ITestStuff said:
For the 6.6kw charger, are you planning on having a charging station installed at home, or will use the 120v unit that comes with the car to do all of your charging? There's zero benefit with this 6.6kw option if you do all charging on 120v.
Well, it's obviously true that there is zero benefit if you do
all charging on 120v, but your statement overlooks the real benefit to the 6kW charger. That comes if you are 30 miles from home and have gotten the Low Battery Warning. There is a public charging station only 3 miles out of the way, so that is where you go. You figure you are going to need to add about 6kWh to make it comfortably (without crawling in at 15 mph). If you have the 3.3kW charger you are going to be sitting there for nearly two hours. With the 6kW charger, you will be on your way in an hour. Even better than 6kW, of course, is the ten minute or so Quick Charge you could get if you happen to have a charging station around that provides it. And there will be more of them in the future, so at some point you are likely to wish dearly that you had the port. You can't add it later, so get it now.
Even if you do charge at 240v at home, the 6kW charger doesn't make much difference there for most people. Do you really care whether it runs for 3 hours or 5 hours in the middle of the night? A few people do, if they have a 4-hour Super Off Peak electric rate. And a few other people care who run their car down to Low Battery every day and want to take it someplace in the evening. But they are the exceptions.
I have a relatively slow 240v charging station (12A EVSEupgrade) so the 6kW charger does nothing for me at home, but I still chose to pay extra for it. That is because I did have to charge my first LEAF a number of times away from home, and 3.3kW feels incredibly slow if you are just sitting there waiting for it.
Ray