Lucid Air Charging

sandvinsd said:

Did your DA give any specifics about the home charger unit?

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I didn't question her about that.

I do know the unit will require a transfer switch, and I don't know if that's already integrated into the wall charger. We already have a transfer switch for our whole-house generator, and I asked our electrician about integrating the wall charger into that system. He said he would have to see the circuit diagrams and installation instructions for the wall charger and probably have to talk with a technical advisor at Lucid about the feasibility of ganging the two back-up systems for the house.

We have a propane tank as there is no piped gas where we live, and in the 9-day outage after Hurricane Irma we drained the propane tank (which was the largest building codes would allow) and had to wait two days for a refill. Using one of our EVs as a backup power source would have been a godsend. My partner was in the end stages of posterior cortical atrophy at that point and could not be evacuated. Two days without water, air conditioning, and elevator availability for a non-ambulatory, incontinent patient was rough going. This notion of bi-directional charging might seem like a marketing gimmick to some. For others it can make a true difference in managing things.

We have had solar in Dan Diego since 2004 and it has paid for itself nicely. However, they didn’t have back-up batteries back then. We do have a disconnect where we the solar is operational when the grid is down with a couple of plugs so it can act as a generator. But that only works when the sun is out. Otherwise, I have in the past plugged the leaf into an inverter to provide a few outlets at night. Our Leaf has bidirectional capabilities, but there is no EVSE that can pump it into the house which I have seen marketed. I am really looking forward to the Air and the potential to use it to power the house. If I could actually perform energy arbitrage, I could really make the car pay for itself! SDG&E has some huge electric differentials. For the rate plan we are on for EVs, it is $0.093 per kW at night and $0.565 during the peak 4p-9p. At 45 cents per kW in the exchange, i have been told by battery backup installers, that one can only zero out the peak and you are not allowed to do the actual arbitrage. BUT… the CA electricity market is so screwed up, and they are pushing EVERYTHING to run on electricity, it is only going to get worse. At some point the loonies in Sacramento are going to say ”oh sh**, this is not working” and allow us EV owners to push into the grid at peak.

Of course, peak times will change. In 2004 I mused what would happen when everyone got solar? Peak was from 10a-6p, which was sweet For me with solar. Fast forward to today. They have jacked up the power rates so high that everyone (who can) has solar and CA pays other states to take their power during the day. Peak is now in the evening and we are a ‘Ihird world nation state” which wants us to “flex your power since it cannot reliably keep the grid up. In 14 years when ICE cars are outlawed and everyone is charging at night, i imagine peak will be after midnight. I shudder to think what the rates will be….

The average electric rate in Florida is 11.89 cents / kWh. We pay 3 cents extra because we are on a rural electric distribution system that buys its power from a power generation company, and we do not have a peak/off-peak rate structure.

I see no problem in using the Lucid as a back-up power source during an outage. However, I wonder if the added recharge cycles from using the car daily for leveraging peak rates would have any appreciable effect on the battery pack's service life.

Now that engineers have ten years with Teslas under their belts, they have been surprised by seeing less battery degradation than was expected. I've seen some reports that Tesla packs lose about 6% of their charge capacity in the first few years, but the curve flattens significantly after that, and cars in fleet service in Europe that discharge and fully recharge constantly are seeing extraordinary life from their Tesla packs.

I'd really like to know more about Lucid's batteries, in particular the differences between the Samsungs in the Dream Edition and the LG Chems in the rest of the line up. The press releases several years ago mentioned specifically that the proprietary chemistry Lucid co-developed with Samsung was aimed at increasing the ability of the batteries to take fast charging without degradation. No such mention was made about the LG Chem partnership that was announced four years later. Is that because in the ensuing four years LG Chem had made its own progress on this front, or do the Samsung batteries have better resistance to fast charging?

Here's what Lucid's branded public EV chargers will look like.