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If it's going to run, no reason not to store it in the car battery.
While it's true it's running anyway, any load you put on the generator is going to cost additional propane vs. simply idling waiting for a load. This is particularly true for the car which is a substantial load.
While I have no idea what the exact numbers are, from what you said about fuel consumption it's about 1.3 gallons of propane to charge the car from 20% to 100%. That's, what, $4.80? Whereas it's about 0.5 gallons of gas to charge it in e-Charge mode, which is about $2.
Grid power is of course cheaper than either one. Electricity is about $0.18 / kWh hereabouts, so charging from the grid is about $1.35 for me. Google says NOVA is more like $0.13, so maybe $1.
It's a trivial amount of money any way you look at it, of course, and it may be that your wife just wants pure electric in the morning regardless.
Definitely like the Bosch unit. May buy it for my wall mount and use the stock Porsche charger for the portable option and just keep it in the car.
The stock Porsche charger is pretty bulky compared to a Turbocord. I bought a Turbocord for the portable option, and I'm keeping the Porsche unit on the wall.
In hindsight, it was probably stupid of me. Where you're nearly the ideal usage case for on-the-road charging, and Ace's wife would absolutely benefit from a charging cord at work, almost all my trips are under 10 miles and begin and end at home. The reality is that I'm unlikely to use the Turbocord more than 4-5 days a year.
Turbocord seems to be the ideal for charging on the run. Relatively low cost. Small. Long cord. I wish the J1772 coupler wasn't all plastic. The plug on my Porsche unit locks in to the car like a tick on a dog. I don't know if the same will be the case with inexpensive aftermarket equipment.
While it's true it's running anyway, any load you put on the generator is going to cost additional propane vs. simply idling waiting for a load. This is particularly true for the car which is a substantial load.
While I have no idea what the exact numbers are, from what you said about fuel consumption it's about 1.3 gallons of propane to charge the car from 20% to 100%. That's, what, $4.80? Whereas it's about 0.5 gallons of gas to charge it in e-Charge mode, which is about $2.
Grid power is of course cheaper than either one. Electricity is about $0.18 / kWh hereabouts, so charging from the grid is about $1.35 for me. Google says NOVA is more like $0.13, so maybe $1.
It's a trivial amount of money any way you look at it, of course, and it may be that your wife just wants pure electric in the morning regardless.
We pay about $0.115 per kwh (all-in) here in the summer period. It's about $0.02 lower in the winter months.
LP is about $2.00/gallon here.
There isn't a lot of load vs consumption data for various rpm points on the generator, just 50% and 100%. So there's no real way to know how much it consumes feeding the battery. Regardless of cost, we're talking about 5-10 power losses per year, on average. So it's not a huge deal.
That makes it a lot more competitive. I searched on LP prices and clearly came up wrong. I buy propane now and then for the torch my wife uses for glassworking, but I don't really pay attention to the price, and I'm sure it's different when you're buying in bulk for a big tank.
I know it's not a big deal any way you work it, I'm just a bit compulsive about working out costs.
Gus, I was at the dealer today. They had a couple of newly-arrived 2015 PSeH in stock. They all had the same J1772 as mine. But none of them had the extra NEMA pigtail that was in my kit.
I tried out the Turbocord today. It's a plastic J1772, but so is my regular cord. In any case it seems to grip just as firmly. The angle of the Porsche J1772 is slightly more ergonomic, but otherwise the differences seem trivial.
There's some play. The Porsche plastic J1772 won't move once it's engaged, but the Turbocord J1772 has a little wiggle. Wiggling it doesn't affect charging. If I depress the release button, the car does stops charging, but the car won't let go unless I use the remote.
It's not as close fitting as I'd like, but it doesn't seem to be something to worry about.
This came with the Fisker I bought last week - it is in like new condition as it was purchased by the dealer to include with my car. I have no use for it.
09-03-2014, 10:03 PM
