Unpacking some EV misconceptions
Yesterday, I made the mistake of clicking on an xkcd Facebook post and reading some of the comments. Today, you get to pay for my indiscretion š.
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Ford is terrible at credential management (PAAK rant)
In general I like my Ford Mach-E (or Mustang Mach-E, or MME, or whatever), but every now and again I run into a rough edge because Ford is really bad at technology. Today’s rough edge is in how they manage credentials for the Phone As a Key (PAAK) feature. For those who aren’t familiar, PAAK lets you use your phone […]
Read moreNextHaus Alliance Sustainable House Panel Q/A
Last night I participated in a panel discussion around building sustainable homes that was sponsored by NextHaus Alliance, the folks who are building our passive house. This is totally why I was included in the discussion. It makes sense to put your customers in front of a bunch of people and have them talk about why they selected your business, […]
Read moreIs SPAN Panel the Wrong Choice for All-Electric Homes?
The SPAN IO Smart Electric Service Panel is a really neat approach to solving some electrical service load issues. But there are several drawbacks that make it the wrong choice in many situations. Especially all-electric homes.
Read moreA lot of that pivots around what you mean by “norm”, right Steve?
Every so often I see an opinion piece like the one by Steve Hanley at CleanTechnica (which TBF is a heavy copy/paste/echo job based on an opinion piece by Christoph Schwarzer) around why we should expect DC fast charging (DCFC) to become The Way we refuel battery electric vehicles (BEV / EV). I think that’s crazy talk, and have to […]
Read moreIllinois SB40 Mandates EV Ready Residential Housing
Starting January 1st, 2024 new residential housing will need to include the infrastructure necessary to enable owners to easily add Level 2 (L2) EV charging (SB40). That’s true for single, and multi family housing. I think that’s great. Not everyone in the state is on board with that approach though. Which is how we get to this post :).
Read moreRisk Is Hard: EV + Garage Edition
A friend recently mentioned some hesitancy around parking an EV in their attached garage. I get that, kind of, we all probably remember the problems that Chevy had with their Bolt EV. They actually said out loud ādonāt park it in the garageā. But itās important to keep some context around the actual risk. While EV do occasionally light on […]
Read moreOverheating Kia/Hyundai J-1772/Charge Port Problems
There seems to be a strange number of people who are trying to DIY a fix to the charge port overheating problem on Kia/Hyundai GMP platform cars like our EV6. Normally I’m totally down with fixing things yourself if you can, but all of these cars are under warranty right now. There is no reason to try to DIY a […]
Read moreKia/Hyundai – The Update File Is Incompatible With Your Vehicle
Every few months Kia provides a navigation update for our EV6. The update process is very 2010, but I’m not going to complain. I’m mostly just glad that they provide the updates, which often include improvements and bug fixes for the media interface, not just the maps. The process is fairly simple, as long as you have a PC or […]
Read morePassive House Electrical System Design (BETA)
I’ve talked through some of the preliminary research and outputs for the electrical system in our passive house, but I haven’t mentioned the requirements that drove the decision making or explained the proposed design in detail. We’re going to fix that.
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