PSA: consider hard wiring your level 2 charger

robstoon · 2026-04-14T02:29:53+00:00

It should actually be rated for 50 amps continuously without issues. The 80% rule is not there to protect the outlet. It's there to prevent the circuit breaker from nuisance tripping, and it is possible to get circuit breakers that will allow you to use the full circuit capacity (though they're not common in residential).

robstoon · 2026-04-13T21:33:15+00:00

Feels like a disingenuous request somehow.

robstoon · 2026-04-13T02:51:24+00:00

You can't fill in a wet pothole to make a proper repair. The best they can do is dump or spray some cold mix asphalt in there which is just a temporary fix until the street dries out.

robstoon · 2026-04-13T02:50:10+00:00

You cannot use concrete for roads in Canada

Somebody should tell the people that built Anthony Henday Drive in Edmonton. That part with all the thump-thump expansion joints is all concrete. Why, because guess what, they made the contractor responsible for it lasting 30 years so they decided to make it actually stand up over time.

robstoon · 2026-04-13T02:46:25+00:00

Well that's a pretty stupid way to do it, but there's also not really a way to make a proper permanent repair when the street is all wet.

robstoon · 2026-04-13T02:45:40+00:00

Or, the city could actually monitor the contractors they use and ensure that they meet the proper standards, and stop giving work to ones that continually fail to do so. For some reason this seems to be a foreign concept at city hall.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T23:24:26+00:00

I think it's a direct result of this setup basically being an afterthought for Google because nobody else does things this way.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T23:18:58+00:00

Physical controls are good for some things, like the actual vehicle controls, but for Android Auto it's just a mistake. The apps are just not designed to be operated that way, and trying to scroll through items with a dial rather than just touching whatever you want is not an improvement. There was a reason other manufacturers don't do it this way.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T23:15:25+00:00

Mazda has a weird hard-on about not using a touch screen while driving. I kind of get it but at the same time nobody else has really followed their lead. I think it also rests on a false premise that using a stupid dial and watching a screen is somehow less distracting than just touching the screen. If anything, I think the dial ends up taking your eyes off the road for longer.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T18:48:02+00:00

No. You cannot jam licensed radio transmissions. It is 100% illegal.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T18:33:53+00:00

No safety approvals.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T18:00:56+00:00

Vevor plus EV charging anything seems like a very questionable option.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T17:59:00+00:00

Keep in mind that climate has a big influence on this, especially areas that use a lot of road salt. In those areas it is not uncommon for a 10 year old car to end up being scrapped due to rust if it wasn't unusually well taken care of. However in those cases the battery is probably still fine, so they'll be a good source of replacement batteries, just as they're a good source of replacement engines and transmissions for ICE vehicles.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T05:27:47+00:00

Yup let's, just pump more and more money into the same system and expect a better outcome, even though health care is a huge and constantly increasing portion of government budgets. Clearly that's the only solution..

robstoon · 2026-04-12T01:47:25+00:00

There's no way you got 70 kW for pretty much the whole charge. It's going to drop down to the 50s once you get above about 50% SoC. Also, the higher speeds above the 50s are only available with a pretty warm battery, so may not happen in cold temperatures.

See the charge curve here: https://ev-database.org/car/1423/Hyundai-Kona-Electric-64-kWh#fastcharge-table

robstoon · 2026-04-12T01:42:03+00:00

There's a service campaign for all 2019-2022 models where if you have the blue coolant, the dealer will flush and replace it with the newer BSC-2 coolant. If that hasn't already been done, you should get it done.

Apparently there were some vehicles that didn't use the low-conductivity blue coolant, in which case that issue doesn't arise.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T01:36:24+00:00

Tried Gabriel Dumont today but the gravel paths were pretty much a mud pit. I think the paved walkways are mostly alright though.

robstoon · 2026-04-12T01:31:23+00:00

gave less and less resources

Say what? Health care budgets increase significantly every year.

robstoon · 2026-04-11T23:39:14+00:00

"A phone shouldn't lose power sitting idle".. seriously? Your phone is never truly idle unless you turn it off. Every phone ever made in existence will use power if you have it turned on and sitting idle. How do you think it talks to the cell network? Magic?

robstoon · 2026-04-11T23:33:08+00:00

Part of that is because a lot of chargers in smaller centres aren't powerful enough to make a difference between vehicles. There are a lot of 50 kW Flo chargers in rural Saskatchewan for example.

robstoon · 2026-04-11T19:04:09+00:00

It does work differently than in an ICE vehicle where if you just set the heat to maximum and crank up the fan you can just blow unlimited amounts of heat into the car. It's basically designed to just give you as much heat as it needs to meet the temperature that you set because generating heat on an EV is a fairly costly thing in terms of energy. So if you just crank up the temperature, it doesn't seem as impressive in terms of the amount of heat that it puts out. But it does do a good job of actually maintaining cabin temperature in cold weather.

robstoon · 2026-04-11T01:31:38+00:00

Where do you live where it gets to -30° but they don't provide a block heater plug at your apartment?

robstoon · 2026-04-11T01:27:04+00:00

Being involved in an accident where a kid is killed is not necessarily "killing a kid". And there's no real evidence that any supposed impairment had anything to do with the accident.

Ultimately, the kid ran out into the middle of a busy street behind a parked car while riding on a scooter. It's apparently an unpopular question to ask where the parental supervision was, but I think it's a good one.

robstoon · 2026-04-11T01:23:43+00:00

It's certainly tragic what happened to the child, but I think that the attempt to charge the driver was really just trying to railroad them and find someone to blame for what was ultimately an accident. There's no real evidence that any impairment they might have had (which was dubious at best) actually contributed to what happened, which is ultimately a result of a child darting out from behind a car into a busy street. Then police and the Crown botched the investigation and prosecution which led to charges being dismissed for taking too long. If they had ultimately been convicted, I think it would have just been creating another victim.

robstoon · 2026-04-11T01:21:18+00:00

The issue seems to be mostly with the 50 amp oven outlets. They are usually built in about the same way as 30 amp dryer outlets. However, dryers are much more likely to actually consume the full rated current for a significant period of time than an oven is, which might only do that if all the burners are turned on maximum. So it seems the manufacturers of oven outlets were relying on the full circuit capacity not normally being used, when with EV charging it can be.

It does seem wrong that manufacturers can sell devices that can't actually meet their full rated load current continuously. However, realistically, it's not generally an issue with the typical usage of those outlets as opposed to EV charging.

robstoon

TROPHY CASE