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As an EV6 owner, I've been looking for a charging solution that meets my home charging needs and is portable and easy to use.I would like to share my needs with you here and hopefully get some valuable suggestions and recommendations.

The problem I am facing is like this: I often need to charge my EV6 EV at home, but sometimes I also need to charge it when I am travelling outside, such as in a shopping mall car park or at a friend's house. Therefore, I needed a charger that is suitable for home charging but also portable and easy to carry around for me to charge in different scenarios.

During my search, I learnt that the EVDANCE Portable/Home 2 in 1 Level 2 EV Charger 40Amp might be perfect for my needs. It is known to have a charging capacity of 40Amp, which provides a fast and efficient charging rate, allowing my EV6 to be fully charged quickly. Additionally, it is designed to be a portable charger, making it easy to carry and use. This means that I can easily charge my EV6 whether I am at home or travelling outside.

I would like to ask if any other EV6 owners have used the EVDANCE Portable/Home 2 in 1 Level 2 EV Charger 40Amp and what is your experience with it? Does it really have the characteristics of both home and portable? Can it meet the demand of fast charging at home? Is it easy to carry and use when going out?

Meanwhile, if there are any other chargers recommended for EV6, I would be very grateful if you could share and provide suggestions. As an EV6 owner, I am very much looking forward to hearing your opinions and experiences, thank you!

Huuo loortu
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For most people who have the ability to have a permanently installed charger at home - i.e., you have a garage or safe off-street parking where you can permanently install EVSE (a.k.a., a charger), permanent installation is preferred. It simply provides a better, more reliable setup than a "portable" charger. Receptacles larger than 20A are simply not generally designed for frequent plug/unplug and also not generally designed for long-term (i.e., several hours at a time) usage.

Yes, having a "permanent" charger and a "portable" charger does mean an extra equipment cost. But that is a few hundred dollars - something on the order of 1% of vehicle cost. Not much really in the grand scheme of things.

In addition, I think the frequent use of "portable" chargers on the road - i.e., plug in at friends and family or work where there is no "real" charger available is going to be relatively minimal in years to come for most people who have a permanent EVSE installation at home. Most charging will end up being:

  • At home - if your car is at home 10 hours a day, you can typically charge 100 miles or more, and that's on a 20A 240V circuit. If you have a larger circuit available then you can charge more. But even 100 miles is more than enough for most people on most days, unless they are delivery or Uber/Lyft drivers.
  • At work - another several hour chunk of time. Many employers will offer charging and can easily take care of most commutes.
  • Publicly accessible high-speed charging - e.g., Tesla Superchargers. This is how you handle long trips. This is also the solution for most people who can't charge at home.

Which really leaves the "portable" charger as an emergency backup in case you get to very low charge level and are not near a Supercharger. Ideally it should end up used about as much as a jack and spare tire. Really.

Things will actually improve a lot over the next few years as:

  • Public high-speed charging gets better - i.e., everyone else gets closer to the Tesla experience.
  • More friends and family get EVs. Seriously. If you visit someone today in your EV 100 miles away, you need to either stop at a Supercharger or use the "portable" with your host's 15A 120V receptacle and hope it can charge enough to get you home. But 10 years from now it is likely your host will have their own 20A 240V or faster charger, with everyone using the same connector (NACS in US/Canada) and charging your car will be no more of a hassle than charging your phone.
manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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  • You had me until the "charging your phone" analogy. What a disaster. I take my own 65W GaN charger with me everywhere. It charges everything, fast. Nobody has that sh*t at home. You ask for a charger you get their child's 10 year old 0.5A cube or a $15 in-wall Amazon special. And that's been 15+ years in the making. I want to believe car-charging will be in better shape in just one decade. But come on. – jay613 Feb 22 '24 at 07:26
  • I think charging as a guest at another home will be a thing for some time, until everyone has EVs and chargers. When my parents visit me, they charge on the road, but plug in at my house (about 1/4 the price at the moment, better when I get solar, & the top 20% of the charge is slow anyway, so you don't lose as much from charging at 2.4kW). The portable AC charger stays in the car, and gets used overnight at mine. Such chargers aren't much use as emergency chargers, unless there's a decent charging station within a short drive and you're empty, because they only put in about 10 miles per hour. – Chris H Feb 22 '24 at 15:05
  • @jay613 there's a fundamental difference (which backs up your point to some extent) - even your fancy phone/laptop charger still draws a small amount of current compared to what a normal domestic socket can deliver, while a big EV charger draws more than some whole-home supplies, let alone what you can plug in. So you end up with households that have an EV and parking having a good charger, others having nothing (if you're lucky, somewhere to plug in a portable charger) – Chris H Feb 22 '24 at 15:10
  • @ChrisH My point though is that things will change. Not much more than a century ago (I can look up exact dates, but not right now) standard 5-15 receptacles weren't very common. Until they were. Now you can 100% expect that you can go into any home or office anywhere in the US/Canada (except total off-grid low-voltage people) and plug in anything: a phone charger, a computer, a vacuum cleaner, a power tool, etc. EVs are not at that stage now, but in a decade they likely will - not "everywhere" but in a very high percentage of homes with off-street parking - i.e., all the suburbs at least. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Feb 22 '24 at 15:22
  • @jay613 But as a counterpoint, I was on a local trip recently (local subway) and some people were worried about there phones going dead before they got home. I had a battery pack with me but didn't have the right cable, but I knew someone else in my group did and problem solved - two phones charged up enough during a few minutes (really) of subway riding. We're down to 3 connectors for nearly all phones now (Apple, USB C, older USB micro). We're down to 2 connectors (NACS, CCS) for nearly all car charging. People are getting heavy-ups or load shedding and installing EVSE. It just takes time. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Feb 22 '24 at 15:25
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    @manassehkatz-Moving2Codidact it mainly comes down to a debate about the adoption rate of EVs, because (having just enquired about the price) no one is going to install dedicated EV charging hardware at home for occasional visitors. – Chris H Feb 22 '24 at 15:31
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    We have an advantage here, because our supply is 230V and there's one standard plug, the BS1363 13A, which was standardised in 1947 and widely adopted starting from post-war rebuilding, so everything from a phone charger to a clothes dryer, or a car, plugs in to the same thing (anything higher-powered, like cookers, are almost always hard-wired; CEEform plugs are used for industrial applications and caravans). That makes the socket I fitted for mowing the front lawn very handy for car charging – Chris H Feb 22 '24 at 15:42
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First, some nitpicking about vocabulary:

  • The battery charger is inside the car

  • The EDVANCE device is not a charger, it's a charging cable. It's a simple device that contains a sensitive GFCI for protection, a microcontroller, and a relay. When it's plugged into the car, the microcontroller will detect the car, talk with it, and enable the relay to let power through. The plug on the car side of the cable is not energized unless it is plugged into the car. The microcontroller then tells the car's charger how much current it can use.

I often need to charge my EV6 EV at home, but sometimes I also need to charge it when I am travelling outside, such as in a shopping mall car park or at a friend's house

For example here (France):

  • Public DC fast chargers have their own cables and connectors, you just bring your car

  • Public AC charging stations have no cable and either Type 2 socket (7-22kW) or 230V 16A socket (3.5kW) and you need to bring your cable.

  • When charging at a friend's place, unless they have an EVSE "wallbox" with a Type 2 socket, you'll have to use a standard 230V 16A socket and the charging cable limits it to 2.5kW.

Therefore you need to have two cables in the car: a type 2 cable and a standard 16A charging cable.

I have no idea what country you live in or where the plug at the end of your EDVANCE cable is supposed to go, but if it's a 40A socket, that's probably not a common socket you'll find everywhere.

I strongly recommend to look around, perhaps use a service like chargemap, and figure out what kind of sockets are offered in these charging spots you plan to use.

Is it easy to carry and use when going out?

I don't have this one, I've got the one that came with my Nissan.

The box is big, clunky, heavy, and it hangs from the wall socket so it better be fastened to the wall properly. The EDVANCE has an even bigger box. The cable is rather stiff and unwieldy. There's no place in the car to put it so it has to go behind a seat or something. Overall, I would rate user experience at a solid 1/10.

With a type 2 cable, it's also inconvenient due to stiffness but at least there's no huge box so it can be packed into a neat coil and... stored behind the other seat in the car. Rating 5/10.

bobflux
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