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Charging an eco-flow power station from an XC40 P8

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2.2K views 3 replies 2 participants last post by  Stephen Cerruti  
#1 ·
Hi everyone,

I am considering buying an Ecoflow Delta power station to tide us through interruption and when out and about.

Does anyone know how long they would take to charge via the 12v socket. They make mention of some other port, an XT60 barrel connector or something but sifting the web for info is hard with every result coming up on the EV charging the car topic.

So I thought I would ask here if anyone has experiences with these units or their like and the potential pitfalls.
 
#2 ·
10 hours Source

The ecoflow delta will charge in 10 hours from a car outlet at 8 amps. The XC40 will deliver 10 amps so this should be okay.

However: The vehicle must be in drive or comfort mode for the outlets to be powered. Source There are additional warnings.

The XT60 connector is the plug that plugs into the ecoflow. Some people wire directly to the 12v system, especially if they are combining with input from a solar panel in which case they add a simple junction box.

I'm not suggesting you do this. 12v systems in EVs have proven problematic for multiple brands including Hyundai and Tesla. Tesla went as far as replacing the traditional 12v battery with a lithium one and is moving to a 48v system in the cybertruck. Hyundai advised drivers to unplug all accessories and disconnect any third software party access to the car to prevent 12v power drain. If you kill your 12v battery you end up needing to charge that battery from another source for 30 minutes before you can drive or even charge the main battery.

ICE overlanders near me are reductant to connect their battery boxes to their vehicles and van lifers tend to wire batteries to a heavy duty or secondary alternator though they tend to have bigger batteries.
 
#3 ·
Thank you so much for the considered reply Stephen… it certainly seems a tad more complicated than I assumed. I didn’t know that these sockets relied on a separate battery. I assumed they all drew power from the big battery!
I guess I will have wait for reverse direction flow to make it to the compact cars in future models and then it should be ok?
 
#4 ·
It is possible, though not likely in the next few years, we could see retrofit products for vehicle to home. Currently there isn't a big enough market.

The biggest possibility is via a company like Witricity. Witricity, a wireless charging company, worked with Volvo on an experimental program that equipped XC40s with wireless charging. This was aimed at looking at real use of fleet (taxi) vehicles. Witricity says their equipment is V2H capable so it's not a complete stretch that a company could come up with a retrofit system that ties into the vehicle power to provide backup home or even grid power.

The real problem is that there are no real standards in this space. The Hyundai group offers a V2L (vehicle to load) adapter that plugs into the CCS port. Ford offers a home charger and Home Integration System that costs about $4000 and can only be installed by one provider. Hope comes in the realization that electrification of vehicles will benefit from using vehicle batteries as grid storage. We may see government incentives to speed adoption of a standardized technology.

Another thing to consider is the elephant in the EV room, Tesla. On March 1st is was reported they could have V2H within 2 years but that Musk is generally against the idea. Source This article also has a good overview of V2? systems available and planned.

Finally, here is an article about modifying a Tesla to power a house. They wired a 2000w inverter directly to the 12 volt battery. (Drawing the equivalent of over 16 accessory plugs running at 10 amps, I think.) In the XC40 you would still need to keep the car on (comfort mode) and the manual disallows the use of the 12 volt battery terminals for anything but recharging the 12 volt battery. Note that they ruined their 12 volt battery and voided their warranty.