Two EV’s in a 3 car garage

[brutewolf]

I’m looking for ideas of how to charge 2 EV’s in our garage. I’ve got a 2021 MS with a wall connector. Been working great through two MS’s for almost six years.

My wife will soon be taking delivery of a 2022 BMW X5 45e PHEV.

There’s a few obstacles to overcome to charge it every night in our garage.

1) The BMW’s battery takes 6 hours to charge, so sharing the wall connector isn’t really an option.
2) Her spot is in the middle of a 3 car garage, so there’s no obvious wall on her side to place an outlet.
3) Moving her car to the third spot is not an option.
4) The BMW charge port is on the front left of the vehicle. (Which may work to our advantage, but...)
5) The wall in front of her car is actually two large doors for the heater and hot water tank.

We’ve thought of perhaps running the cable along the ceiling and letting it dangle down where she could simply drive up to it and plug it in. Also, simply placing the 240V outlet somewhere safely around the HVAC closet, although that will take some creative arranging.

Any thoughts?
Is there a thread somewhere of people sharing their garage photos?

 

[LoudMusic]

Do both cars have to charge every night? Often times I don't even plug in my car. But I'm also not commuting right now.

There are charging options, such as the Tesla Wall Connector, that can be configured in groups to share a single circuit. They will balance available power and charge attached vehicles appropriately. Once one is done that charger's power will be added to the remaining charging vehicles.

You could also just have multiple EV charging circuits run.

I've thought about having the cable hang from the ceiling as well. It could dangle to full required length, but have an additional hanging hook to put the plug end on when not charging so that it's "less" in the way, and doesn't lay on the ground.

 

[RTPEV]

Do both cars have to charge every night? Often times I don't even plug in my car. But I'm also not commuting right now.

This was initially my thought too, but upon further reading and reflection, the PHEV probably does have to charge every night (and was explicitly stated in the OP), which would be a problem in that there would be no free nights that the Model S could charge.

My wife and I have had various combinations of EVs and PHEVs (Chevy Volt). Even when we had two Nissan LEAFs we could effectively share a single charging station, as her LEAF would only take an hour or two to recharge so I could always just plug mine in before bed. When she got the Volt though, that thing was a SLOOOW charger and many times it wasn't done charging until after I wanted to retire. So I built a J1772 Hydra (2-headed EVSE) that allowed both cars to charge simultaneously, or sequentially (simultaneous was just fine for us because both our cars only supported 16A and the unit could support 30A). (Side note: now that we have to long distance BEVs, we again could easily get by with just one EVSE since we can easily manage staggering which nights we charge each).

It's a shame that the BMW takes 6 hours to charge (maybe typical use won't be that much) -- that seems like a ridiculously weak on board charger for 2022! But anyway, I hear the plight.

One solution is to do what I did and go with a dual-headed J1772 option (and use the J1772 adapter with the Tesla). You can build your own like I did, but while a nifty project if you're in to that kind of thing, it's not actually cost effective to build in quantity one! I noticed that Grizzl-e offers a 40A dual headed EVSE for $899: Grizzl-E Duo – GRIZZL-E

I'm trying to envision your garage layout. If the cars are from left to right: Model S ; BMW ; third spot then you could locate the charging station on the left wall and the 24' cables should reach both charge ports. If the Model S is on the right side, well, that's a bit more challenging.

 

[brutewolf]

Yeah. I think the BMW X5 is the best plug-in hybrid out there, but they’ve been criticized for their slow charging. (It’s a huge-by-plug-in-standards 24 kWh battery, so it deserved a better charger.)

I’ve already got a wall connector which lines up perfectly with my car, so I won’t be changing that. I’m trying to find more ideas for suspending a cable from the ceiling. Any thoughts?

 

[RTPEV]

So the question is really not so much about 2 EVs in the garage, but how to charge a car in the middle of a 3 car garage without an easy way to mount something on the wall in front of the car? Or am I missing something?

Here's a few ideas: EV Home Charging Station Optional Accessories | EVOCHARGE

I've also seen some people with some homebuilt contraptions like this (although this is apparently one you can buy). The ones I've seen were a wooden arm mounted to a swivel hinge, but essentially provided the same kind of function: