First hand feedback on these EV’s are most welcome. And congratulations by the way!
SAExpieriencesGroetnis
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Enjoy! I think you will be pleasantly surprised at just how painless EVs are to own. (Just watch out for potholes 
.)
This is something I didn’t know (well alot of things)… I thought they used standard sized tyres. I didn’t think of rolling resistance. I’m sure you could go with the next closest in our local market… surely?
You can use standard tyres, but they have a number of issues:
- ~10% less range
- Noisy (even acoustic/noise cancelling tyres are a lot noisier than dedicated EV tyres)
- Increased wear due to excessive flex (weight and torque)
This sort of thing is unlikely to be an issue much longer though:
https://electrek.co/2023/05/25/tesla-model-y-is-now-the-worlds-best-selling-car-first-ev-to-do-so/
The Tesla Model Y was the world’s best-selling car in Q1 2023, marking the first time ever that an EV has achieved this feat, according to industry analyst JATO Dynamics.
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Exciting! Will you be getting one of those fancy Victron chargers?
Otherwise, I’d imagine if there’s a way to limit the charging current, putting it on the backup side is exactly where you want it?
I doubt he will, its basically the same price as the i3 
Mine came with a smart EVSE with WiFi and a (fairly) open protocol. But before I knew what EVSE they were installing, I was planning on doing something like this:
https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-EV-J1772-Charging-Station/
It is actually a really simple square wave generator to signal charge current to the EV, so quite easy to build a simple system to manage it.
He probably has one in his “storeroom” for testing purposes… 
Jees those things are massively over priced. When they opened it up to show the innards, it was very sad.
Yes, but also no. I have a bare PC-board from an EVSE on my desk, which is used for testing. Much easier to throw that into your luggage than the whole thing.
There is a new model without a screen, it was on display at the Solar Show in Sandton. I’ll probably get one of those at some point.
There are some ways.
First, with the default cable that comes with the car, you have three options: Low, Reduced, and Max.
Low is about 1.5kW. Reduced is about 2kW. And Max is whatever the EVSE allows, which for the “granny cable” is about 3kW. This is the cable, not the exact one, snagged that one off the interwebz:
The three settings already allows for some day-time charging from the backup side of things, and once I finally upgrade to the larger inverter things also change somewhat. May not need much more than the “Low” setting.
As Justin also mentioned, the EVSE uses a square wave with a mark/space ratio that tells the car how much it is allowed to charge at. That little box in the cable is essentially a square wave generator set to 3kW. And it also checks your TN bonding before allowing charge.
Smart EVSEs can vary this charge limit according to external inputs, for example, surplus PV can be sent to the car. The Victron EVSE integrates tightly with a Victron system and allows you to do that.
Also, there are requests for making more bars/charts on the dashboard, to show grid->EV, PV->EV, Battery->EV… and in future I imagine EV->Grid, EV->Loads, EV->Battery… exciting and all, but the additional complexity is almost a little scary 
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Part of the reason for that, is the harsh conditions these things live in, and the certification required. They have to survive freezing cold, snow, rain, hail. They need to be IP65, not draw in moisture when it is cold, handle the summer heat, public abuse, etc. The circuitry is indeed quite simple and probably not worth the 20k these things go for (or even the 8k the cheapies go for).
They need to recoup development costs. Once a product becomes common, the price will start reflecting the cost of the part better. Think it is a little unfair to want the latest and greatest at cheap prices.
I don’t need cheap, I just need reasonable
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That’s fine, then you’ll just need to wait a little longer than the people willing to pay for the development. Not at all as long as the people who want it cheap.
But then again, the Victron product might not get cheaper, you might need to get a different brand… 
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Or the price is high today, 2/3/5 years later, it is “cheap” because the price was never increased. 
Looking around a bit.
If you just buy the cable (essentially an extension cord), that’s already 4k from most places.
You want the “wart in the middle” as well, that’s around 8k.
Cheapest charging station, also around 8k, with 12k being somewhat of a sweet spot.
Want a brand name… you’re looking at 20k. The Schneider charger is also up there.
A Zappi or a Beni (popular in the UK), is around 600 GBP. That’s 12k ZAR.
The Victron EVSE is 1100 EUR, and sells around 21k locally. That’s the one with the LCD screen. I expect that the screen-less version will sell for slightly less, which may well hit the sweet spot between the cheapies and the Schneider.
I would have tried to plot the victron installations in SA. Advertising value would have been better…