The Importance of a Level 2 Charger for Electric Cars

When considering purchasing an electric car, one crucial aspect to consider is the type of charger that comes with it. A level 2 charger is essential for charging your car at home, as it uses 220 volts and can charge your car much faster than a 110-volt charger. In fact, using a 110-volt charger would take two to three days to recharge a fully depleted Tesla, whereas a level 2 charger can do the same task in just five to seven hours.

One of the benefits of a level 2 charger is its ease of use. The autel charger app is free and comes with an adapter, allowing users to monitor their car's charging status remotely. This app also provides warnings if something is not safe for charging, giving users peace of mind while they charge their cars. Additionally, the charger itself is a computer interface that interacts with the car, ensuring a seamless and efficient charging process.

However, one potential drawback of level 2 chargers is their electrical requirements. They require 220 volts to operate, which can be a challenge for those who live far from their garage or have limited access to power outlets. In some cases, homeowners may need to hire an electrician to install a new electrical system or run a conduit under the house to support the level 2 charger.

Fortunately, the previous owner of my home had already taken care of this issue when they gutted and rewired the house with a 220-volt electrical system. This made it possible for me to install a level 2 charger without breaking the bank or requiring extensive renovations. In fact, the cost of the charger itself was only around $500.

The Level 2 Charger Review

I recently had the opportunity to test out an all-teel charger, and I must say that I was impressed with its performance and ease of use. The charger arrived with an adapter and instructions, making it easy to set up and begin charging my car immediately. The autel app provided real-time updates on my car's charging status, as well as warnings if something was not safe for charging.

One thing to note is that the charger does require 220 volts to operate, which can be a challenge for those who live far from their garage or have limited access to power outlets. However, this is a minor drawback compared to the many benefits of using a level 2 charger.

Range Driving with Electric Cars

For those considering purchasing an electric car but are unsure about range driving, it's worth noting that most charging occurs at home rather than on the go. According to studies, nearly 90% of electric cars are charged at home, and most owners rely on these level 2 chargers to get their daily mileage.

If you do plan to use your electric car for long trips or range driving, it's essential to have a reliable and efficient charger that can keep up with your needs. Level 2 chargers like the one I tested out are well-suited for this purpose, as they provide fast and convenient charging on the go.

But What About Infrastructure?

While level 2 chargers are becoming increasingly common, there is still a need for more widespread infrastructure support. Many electric car owners face challenges finding charging stations along their daily commute or when traveling long distances.

However, it's clear that electric cars are here to stay, and as such, it's essential that we invest in building out this infrastructure. With the help of companies like Tesla and others, there is growing investment in the development of high-speed charging networks that will make long-distance travel much more convenient for electric car owners.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a level 2 charger is an essential component for anyone considering purchasing an electric car. Not only do they provide fast and efficient charging at home, but they also offer convenience and flexibility on the go. While there are some drawbacks to consider, including electrical requirements and potential costs, these can be mitigated with careful planning and investment.

As a seasoned mechanic, I believe that level 2 chargers like the one I tested out are worth considering for anyone looking to upgrade to an electric car. With their ease of use, convenience, and efficiency, they make electric cars a viable option for many drivers.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrev up your engines watch pouring rain outside today so I'm gonna show you some great products that I've tried out you might find very useful but let's forget useful for the time being and talk about something that's fun and it's in this trunk I've been trying out dozens of electric bicycles and here are my two winners for Rhode Island you notice they fit in the back of the Matrix quite nicely no individual people have individual needs right these two bikes are perfect for myself and my wife and I can explain why these faults I can fit two of them in the back of the mattress now granted it's heavy it's a heavy job getting them out there's no arguing that but you can figure out the little wiggling there we go admittedly I was lazy and I left my hulkman charger in there I should have hidden it under the back seat or something right that's it fell down hey well we're at it best jump starter I ever had these Hoffman these things last they can charge all kinds of stuff there's so many different ones out there I've tried out dozens of them it's the best one I found it's not cheap but it works a year later when you need it it's going to jump start a car it's not going to go click click click oh gee the battery's no good this particular one's called vitalin and really once you get the gist of it it's pretty easy putting them back together Falls in half then it just locks now that part's done we'll put the kicks down and then the handlebar there it goes you lock it in place you got to make sure it's open then it locks this snaps on and that locks it in place except in the pedals you can see the pedals fold in too see how nice they are they fold in and they fold out you want them flat so they don't make any holes and they fit in a smaller space then you just push them in and then they lock in place okay so why do I like this fit on bike there's a lot of reasons one is it's got a big battery I have ridden this thing upwards of 70 miles when I use the paddle and pedal assists that's a long distance to go and of course that's with pedaling pedal assist you can go 8 000 nozzle just the paddling if you want you're not going to get stranded anywhere and if you want to use just the assist I thought I'd go about 25 26 miles in hilly country using just the battery right but I mean it's got pedals so you can pedal it when you need to now I've had this thing for a year and a half no problems nothing's broken on it and here's some tips about electric bicycles they do way more you got to be strong but since they weigh more see the brakes all right they are hydraulic brakes down that brake fluid they have mineral oil inside so solid disc brakes can really stop all that weight but here's a cheaper electric bike it just has a mechanical brakes with a cable they don't work that well also like this because it has real gears as you can see it's got eight speeds you know climbing driving all you want you don't want to get one that's got three speeds four speeds or five speeds that's not really enough I mean if you're going to use the electric motor all the time that's another story but eventually you'll run out of power and you're gonna have to be paddling right if you go really far distance it also has dampening front shocks I like that it's comfy ride this particular one just has a hard frame there's no shock in the back the more modern ones also have a mono shock here and they ride even better than these but come on now it's a bicycle it's not a Cadillac you don't expect a really smooth ride and it handles really well and if you really want to go hard you can even turn the adjustments on the shocks and you can lock them out so it's like solid with no shocks so it's a real tight handling it's going to ride a lot rougher but it's got that capability too particular design has handles I love because when you're riding the Palm on your hand sits on this nice little part it's much better than regular grips I like it and if you're just using electricity it's got a nice thumb throttle that's the throttle to make it go I gotta say I'm really impressed by this bike but my wife hates it she's barely five feet tall she says way too heavy It's Too Tall so her bike comes out next and as you can imagine our bike's a lot smaller but still it's not super light but it's a lot easier to pick up and as you can see it takes up a lot less space too you can probably get three of these in there but just like the other bike pretty easy to snap it together you lock this in place and we'll put the kickstand down now just like my bike it's got these fold down pedals to take up even less space it also has hydraulic brakes mineral oil so it stops fine but it's got a smaller battery that fits in here and it only has pedal assist this is just a belt this only gives boost to the motor in the back when you're pedaling which actually my wife likes better I don't like it but she likes it why does she like it because she's been on my bigger bike so when she pushes that throttle electric motors have instant torque they take off sometimes the wheels pop up scared the heck out of it she likes this that you can just turn it on and as you pedal it accelerates and it's got three levels level one level two level three which you can set on it so you can get firmer assist or less assistance you just does it on one so even though they're kind of radically different bikes they fit us each so you can sit on this being only five foot one everything's a good size four she likes the smaller Wheels because she doesn't like the big giant wheels it makes you feel uncomfortable this is more like hurl 10 speed that you used to have that you bought in high school but me I like my bigger villain right big better it goes a long time nice big wheels you can ride in the dirt you can go through Fields right it's an excellent bike seats adjustable for all kinds of people ensure this little Fido electric bike puts them off for me but my wife loves it and honestly these are great we can throw in the back of the Matrix go wherever we want take them out ride around come back and then get home and air conditioned Splendor of The Matrix now the next thing I'm talking about may not be as much fun as I suppose you can have fun with it but it is this more scope now when I was young these borescopes good ones cost thousands and thousands of dollars but times have changed it's veggies on Amazon dubstick 71 bucks no it's only limited by your imagination right but the reason this is a good one is it has one camera on the front another camera on the side and the other side another so it has three cameras the problem is say you're going in a hole and you're looking around you're either wiggling the thing all around or if you got to look up you put a mirror on it or the really expensive ones it still cost over a thousand bucks they're articulated where you got a little controller like doctors doing surgery and this end will wiggle up and down to see things but often you don't have the space to wiggle it up and down so if you have three cameras you can see everything without having to wiggle the stupid thing around you can see since it has three and lenses and stuff I'm having to wiggle around you just push this button down here watch there's one View there's the other View and there's the third view nobody wants to be wiggling the wires around looking you put it in place and you can see it's got a super loud cable you could use it for looking in sewer systems for leaks if you wanted you know once you're in place you can see forward and you can see all the way around I mean it's a phenomenal device you can put them in engines he's cleaning or whatever right you can use these for so many things let's say you got a refrigerant leak you could put color dye in a system this will find a collar die I can't fit my head in half of those spaces in a car this tiny little thing will go anywhere and for 71 bucks hey this is the most impressive one I've found for a lot of reasons one is I hate the ones that work on your phone with the app because the apps don't work half the time this is a standalone device and it's 71 bucks hey yeah go ahead you can buy the twenty dollar one on Amazon it comes with the cord and software that goes on this but it's not going to work like this it's not going to have three cameras a long cord this thing really has an awful lot of usages and I I've had no problems at all with it yet now does it a lithium ion batter in it so you never have to buy batteries I don't know what the lifespan is at I've only had it for three months realize I've got like 25 of these things from different companies and I'm always trying them all out so far this is the best one that I've found and it's called the ds450 simple to remember you can find it on Amazon anywhere right you're looking for a little borescope this thing is quite good especially in that price range like I said something like this years ago would have cost thousands of dollars and it would only add one camera wouldn't have had three in them now the last thing I'm going to talk about is this autel level 2 charger for electric cars now if you're going to buy an electric car you have to have a level 2 charger so you can plug this into your car and charge it at home you can forget using the 112 volt charger that comes with the car you plug into your wall 112 volts it takes forever if you had a Tesla would take days to recharge it right this is a level two and it uses 220 volts which is going to charge yet much much faster they're very easy to use they come with an autel charger app it's free put it on your cell phone and it operates the whole system you're basically smart Transformers it's a computer interface with your car check to make sure it's ready for charging if something's dangerous they won't charge you they'll give you a warning this particular one was around 500 bucks now there's only one downside of these things and that's that they're 220 volts so you gotta have 220 volts running from your main power box this is a secondary power box here that goes down into the seller it goes through the kitchen floor underneath of the seller past my little filming area here you wonder how I film this is how I film it goes under through here to the denizens in the basement wife is watching something it goes all the way to our main 200 amp fuse box well that's a long way a way out of it my house because the garage is over here we got to go the whole way around the front the power lines are up here and the power lines come in right here I got back at the house so there's the main power coming in I mean you could stick it here but then you'd have to drive your car on the lawn I don't think the wife would go for that because you couldn't run a conduit the whole way on the outside but I think the wife would go for that even less now luckily for me the previous owner of this house did the whole house over gutted it and while it was gutted he didn't have an authality at a different charger but he had it wired for 220 volts here because he had a Tesla and so he was charging his electric car so I didn't have to pay now he did it when the house was gutted you can imagine today you'd have to tear the walls apart and it would cost you a lot thousands and thousands of dollars so you might see where your power line is the power one of these things because they used an immense amount of power and you can't just get an extension cord baby this thing's got to be hardwired 220 volts buying this a 500 bucks or so spit in a bucket it's the electrician's bill that you're going to have to pay if you're a power supply is far away from your garage so just realize that but as for the all-tel charger itself I got no complaints it works perfectly fine everybody whines about oh well what kind are you going to use look they come with the Charger and an adapter you got different kinds you just have different adapters it's not that big of a deal this is a few on the road you don't have one that adapter fixed but it's your own house so leave the adapter at your house if you need an adapter right man it's a good system if you want to get an electric car you have to have one of these or you're going to be plugging it into 110 volts and in the case of a Tesla if it was fully depleted it would take two to three days to recharge the thing so if you say you got a fully depleted Tesla well it can take between 5 and 12 hours one of these to fully recharge it now of course me I'm saying hold off on electric cars who knows it's going to be an infrastructure form are they going to make better batteries than they have today but if you want to be a guinea pig and buy an electric car you're going to have to buy one of these Chargers if you're going to do any type of range driving because you know are you going to sit for two three days to charge your car up are you going to sit for five to seven hours California where they've done study something like 90 something percent of the charging is done at home and they're almost all using these level two Chargers and hey if anybody's got a product they think it's worthwhile for the world send them to me I test them out honestly I charge absolutely nothing to test them out to see if things are worthwhile for other people to buy so if you think you've got something send me one I'll try it out just realize a mechanic for 55 years I'm going to actually try these things out if you're brave and you got a good product hey send me one so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that Bell\n"