fooljoe said:
EVDRIVER said:
In five years the expensive EVSE you bought will likely be far less expensive...
+1. EVSEs are
incredibly overpriced right now. In time, they should approach a cost hardly more than the cost of the copper in them. Considering that you can buy the parts to make your own for less than $200
retail right now, just imagine how low the material cost is to a company like GE, who has the gall to sell their buggy unit for $1000+.
I agree they seem overpriced and I don't like the prices either but from my conversation w/a AeroVironment guy at Alt Car Expo earlier this year, my recollection is that he said that they're barely profitable for them.
As for your $200 claim, I doubt it. I added up the assembled and tested components prices, shipping at http://code.google.com/p/open-evse/wiki/Ordering" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and cheapest cable at http://code.google.com/p/open-evse/wiki/J1772CableSources" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. The total was ~$334.
Now, it seems people have contributed free labor to this project (labor at for profit companies isn't free) and there's not really any overhead that a company would have. I don't know how much testing and certification this has undergone if any (e.g. UL listing) either.