Doing so also allowed notifications to be pushed to the smartphone, informing charge status and when the EV9 had its fill of electrons from the Autel charger. If one chooses, owners can input the cost of electricity in their area to estimate how much they are spending on each charge (or cumulatively over a month). This is handy for budgeting and comparison purposes. The numbers you see in these screenshots are for Nova Scotia Power during the dead of winter. Unlike many public chargers, the Autel unit never failed or unexpectedly stopped working, providing the comfort of leaving the garage each morning in an EV9 with a fully charged battery. Sure, one must invest a few bucks to install the charger and then for its electricity use but, as a muscle car gearhead, I can tell you I’d be more than happy to spend the same cheddar on a home-based gasoline pump, especially if public pumps were scarce and generally didn’t work very well. Installing a Level 2 charger at home removes, or at least mitigates, several barriers to EV owner- ship; with this useful safety blanket, the EV suddenly becomes a viable option for some Canadians. After all, it doesn’t matter if one’s vehicle is fuelled by gas- oline or electricity – chances are most drivers feel secure leaving their home in the morning on a full tank. Statistically speaking, of course.
Installation began with local certified electricians wiring a N14-50 outlet in the garage, a task simplified by the presence of existing 40A service on the other side of the wall, used to power a hot tub by pre- vious owners of this home. Your writer values speed over spas, so the decision to use this already-present wiring was easy; it also cut the wiring costs to just a couple of hundred dollars. Your installation will vary, depending on the
charger’s distance from the main electrical panel and any upgrades required. The job at my house took less than two hours. The electrician inspected exist- ing wiring for robustness since a stove or dryer tends to draw power for relatively short periods of time while a Level 2 charger is active for hours on end. In this 10-year-old house, all was up to snuff. The Autel unit itself was a breeze to activate, requiring nothing more than simply plugging it into the new wall outlet and watching for a dance of green lights on its face to indicate it was ready to heave electricity into a Kia EV9. The decision was made to pair it with a smartphone, though some tinfoil hat types will not use this feature. However, doing so opens a wide array of options, including the ability to fine tune the number of amps it is drawing, start/ stop times, and the like.
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