Charging my EV

An EV that can Level 3 fast charge on the road and a home parking situation that allows you to charge overnight makes EV charging simple. Also, not stopping for gas anymore has benefits.

More on my Kia EV6 here.

It’s a lot of power!

Moving a vehicle takes a lot of energy. The big positive for petroleum fuel is that it’s extremely energy dense.

When you charge an EV with a level 2 home charger, when it powers on its drawing into your charger/vehicle as much power as your whole house was drawing as much power as your house plus both your neighbours combined!

We have a household electrical use meter. A few lights, WiFi, home security, etc. is a load of 0.5 kWh. The clothes dryer, air conditioner and stove all add about 2 kWh each. The highest we’d seen the meter was 11.5  kW demand one Sunday with all of those appliances going, plus the microwave (there’s a10kWh alarm – I turned off!). One hot Friday night in August we got home from the movies and plugged in the EV6 and drew 15.47 kW demand!

Some Battery Principles

Yes, the battery can degrade! And it’s the most valuable part of the vehicle!

That said, a battery of that size doesn’t degrade in the same way a smartphone’s can because of the affordances of the non-pocket-sized design, thanks to active cooling/heating and smart charging. Kia warrantees the battery out to 100,000Km. After that, I’m on my own.

The other thing to understand is charging speed.  All modern batteries have a Battery Management System (BMS) that slows down their charging around 75% because of what I call the crayon box problem – that is, it’s easy to jam the crayons into the crayon box right up until the last few, when it’s much harder to find a spot for the remaining crayons. With battery charging this affects the speed. The lesser issue with a full battery is the sophisticated battery management logic might also be avoiding cells that have questionable health, but when the battery is charged to 100% it’s forced to use cells it might otherwise be sparing.

This is why I have the EV6 set to charge to a maximum 80%. This is also why you often hear of the EV6, EV9 and the Ioniq 5 & 6 charging described as “10% to 80% in 18 minutes on a 350 kW fast charger”. 18 minutes is fast! But that’s also the battery’s speed sweet spot.

Charging Terminology

Here’s a summary of North American EV charging levels

Level 1 (120V AC)

• Power: ~1.4 kW
• Speed: ~5–8 km of range per hour
• Use case: Overnight trickle charging at home or emergencies
• My EV6: 10% to 80% charge time, about two days!
• I leave the Level 1 charger in my car as the emergency, very slow, charger.

Level 2 (240V AC)

• Power range: 3.3 kW ? 19.2 kW depending on charger and vehicle onboard charger (OBC) capacity
• Speed range:
  • Lower end (3.3–6.6 kW): ~15–40 km of range per hour
  • Mid-range (7.2–11 kW): ~40–70 km of range per hour
  • High-end (19.2 kW): up to ~120 km of range per hour (rare, mostly high-capacity home installs or commercial chargers)
• Kia EV6 / Hyundai Ioniq 5 has a 11 kW onboard AC charger, so they’ll take full advantage of most Level 2 setups.

Level 3 / DC Fast Charging (DCFC)

• Power range: ~50 kW to 350 kW (depending on station and vehicle support)
• Speed: 350 kW charger (with 800V EVs like EV6/Ioniq 5/Taycan): ~1,000+ km/hour peak (but only for part of the charging curve)
• A must have for a road trip. This is the EV feature I recommend anyone who is considering an EV insist on (or buy a hybrid). If you know why a Level 2 charger is all you need, you don’t need my advice.

All batteries are direct current (DC) but power is distributed as alternating current (AC) because it’s easier to transmit. A big development in EV’s ~20 years ago was the concept that the vehicle carries the AC:DC converter, the onboard charger, to simplify the charger and interoperability. With the onboard charger important care for the vehicle is rolling around with the vehicle.

Then came DC fast charging. The voltage is much higher and the AC:DC conversion required is now heavy-duty, and because of this is the conversion is part of the charging infrastructure, not inside the car. The car needs to trust the charger more and coordinate more. It’s also more expensive.

A Level 1 charger can be lifted and installed with one hand, a Level 2 needs two hands, and a Level 3 needs one small crane.

Oh, and the Tesla charge connectors versus J1772 and CCS1 connector. North America is moving to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS). NACS is better. The best example being J1772 supports Level 1 and 2, but the “combo” J1772/ CCS1 connector is needed for Level 3 – where NACS is the same connector for all 3.

Tesla deserves credit for getting their network in all the best spots first – like the Trans-Canada highway.  

This is why I have an A2Z NACS to CCS adapter. Glad the dueling standards is over. It’s regrettable that it happened.

Public Charging

It has a deserved bad reputation. But it’s only getting better, and in the greater Toronto area, it’s been pretty good.

For good or for bad, it’s tied up with the “app economy”.

All the charger networks operate by having the driver download an app, enter credit card information, and somehow associate you with the charger you’re standing in front of and how to bill you.

Most charging networks insist on you carrying a balance (reducing their credit card merchant fees, and, maybe you’ll abandon your balance) and there’s a promise of cross-network access from most networks – but I’ve only tried it once and was not surprised it didn’t work.

I mostly use Charge Point, as it’s the network deployed at Brock University and City of Burlington locations. Charge Point offers a tap card if you don’t want to use a smartphone/app (or want a backup).

Charging at Brock University works well for me, as there is a set of Level 3 chargers. If I ever forget to charge overnight, I’ll stop at the DC fast charger for 10 minutes, maximum. At Brock, that’d be about $6.

Free charging was pretty cool when it was a thing, but it probably needs to go. Where I live in Burlington, EV charging is free! But, [https://www.burlingtontoday.com/local-news/burlington-to-monitor-ev-charger-use-before-setting-new-fees-10952810 ](Burlington city council is considering setting a price for EV charging). It’s hard to justify property taxes subsidizing EV charging at this point. One EV’s charging session could be a regular household’s full day of use! It’s also a deterrent for EV chargers being installed in more locations, because they can’t compete with free.

I do try to grab a free charge whenever I’m near a free city charger, while I can.

Home Charging

It’s pretty simple to plug the EV in at night and have the vehicle ready to drive its full distance the next day. My EV6 even lets you schedule the climate control to start while it’s plugged in (Yes, lots of vehicles have key-fob or app-based remote start, but it’s nice that EV’s momentary status as a “household appliance” lets you simple schedule it, without extra services and I simply don’t like empty vehicles idling, because at best 10% of the engine’s energy is going to climate control, here, it’s 100%).

My commute to work and back is 150km, round-trip. It takes about 40% of the battery capacity (it used to take 30% of my Mazda3’s fuel tank).

I bought a United Chargers Grizzl-E Ultimate 48A charger. Firstly, it’s quality Canadian product (along with [the Classic) and secondarily, it can give my EV6 its maximum 11.5kWh. It’s faster than all the public Level 2 chargers I’ve used.

I chose the Ultimate because of, well, a coupon, and the “smart” features allows me to set a schedule and monitor things on my phone. Those are thing most EVs can do with their onboard software too, but happy to have the Grizzl-E do it (and Hyndai/Kia, anything app-based requires a monthly service fee).

Once I bought the Grizzl-E Ultimate charger, I discovered that there’s a sophisticated web interface too. However, the Grizzl-E Ultimate charger’s web interface does not require a password to access it by default. Even if the owner sets a password etc. for their account with the smartphone app, the charger is fully controllable by anyone on the same network until a password is set! I contacted United Chargers and they promised to at least update their documentation (no action yet).

I also created an integration into Home Assistant. My Home Assistant custom component for Grizzl-E chargers, which notes the security issue!

As for the installation, I hired an electrician to run the 30’ *4-6* AWG (some thick copper!). It was a short run from the breaker to my garage. As the family’s bikes occupy my winter garage spot in the spring and summer, I made a modification to our 18-year-old of garage door to allow the cable to pass under it without wear and keep the critters out.

Since I made my little notch and pivoting brush, I’ll “shame” some local high-voltage charger cables being abused by the garage door.

Home Charging: Cost

First, it should be noted that Ontario’s electricity prices are artificially low for all Ontarians. Ontario electricity prices are not just low for low-income households or light users, like in other jurisdictions. In Ontario, tax dollars subsidize all home electricity bills.

Burlington Hydro is one of six electricity distributors with not just Time of Use (TOU) billing, but  also has Ultra Low Overnight (ULO) prices, deliberately targeted for home EV charging.

Time of Use (TOU)

Periods	Day of Week and Time	TOU Prices (c/kWh)
Off-Peak	Weekdays 7 pm to 7 am, and all-day weekends and statutory holidays	7.6 cents per kWh
Mid-Peak	Weekdays 7 am to 11 am, and 5 pm to 7 pm	12.2 cents per kWh
On-Peak	Weekdays 11 am to 5 pm	15.8 cents per kWh

Ultra-Low Overnight

Periods	Days and Times	ULO Prices (c/kWh)
Ultra-Low Overnight	Everyday 11 pm to 7 am	2.8 cents per kWh
Week-end Off-Peak	Weekends and Holidays 7 am to 11 pm	7.6 cents per kWh
Mid-Peak	Weekdays 7 am to 4 pm and 9 pm to 11 pm	12.2 cents per kWh
On-Peak	Weekdays 4 pm to 9 pm	28.4 cents per kWh

So, should we switch? Well, it’s not that simple.

The EV6 draws a lot of power! But, as a family, we’ve been pretty good at running all our appliances during the Off-Peak periods. Our coffee maker has a thermal carafe and is scheduled to grind the beans and heat up that water at 06:45 before Mid-Peak starts at 07:00.

I set the Grizzl-e to charge the EV6 as if I were only using the ULO prices through September 2025.

It’s not clear if ULO is worth it. TOU is off-peak from 7 to 7 (19:00 to 07:00). ULO is On-Peak until 21:00, and it’s 28.4 cents per kWh, not just 15.8 cents per kWh. Would the EV charging be enough to make it worth switching to ULO? Or would we also need to start the dishwasher and clothes washer at 23:00, not the 19:00 they’re smart(ish) settings have them scheduled to start at. It’s easy to start a load of laundry at 21:00, move to the dryer at 22:00 – moving the clean laundry to the dryer at midnight is a bigger lifestyle change.

Burlington Hydro also has a portal where you can download a CSV of your usage. ChatGPT and I wrote a python script to compare what September cost us under TOU and under ULO.

September 2025, with the EV6 charging overnight, costs us $99.37 under TOU. If we were billed under ULO it would have been $95.83. A potential $3.54 saving. For comparison, in September 2024, we paid $64.40, 2023 it was $53.83. We are using much more home energy with the EV charging, but the difference between a cold September 2023 and the very warm September 2025 (much more air conditioning use in 2025) is still only one week’s worth of gasoline costs for the Mazda3 in extra home electricity.

Lots else has happened in the last 5 years, but this one needs an update too long for social media.

Here’s the update

I really did love my 2014 Mazda3 Sport. Light, crisp manual transmission. In the summer, I had Firestone Firehawks tires, and in the Winter Michelin Xice2s. Both sets of tires felt like handling cheat codes and were very rewarding in a relatively light car. 

But, at over 250,000km the CV joints started to make a clunking noise, and the windshield had a small crack from rust on the window frame. It needed to get off the road, and the wreckers generously valued it at $600. But the enjoyment value was still very high! 

I bought the Mazda3 as a used car off-lease. The plan was to do the same (cars are a terrible investment; I try to get someone else take the first hit). 

Anything I replaced it with would be faster, that’s what’s changed since 2014, but few vehicles feel as dynamic and responsive as my little 6spd Mazda3.

But as far as the agility, cars are faster, but only 4 seat vehicles like BMWs and Porsches, or more in my budget, a Civic Type-R are more agile than a manual 2014 Mazda3 – the others are all safer, many are faster, but they’re all heavier too. 

The family’s not going to fit in a Miata or Boxster. That rules out a more agile car. With it conceded that I’m getting a heavier car, then it makes sense to make to lean into that – and Electronic Vehicle, an EV. 

I again planned on buying a used vehicle, and used EVs offer huge discounts, but the discount on used EVs isn’t just about not being able to pick your colour. Used EVs have a reputation for dead-end technologies and being moments away from being mechanically totalled. EVs have a lot in common with smartphones, and that doesn’t create a positive perception of used EVs. 

I also wasn’t willing to give up having an enjoyable drive, or have to worry about having limited range. That meant having a large battery and supporting DC fast charging and a performance profile. That certainly included the Porsche Tycan, but price quickly ruled it out. The Tesla 3 or Y would also fit that test, but 2025 doesn’t feel like the time to buy a Tesla, that and ubiquitousness of Model 3 give them an appliance-like vibe to me. Ford’s Mustang Mach-Es would also be in the mix, but I’m not a fan of the styling and horse puns. 

I eventually focused in on the Polestar 3 and the Hyundai/Kia EGMP (Electric Global Modular Platform) vehicles, the Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 (special mention to the Ioniq 6, which in black and white looks like panda, and the Kia EV9, which is too young for me, but a cool vehicle that’s also probably too big for me.) 

I drove the Polestar 2. I talked to the local dealer/reseller. With Polestar being a partnership between Sweden’s Volvo Cars and China’s Geely. Polestar’s headquarters are in Sweeden, as it was once a Volvo tuning house, but the Polestar 2 is built in China and Canada and the US both have had 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs for a few years. The tariffs are purely protective of domestic industries. China is making good EVs and low prices, and they have the potential to seriously disrupt the North American vehicle market. The Polestar 2 was indeed fun to drive (G meter!) but I didn’t want to assume the risk of a vehicle with such poor serviceability prospects. 

EGMP it is. I learned that All Wheel Drive (AWD) meant both more power, and the battery conditioning option to help with cold weather fast charging, and of course there’s the ICCU recall. The Integrated Charge Control Unit (ICCU) can blow a fuse charging conventional 12V battery that runs all the non-traction stuff, and the car will drain the 12V battery and you’ll have a charged high-voltage traction battery that the car can’t control anymore. Kia/Hyundai’s 100,000Km warranty covers all of this, but the key is to get the ICCU serviced before it happens. You can check the VIN’s services status on Hyundai/Kia’s website. 

Lindsay and I drove an Ioniq 5, it was fine. Lots of space inside. And that became part of the problem, I don’t like feeling like I’m hauling a living room on wheels around with me, and the more space inside a vehicle the less I feel like I’m driving a car and the more I feel like I’m piloting a ship. The Ioniq 5’s 150% scale of a MKIII VW Golf styling is cool and all, but the Kia EV6s felt like the right size. 

I was committed to taking a look at any EV6 in Southern Ontario. I even checked in with a Kia dealer in Barrie if the EV6 was indeed available before I left Burlington. I texted that I was running late but would be there in 15 minutes. The response I got was that the car was actually sold, but there were other vehicles the agent wanted me to see. I turned around to drive the almost two hours home and vowed never to buy a car from that dealer. 

My EV6 was traded in to a Honda dealership in Scarborough. It looks like the AC was leaking, the ICCU needed to be serviced, and there were delays for all the needed parts and the previous owner didn’t want to wait and bought a Honda. The Honda dealer was willing to handle all the service items, but they were very clear they wouldn’t promise a timeline. The ICCU service was provided by the local Kia dealer, but as the AC was taking almost a month, the Honda dealer offered to take a thousand dollars off if I took over the service. I did, and the Burlington Kia dealer recharged the AC and ordered the part. So far, the AC is working as I wait for the part. 

I enjoy driving the EV6. 

It has amazing acceleration, which gives you so much confidence when you pull out onto a busy road or change lanes on the highway. The dynamic torque split between the front and rear motors gives it great traction, too. I think I’m starting to like the driver aids associated with the cruise control, and the family has lots of space – and seat warmers for everyone! 

Charging has worked out fine, but I thought I appreciated the amount of electricity involved — I was wrong, it’s a lot more than I expected. I’m just glad I knew enough to only consider vehicles that can handle DC fast charging. More on charging in my next post. 

In Ontario, local communities around universities will be empowered in influencing the decision to re-open university campuses because of the autonomy each university demonstrated when closing campuses.

On March 12, 2020, Alex Usher amusingly offered to “eat his hat” if Ontario universities did not close campuses within a half-hour of the provincial government closing primary and secondary schools. Over an hour later it was clear that he was wrong.

Mr. Usher noted the next day (while seeking a palatable hat) that in Alberta universities closed their campuses’ in tandem with Public Health Alberta’s announcement. In contrast, Ontario universities each made their individual decisions – all arriving at the same outcome.

These decisions were both contextual and procedural, though there was a different outcome in Alberta and Ontario. Without being privy to dialogues between parties, one can speculate in all cases this was a decision procedurally left for each institution, but in the Alberta case, the context suggested a coordinated response. In the Ontario case, the autonomy and authority of the institutions was prioritized through the new context and each institution decided to close their campus within roughly the same week.

In the end, the national “stay at home” movement took over and states of emergency were declared before these decisions could be meaningfully contested.

Universities are likely to find that their on-campus stakeholders (matriculated students, staff and faculty, etc.) will have differing levels of urgency measured against different senses of risk and these concerns may or may not be aligned with off-campus community stakeholders who will likely make different assessments based on issues like travel-based infection vectors or contributions or burdens to local economies.

An unlikely collation of landlords and international students could arise, as might other new collectives.

Pro-opening groups are likely to be opposed by local populations who prioritize reducing vectors for (re)introducing COVID-19 into their community over university finances or othered students’ degree completion.

Local communities around Ontario universities will likely be relatively empowered in contesting this decision based on the demonstrated provisional nature of the closures.  Universities in Ontario have procedurally established their decision-making authority and autonomy from government and the larger public, which will signal to strong local voices and collectives that these decisions are not beyond their influence or directly tied to decisions or authorities external to their localities.

Given the time and opportunity, Ontario universities will have one more chance to demonstrate that these are indeed larger decisions as the fall term nears and they might do well to coordinate likely declarations of continuances of campus closures and online instruction for the fall term.

The credentials universities and related regulatory bodies confer have a value in the achievement, rigour and knowledge they symbolize or imply. But perhaps these concepts are for a time when the public need is equal to supply, a pandemic introduces an imbalance.

Universities around the world have suspended large gatherings to reduce transmission, many medical or nursing schools have donated supplies that will go unused during this suspension, or have concluded that the supplies are of greater value to public health than public education (Apablaza, University Affairs).

In Italy, medical students’ mandatory licensing exams have been postponed for nine-months and 10,000 medical students have been injected into the Italian medical system dispensing treatment to less-serious patients. The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland has moved forward final exams by six weeks to allow 1,300 students to graduate early (Cole, Newsweek).

In Canada, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons has indefinitely postponed residents’ final written exams because of social distancing concerns and dropped the oral exam requirement. Training placements that were to end June 30, 2020, can be effectively extended by the granting of restricted provisional licenses (Ormsby, The Toronto Star).

In early April 2020, 2,500 Canadian medical staff signed a petition urging Dr. Susan Moffatt-Bruce, CEO of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, to fast-track the certification process for residents, noting the issuance of the restricted provisional licences are insufficient and advocating to drop the requirement for the postponed written exam.

Canada’s 2020 medical residents are well-positioned to argue that the context of these students’ extended residencies or provisional licences, during a pandemic on a scale not seen in one hundred years, not only negates the need for a final written exam but may make these new medical residents and provisional licence holders more qualified than past newly licenced physicians and surgeons. This is certainly a question for subject experts to decide, but the discipline’s relationship to public health and its new context has increased the contestability and the multiplicity of actors.

As the pandemic and lockdown continue I am watching for answers to a number of questions:

• How do we evaluate decisions such as these that potentially diminish the traditional measures of the educational attainment and credentials, but amplify impact?
• Will contributions to research into COVID-19 be deemed sufficient public contribution?
• Will continuing and potentially competing for research be tolerated?
• Will material and labour donations influence public perception of universities’ role in a pandemic?

As part of my Masters of Education, I completed an independent study, the subject of which was reviewing all of the current Ontario Universities Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMAs).

The most interesting part: The SMA2 Metrics Power BI dashboard.

Why? It seemed to me like I might be the first person to read all the SMA2s and compare them (apples to the Ontario mean of apples in 2017). So I read them all, interpreted them, submitted to my supervisor, got a good mark, and now I want to share the data collected because it seemed silly to me that Ontario had system-wide metrics a no system-wide report.

Questions like “What are the top three planned areas of growth for Ontario Universities?” should be a simple web search with an insightful result, not a one-hour web safari.

It’s all posted at https://mattclare.ca/pse-policy/