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Old 07-29-2021, 04:26 PM   #1
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"No car charging."

A few days ago, I made reservations for my return trip from California to Illinois this fall. On some KOA sites, I saw a new notation on just about every type of campsite listed.


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Pull Thru End Site, Full Hook Up, 50/30/20amps, No Cable, Satellite Friendly, FREE WIFI, Picnic Table, Fire Pit , Gravel, NO TENTS, NO CAR CHARGING, 1 vehicle per site (please make a note if you have an additional personal vehicle and need overflow parking for an additional fee)

(Underlining mine..)


It doesn't affect me, but I can see how a park full of EV toads would cause problems if allowed to charge there.
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Old 07-29-2021, 05:43 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SLOweather View Post
A few days ago, I made reservations for my return trip from California to Illinois this fall. On some KOA sites, I saw a new notation on just about every type of campsite listed.





(Underlining mine..)


It doesn't affect me, but I can see how a park full of EV toads would cause problems if allowed to charge there.
As the future moves upon us, they will have to change their tune. Right now there are really no EV's that can be towed 4 down. Some say their are ways and Tesla and others are working on the idea of regen charging while towing, but I think we are a ways from that. If you ever drove a Tesla and taken it down a long hill, and watched it charge itself, think of towing it behind a motorhome. They need to work on how to regulate the charge so it's not at maximum, like it can be going down a long hill, software to understand when the batteries are full or near and how fast they are charging so not to over charge and overload. Charging an EV battery generates a lot of heat.

But when the time comes, expect to pay for it. The solution would be to put a supercharger in the parking lot of the campground. My friend has a Tesla, and plugged into 35 amps in his garage it takes all night to charge, and then some. At a super charger, we can plug it in, go use the john, by a pop, eat a bag of chips and 20 minutes later we got a full charge and are ready to go. Timed it one time, took my gas hybrid on a trip, and by the time I stood at the pump, went in, used the john, bought a pop and a snack, got my receipt, and settled back into the car it wasn't much faster.
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Old 07-30-2021, 05:18 AM   #3
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Our plug in does just that, plugs in. We didn't need to add anything to the garage to simply plug it into the nearest outlet. We could have installed a system with more charging capacity but never felt we needed it. We've even talked about using it as a toad because we could just plug it in at the campgrounds each night. I think that campgrounds have figured this out and don't want the added expense of people charging their cars using their pedestals for free. I think they probably will eventually find a way to allow car charging with a fee or a meter. Our experience has been that the plug in charging doesn't use anywhere near as much electricity as just having the RV plugged in and an AC running. Still, if I had a campground, I wouldn't want people charging their cars just yet. Not until I figured out what it would cost and what the burden would be on the existing infrastructure.
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Old 07-30-2021, 05:22 AM   #4
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I don't expect a campground to put gas in the toad, I wouldn't expect them to charge my electric car either.
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Old 07-30-2021, 05:22 AM   #5
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Campground electrical systems are built to power a full complement of RVs.
At full capacity, many RV parks have marginal capacity, with today's RV power use.

Add to that maybe 10% of the occupants having plugin cars on charge and the system is going to be overloaded.

I can understand them not wanting to upgrade the whole parks electrical system for plugin cars. There is no profit in doing that.
If they had the power available, they would add sites. Sites bring in money.
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Old 07-30-2021, 05:45 AM   #6
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Originally Posted by amosnandy View Post
As the future moves upon us, they will have to change their tune. Right now there are really no EV's that can be towed 4 down. Some say their are ways and Tesla and others are working on the idea of regen charging while towing,
Why shouldn't the customer adapt to the realities of their choice and not shift that burden to others? There aren't gas and diesel pumps at campgrounds. Your expectation is a small business should make a substantial initial investment then deal with the maintenance and upkeep of a sophisticated piece of high power electronic equipment. And soon enough the inevitable tracking and payment of road tax collected- for customer convenience.

There's a gas station on the corner of any major intersection, often several. If we're in this headlong dash to electrify transportation why no national policy to upgrade the electric infrastructure to supply charging in a relatively traditional manner to those locations? It seems ridiculous to abandon that and shift the burden to totally unrelated businesses.

As far as charging while towing- I don't see a big problem with charge rate, etc., it's done with software and would use the same algorithms independent of power source.

But you're losing sight of logic, you're going to use one of the dirtiest highest maintenance sources of power to charge a clean vehicle? Extrapolate that out a few years and you're going to use an electric vehicle to charge another electric vehicle while it's being towed? With mechanical loses do you realize you have a net power loss doing that?

Maybe Tesla sees the illogic and is only placating the masses with their "research".
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Old 07-30-2021, 06:03 AM   #7
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Campground electrical systems are built to power a full complement of RVs.
At full capacity, many RV parks have marginal capacity, with today's RV power use.
Yes they are marginal today. I have a friend who works as maintenance at a KOA. Most f his time is changing beakers, power receptacles, etc., because people ar running multiple A/C units and shutting things down.
He also helps with upgrades to the wiring, but it takes time.
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Old 07-30-2021, 06:10 AM   #8
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But you're losing sight of logic, you're going to use one of the dirtiest highest maintenance sources of power to charge a clean vehicle? Extrapolate that out a few years and you're going to use an electric vehicle to charge another electric vehicle while it's being towed? With mechanical loses do you realize you have a net power loss doing that?
EVs are not exactly clean. They burn fossil fuels just like a DP. The only difference is the EV burns burn its fuel at the power plant while the DP burns it in its diesel engine.
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Old 07-30-2021, 06:14 AM   #9
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Interesting discussion. Just tossing around some random hypotheticals, if an RV park was built for 100 sites with 50A service to each, each site is counted at 12kVA (NEC requirement - used to be 9.6kVA, but it's been increased). The demand factor for 36 or more sites is only 0.41, so that's 12kVA x 100 x 0.41 = 492kVA minimum just for those sites, which doesn't count park lighting, offices, pool equipment, and so on.

A Tesla Supercharger supposedly can charge at up to 250kW. Not counting efficiency or power factor, that Supercharger draws half what the park service is designed for all by itself, though for a relatively short time. But the service to the park would have to be increased or another one run just for that charger.

Slower charging would make more sense. It would reduce the demand at the expense of increased charging time. Demand is the killer it seems to me. Power companies don't like high demand for short periods, and whack customers with demand charges to discourage it.

A separate car charging area with a few slow chargers (Level 2, at 9.6kVA?) would be more likely to happen at an RV park I would think. For cars. And with a credit card reader.
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Old 07-30-2021, 06:46 AM   #10
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I am sorry, but I don't get the REGEN charging while towing a TOAD.

As I understand it, the REGEN mode uses the motors as a generator, and the REGEN is a braking mode for the EV. So, is your plan to only charge the EV TOAD when you are trying to stop? If so, that is going to require software in the tow vehicle to tell the EV to initiate the REGEN cycle and get my huge RV stopped using this little EV as the brake. Doesn't seem like it would be real helpful to charge the TOAD on a long highway drive.

If you are planning to go into REGEN mode the entire time you are driving the RV, you are going to kill an already lousy fuel mileage.

When I was working an on-campus job at LSU back in the 70s, they told us to get two old vehicles off the campus before a big football game. One was a very heavy construction-type vehicle with a running engine, but no brakes. The other was a GM Carry-All, the forerunner to the Suburban that was not running, but had working brakes. The Carry-All was not a light vehicle by any means, but there was probably a 5 to 1 or higher weight ratio between the two. It made perfect sense to a bunch of college guys. We strapped the two together, and took off across a campus teeming with students on foot. I was in the vehicle with brakes, when the guy driving the construction vehicle wanted to stop, he waved his hands out the window and I stood on the brakes, dragging us to a stop while leaving black stripes from my tires on the pavement.

I have a vision of an RV and a TOAD recreating that drive, with the hand waving hopefully controlled by an electrical signal supplied by the RV to the TOAD.
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Old 07-30-2021, 06:50 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KanzKran View Post
Interesting discussion. Just tossing around some random hypotheticals, if an RV park was built for 100 sites with 50A service to each, each site is counted at 12kVA (NEC requirement - used to be 9.6kVA, but it's been increased). The demand factor for 36 or more sites is only 0.41, so that's 12kVA x 100 x 0.41 = 492kVA minimum just for those sites, which doesn't count park lighting, offices, pool equipment, and so on.

A Tesla Supercharger supposedly can charge at up to 250kW. Not counting efficiency or power factor, that Supercharger draws half what the park service is designed for all by itself, though for a relatively short time. But the service to the park would have to be increased or another one run just for that charger.

Slower charging would make more sense. It would reduce the demand at the expense of increased charging time. Demand is the killer it seems to me. Power companies don't like high demand for short periods, and whack customers with demand charges to discourage it.

A separate car charging area with a few slow chargers (Level 2, at 9.6kVA?) would be more likely to happen at an RV park I would think. For cars. And with a credit card reader.
250kw is just insane. Can you see the refueling,or shall we say, recharging stations of tomorrow? I'm thinking the Buckee's of tomorrow, all built next to the utility company's switch yards.
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Old 07-30-2021, 08:06 AM   #12
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I was down in Ft Myers in December. Someone with an EV would charge their car every night in the vacant site next to us. Mostly a camper in long-term metered site.
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Old 07-30-2021, 08:38 AM   #13
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Carybosse,

Regen happens whenever the batteries aren’t energizing the motor(s). The vehicle is either being driven by the motors or the motors are being driven by the vehicle as generators.

Ecars and hybrids don’t really “coast” - they’re turning momentum into electrons. Regen braking increases the load on the generators in response to brake demands. If demand exceeds the amount of braking available from the generators the wheel brakes kick in automatically. This happens when the battery is full, when vehicle speed is too low to drive the motors fast enough to generate,etc.

So, towing will turn gasoline (or diesel) into electrons when they get the system worked out. Probably at a pretty good hit to the motorhome’s fuel efficiency.

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Old 07-30-2021, 08:46 AM   #14
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Glad to see mostly common sense replies. RV parks are not built for charging cars, they are for RVs. Cars pull too many amps for long periods of time. Creates heat to the infrastructure and damage to the weakest link.
If you want an EV charge it at charging stations. An RV pedestal is not designed to have a 50 amp RV and a 30 amp car pulling from it. If I am not mistaken code says use one plug only choose 50, 30 or 20 amp receptacle only. I will be keeping my diesel pusher and fueling it at service stations.
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