Max amperage of on-board charger?

[owo]

I know the wattage of the on-board charger is 7.2kW which means 30A at 240V but could it pull e.g. ~35A on a 208V circuit (assuming the EVSE is rated for it)? Or would it still be limited to 30A (and therefore ~6.2kW at 208V)?

 

[JoulesThief]

I know the wattage of the on-board charger is 7.2kW which means 30A at 240V but could it pull e.g. ~35A on a 208V circuit (assuming the EVSE is rated for it)? Or would it still be limited to 30A (and therefore ~6.2kW at 208V)?

Design is limited by current. 30 amps, max. 240V at home, will charge at 7.2 kW. 208V, if really 208 and not sagged down to 200V by long wire run, close to 6.0 Kw charge rate. You can see this by the estimated completed charge time, quite easily. Most commercial buildings and EVSE that are level 2 will be 200 to 208V and 17 -20% slower to fully recharge.

 

[owo]

So future-proofing aside, the e-Golf won't benefit from an EVSE rated for more than 30A? Good to know.

 

[RonDawg]

So future-proofing aside, the e-Golf won't benefit from an EVSE rated for more than 30A?

Nope.

 

[GlennD]

I have a 40A OpenEVSE and it charged my eGolf at 30A. The car takes what it needs and it ignores the rest. The same EVSE charges my B250e at 40A. As long as there is enough current the car takes what needs. In my eGolf I had a 10A reserve that was not used.

 

[Voltron]

Remember: The charger is in the vehicle. All the EVSE does is tell the charger the maximum amount of current that can be drawn from the circuit. It's the charger's job to respect that and pull the appropriate amount of current.

 

[GlennD]

So future-proofing aside, the e-Golf won't benefit from an EVSE rated for more than 30A?

Nope.

With the exception of Tesla based cars the max charge is 32A on a 40A circuit. A 30A EVSE will handle most cars just fine. A 40A car will charge at 30A just slower. J1772 cars set the internal charger to match the available current

 

[rcworship]

I've got a 2015 SE with the 3.6kWh charger. Is there a way to upgrade that to the 7.2?

 

[RonDawg]

I've got a 2015 SE with the 3.6kWh charger. Is there a way to upgrade that to the 7.2?

You likely don't have a 2015 model. All US 2015 models had the 7.2 kW charger with CCS port. SE didn't come out until the 2016 model year.

And no there is no easy way to upgrade a 3.6 kW model to a 7.2 kW model. It's easier to trade in the car for a 2016 SE+QC, and probably cheaper too.

 

[Verbruggan]

So future-proofing aside, the e-Golf won't benefit from an EVSE rated for more than 30A? Good to know.

However the MEB for the ID will be. So if you are pulling a new 8-3 for a new circuit in the garage, plan on a 50Amp. Foresee people needing to upgrade their 100amp service to 200 or even adding a separate 100 amp service for that detached garage.

 

[JoulesThief]

So future-proofing aside, the e-Golf won't benefit from an EVSE rated for more than 30A? Good to know.

However the MEB for the ID will be. So if you are pulling a new 8-3 for a new circuit in the garage, plan on a 50Amp. Foresee people needing to upgrade their 100amp service to 200 or even adding a separate 100 amp service for that detached garage.

Plan on pulling a 6-3... any tight bend like an elbow in the run, in a garage will require 6-3. Plus it heats up less when you might run 40 amps on newer cars.