I Got da Power!

This morning, after stopping at the Walmart in Queensborough, we parked at the New West City Hall and walked down the hill. I hadn't plugged in Kimchi, our EV, for a couple of weeks. We have mostly done little, local errands and hadn't travelled far. My battery was still at 84%, but I thought I'd top it back up to 100%. On the modest 240V changer there, I knew it'd probably require the whole limit of two hours. It did. In fact, when I hiked back up there, it was still a few percentage points shy. Yet, the charger's timer showed I'd been plugged in a few minutes over the two hours of permitted parking. Because a Nissan Leaf rolled into the parking lot, I didn't wait for the last two percent.

As the weather is now warm, I expected to see my Kona Electric's range sit at 500 km; however, at 98% it stood at only 488 km (303 miles). That's still quite a bit better than the EPA rating of 258 miles on a charge!

The other electrical event of today wasn't as easy. I took out the wall light switch in the front closet, so I could install one of the TP-Link wifi switches I recently blogged about. Well, I shouldn't have assumed that this, mid-1980s, building had the necessary wiring. Home automation wall switches require the cable have a neutral wire. This is because even when the switch is off, it must maintain enough electricity to keep a wifi link active. Damn. I cannot use the new switch here! I can buy an alternate type of switch or simply buy a wifi bulb for that walk-in closet. Or, I might do nothing.