Charging An Electric Car With A Petrol Generator: Here’s how it’s done [Video]
Electric cars are gaining acceptance in the country. More manufacturers are foraying into the space. Range anxiety has been an integral part of EV ownership since inception. The evolution of technology and battery capacities has managed to bring down the intensity of this among EV buyers. However, we continue to come across incidents wherein faulty tech or compromised charging infrastructure cause trouble (and anxiety) to EV owners. Such cases are the most common in remote locations. People have over the years, devised ways to bypass this crisis. An interesting one is by using a petrol generator.
This renders the claims of ‘ saving petrol and going green’ pointless. A video, uploaded by Sinto Antony on his YouTube channel, shows the vlogger and his friend embarking on a road trip in their Tata Tigor EV. They were headed to Vagamon, a hill station in Kerala.
After covering 90 km, they pulled over to charge the car. They recharge it to 84% and continue their drive. However, they were in for some drama this time. They noticed a more rapid fall in charge (battery percentage) now. They soon reached their destination and found out that the car had just 26% charge left.
Vagamon doesn’t have proper EV charging stations and the same posed a challenge. The vlogger says that he chose the location deliberately to test the capabilities of his car.
He further says that he wanted to check the feasibility of charging an electric car with a petrol generator. The video shows the car being charged with a generator. It is unclear if the driver brought the generator with him or got it arranged from the place they were staying at.
One of the main challenges faced by the Tigor owner here was earthing when he tried to charge the electric car with the petrol generator. They were using a 3KW generator to charge the EV battery. To make things safe, they fixed a metal rod into the ground. They used wires to connect and plug the three pins of the Tigor EV’s home charger to the switchboard.
They then started the generator and turned on the switch. The electric sedan’s charger showed no error and soon began charging the car. If the earth wire was not connected properly, it would have shown an error in the charger.
The vlogger then shows the instrument cluster of the Tigor EV. The car started charging with 26% left in the battery. It was topped up to 36% within an hour. This shows that the rate of charging was relatively slow. It, however, fulfilled its purpose.
Though the electric car involved in this case was a Tigor EV, the same can be done with almost any electric car. Many modern electric vehicles come with the Vehicle-to-load (V2L) charging feature. It allows EVs to power external devices using their own battery’s stored energy. The batteries in such cases support bidirectional charging.
The Hyundai Creta EV comes with V2L capabilities, so does the Tata Curvv EV. Even the recently launched BE 6 and XEV 9e also support V2L. V2L can be a good option in cases such as the one discussed here. With a V2L-capable vehicle around, the Tigor EV can be charged easily and safely.
Other than charging electric vehicles, V2L can be used to power electric bulbs, toasters and other appliances. As battery sizes increase, the efficiency of V2L also increases.