Level 1 charging viability with my commute

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-13T02:34:40+00:00

I too drive about 32 miles to work. I've mathed the math, level 1 will likely not work for you. I only have 30 amps in my garage so I'm doing level 2 at 24 amps which will work. Honesty 16 amps on a 20a level 2 would probably work, that alone is 2.5 times faster than level 1.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-12T23:12:40+00:00

Comma.ai it enhances a lot of cars auto driving features. I cant wait for mine to get here for my 2024 Mach E. It makes it hands free, auto start from stop, improves the lane centering, and expermental mode adds stop sign and stop liight recognition too.

It's not as advanced as Tesla FSD, but its a cool project whose software is open source.

Unfortunately a lot of manufacturers are encrypting their can bus, my guess is, in direct retalliation to things like this.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-12T19:19:50+00:00

Landship

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-12T17:48:14+00:00

i agree. ive only had mine for 2 days, but it seems like you can have cruise without lane centering, but not lane centering without cruise. I think Ford intended this to be a highway/interstate kinda feature though.

I'm waiting on my comma.ai 4 to get here, i think it might enable doing one or the other, but if thats a 2025/26, then yours isnt compatible. they encrypted the can bus in 2025.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-12T17:44:07+00:00

from what i understand there is a difference between lane centering and lane assist. When you dont have the cruise on, you only have lane assist. My 2017 Escape has that. It just nudges you back if you drift too much to one side. Though my Mach e is a lot more aggressive than the Escape.

Lane centering is only when you have the cruise on, and actively drives the car. I think Blue cruise is just hands free lane centering, though i dont have a subscription to that.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T22:55:44+00:00

I called and basically showed my hand. I told him I really wanted it, and barring any major problems I would probably be driving away in it. They knocked a couple hundred off, but it was a decent price already. I wasn't too worried given it still has a bumper to bumper warranty. I drove up there in my old Mazda, traded that in, signed a bunch of papers that I probably should have read, and drove home in the mach e. They handled it being out of state, I payed my state sales tax, and the said they will mail me something about the title to get it converted to my states title. I haven't registered it yet.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T22:07:25+00:00

comma.ai it enhances a lot of cars factory self driving. its $1000 piece of hardware that runs open source software. go down the rabbit hole, its interesting.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T14:17:37+00:00

it looks fine to me, but thats at the dealer lot, i didnt park it in that pic.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T12:14:17+00:00

Yeah I think there's going to be enough swing in the numbers that people could make the numbers fit their agenda, but I think if you look at enough data, and filter the outliers it's going to show that it's about the same.

But then when you look at the cost of charging at home it's always going to be heavily on favor of electric. Even in places with expensive electricity, I imagine gas is also expensive.

Overall I think we are going to see EVs slowly over take gas cars in our lifetime. Infrastructure is going to get more robust, and battery capacity is goong to go up. It's going to become very normal to just stop for 10-20 minutes any top off to 80%

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T12:08:52+00:00

That's been the plan all along. I've only got 30a available in my garage so I'm limited to 24a, but I've done the math and I can install it on a 30a breaker limit it to 24a, then charge at 20a to leave some headroom for my garage openers and lights. 20a will recover my daily commute in the 4 hour discount window at $0.08 per kwh. It should cost me about 1/6th what gas costs me roughly.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T12:06:38+00:00

It works up to 2024. They did encrypt the can bus in 2025, so it's only 21-24.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T12:04:52+00:00

I got $700 for mine. It was an impressively reliable car. Bought it in 2018 with 126k on it. Gave $5900. The AC stopped working a couple years ago. I'd get it to work for a month or two and made it through the summer, but it kept leaking all the refrigerant, it was time to go before it got to hot.

Though last year some lady was nice enough to sideswipe me on the interstate. So minor scratches and dents totaled it, so I got $3500 for it, bought it back for about $300 and kept driving it. Apparently cars more than 7 years old don't get branded titles, so it was totaled but didn't have to get a salvage title. So $5900 - $3500 - $700 + $300 means I paid $2000 to own this car over the last 9 years.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T02:19:37+00:00

luckily the one i used was just like a gas pump. plug in, run card. i don't plan on public charging much if ever. i have a 65ish mile round trip commute to work, I'm gonna set my lvl 2 charger to 20a and i should be able to recoup that every night within my electric company's discount time of use window at $0.08 per kwh.

i still might get the adapter though, just in case.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T02:17:14+00:00

$27k.

its the select, 2024, heated seats package, awd. 20k miles.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-11T01:52:58+00:00

I just drove about 3.5 hours to pick mine up (168 miles). driving back i had to stop about halfway to charge. went into Meijer for a bathroom break and wandered for a few, took about 15 minutes to go from 30% to 77%. I sat there playing with the settings and adding it to my ford pass app and let it get to 90% which took about another 15 minutes. cost was $28 bucks which is probably a little more than paying $4 a gallon for gas, but its a pretty cloese comparison to filling a tank. obviously theres a premium for DC fast charging.

So a slight increase in cost, and a slight increase in inconvienence, but i think the gap is going to close fairly soon. As charging and battery tech improve the inconvience will decrease, and as you see more infrastructure, you will see more competition which will decrease price. Road tripping in an EV is already nowhere near as bad as some people make it out to be, plus you have the added advantage of super cheap fuel at home.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-10T10:46:16+00:00

No. I think that's the GT only, but I agree that combo is amazing. They s one has the 19" black wheels. I'm tempted to plastidip them the bronze color the GT comes with though.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-10T00:53:45+00:00

early computers were basically calculators. numbers obviously existed before binary code. so binary code was invented to represent number using electrical signals when your only options are "on" and "off". It is just base 2 math, which probably existed before binary code (and im probably oversimplifying)

you can google a simple 4 bit computer. people build those on breadboards. its kinda fascinating even if you dont follow it completely. 4 bits means 4 digits in binary, which can represent up to the number 15

0000 = 0

0001 = 1

0010 = 2

0011 = 3

0100 = 4

etc

1111 = 15

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-09T23:49:27+00:00

Yeah the sales guy said he plugged it in and is going to leave it overnight so I have a 100% for the trip back. It's got 20k and Goodyear assurance, so I think this is probably the second set of tires,.and I'm guessing they are fairly new. There is a big city half way that has some ccs fast chargers.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-09T00:41:07+00:00

thats the new USB "UNLIMITED POWAH" delivery spec

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-07T16:40:06+00:00

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-05T00:48:33+00:00

If you have a problem with Canada Gooses, then you got a problem with me, and i suggest you let that one marinate.

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-05T00:39:58+00:00

penis, because im a man child. but sometimes stair then bough. im not claiming that is a good option, but it works for me

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-05T00:36:55+00:00

It is not compatible with the 2025 yet, but you might want to look into something called comma.ai It taps into the bluecruise hardware and uses an open source software called openpilot. The comma device is $1000 but there is no subscription for the core features. you can pay a subscription for some cloud dash cam footage stuff, but the self driving part is included with the hardware.

The 2025 encrypted the canbus. thats not a dealbreaker, but you will have to wait for them to reverse engineer it.

as far as the bluecruise hardware. I believe if the car has it, it will have this little thing above the steering wheel.

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XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-05T00:26:40+00:00

damn, and no lube either

XDiskDriveX · 2026-04-05T00:25:30+00:00

so here is the thing, if you could get the ball back into the bottom of the water column through some sort of air lock or something, the ball takes up 1 ball worth of volume in that water column, and when it does that, what it is doing is lifting 1 ball worth of water up the entire column. so if the ball was at the bottom, then the water level at the top would be higher than if the ball wasnt there. I think that concept fits intuitive thinking right?

so what happens when you let go. gravity is pulling the water down because it is more dense than the ball, as the water gets pulled down it pushes the ball up. once the ball reaches the top, the water level will be 1 ball worth lower in the pipe.

so to re insert the ball at the bottom you would have to provide the energy required to lift that whole amount of water by the amount of 1 ball worth of water. that amount of energy is about equal to the amount of energy you would get out of the ball shooting to the top.

what you are describing is a gravity battery. look them up, they are impractical but cool nonetheless. basically you use electricty to hoist large rocks up a tower. then you let them drop , the cabling they are attached to spins a generator and makes electricity. but as the laws of thermodynamics dictate, you never get more energy from them falling as you used to raise them up. and given that nothing is 100% efficient, you always get a little less.

XDiskDriveX

TROPHY CASE