for charging and we have never had to "fight" for charging time but of course if you are driving 100+ miles every day maybe you do.

 

[lizned]

TL;DR
3 EVS on one dual clipper creek works great. I suspect charge time anxiety drives many to overestimate their charging needs. YMMV literally .

We have 3 EVS - Taycan, Mustang Mach-e and Polestar 2. We have two installed evses in two separate garages. One is the Ford evse (32 amp) that came with the Mache-e the second is a Clipper Creek dual EVSE HCS-D50P which is a shared (has two charging cables) L2 evse running at 40 amps off of a 50-amp circuit.

We have 2, 50-amp circuits that can support 3 simultaneous charging sessions. Here is what we have found:

The second garage with the Ford evse is never used!

The three cars share the garage with the dual clipper creek. The dual clipper creek unit will split the charge power between the cars if they are both charging simultaneously but will also dynamically ramp up or down as one car in the pair finishes or starts.

What this means is that we are pretty much able to keep the cars charged with no problem (granted we only have to charge a couple of times a week). We all like to keep our cars above 30% SoC and probably average 250 miles per week each.

There are two main things that we have observed:
1) The timing of needing charge is different per person - so we rarely even use the splitting capability.
2) When we do charge simultaneously the different scheduling models/setup of the cars work in our favor. Polestar charges to target straight away, Mustang Mach-e has a schedule and Taycan has a minimum limit and a schedule. So, what this means is that the overlap time where the charging is shared is actually very small because:

• If it is Polestar and Taycan or Ford then polestar is usually done before Ford or Taycan start.
• If it is Taycan and Ford then the Ford starts charging at start of schedule while Taycan waits until later in the schedule and calculates start time based on needed charge and available charge

So bottom line we can manipulate the charging schedules to rarely do any shared charging.

If I did it again, I would go with the same setup. While the 2nd evse is never used it is nice to know it is available if we ever needed it. I actually plug into it about once per quarter to make sure that it still works and that my driver side port still works.

 

[daveo4EV]

dynamic split load charging is the way the go with mulitple EV's - plug-in, walk away

NOTE: the only reason for dynamic split load is to save the cost/hassel of mulitple dedicated circuits - 3 60 am circuits would be 180 amps - more than most North American homes entire service capacity - but 3 EVSE's sharing a single 60 amp circuit is very feasible, cost effective and practical for charging 3 EV's (unless all of them are at 5% battery on the same day).

as noted - I have 3xTesla Wall Chargers sharing 100 amp breaker (80 amps total EV capacity) - and I often charge 2 or 3 EV's over night - it works great.

 

[Hanny]

All feedback examples look great, but take particular note of the post ref main UK single phase incomer, if recently modern!, would have a 100amp breaker for the whole house.

The other factor that may be in play is that in UK, there are restricted off-peak time periods which some power supply companies limit consumers to achieve a lower tariff.

We have x2 EV‘s, single charger (Ohme Home Pro (7kw) with 8m tethered cable), on Octopus Energy‘s Intelligent tariff (7.5 pence per kw between 23:30-05:30, note that cost is for any power used in the home during time period) and both are daily drivers, we just alternate each evening/day.

There are loads of different chargers, tariffs etc to choose from but my advice would be to check if you have a charging budget/cost per day, intended daily mileage for both and then select which ever supplier that has a tariff that’s suits …and try out just x1 chargers first, if it does not work then look into a second charger install, advantage is that you can get a qualified electrician’s appraisal with your first install to confirm if you are able to install/use a second charger.

Note, there are a number of UK properties that are NOT suitable for a single charger install with out a wiring upgrade/renewal which could add an unexpected cost.

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