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Will a 3 kWh generator charge an EV via the ‘granny” charger cable?

We are prone to blackouts, perhaps once a year, and we changing our diesel car to an EV so both cars will be electric. Feel the need for a backup supply!

Possibly, depends very much on the EV. In theory there should be no problem at all, as a granny charger draws around 2.4kW so as long as the generator could deliver that much power continuously then it should work. It would be very, very slow though. Charging ours from nearly empty on the granny charger takes about 15 to 20 hours.

The snag is that some EVs are fussy about their supply. Our's needs a very good earth, so refuses to charge from a generator. I believe there may be a way around this, but the one time I tried it, just as an experiment, the car threw up a "charging impossible" error message. I do know that some EVs charge quite happily from generators though, as we had an open day at the local sustainability group a few years ago and one chap got his Nissan Leaf to charge OK from a generator we had on site.

The car can move! Can’t you just drive it to a public charger in the event of a multi-day outage?

Stinsy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 7:37 am The car can move! Can’t you just drive it to a public charger in the event of a multi-day outage?

valid point, but depending on location, age of BEV, mileage from battery et c it can be eaten up just getting to/ from a charger in the countryside (the case for our leaf 24kWh) ..it may not be worth DJS getting a modern big battery, when all the household may need is a pootler, but that also affects forward thinking in instances such as the scenario.

At worst you want to be able to get out of a tight spot if various systems / supplies go down a-la a 're-run of the "winter of discontent"

Theres lots of videos on whootube of people charging BEV's via power stations and solar (very very slow) and petrol generators (slow) so in principle it looks achievable to get you out of a tight spot. I also recall an AA program where they stated they will have a battery charger on new vehicles the same way they carry a can of diesel and petrol for those unfortunate enough to run out, again this also suggests that there is a means to achieve an emergency charge into a BEV when required.

Some of the videos seem to indicate that the BEV will soak up what it can via a granny plug even if its a few whats so a smaller petrol generator should still work but obviously it means an already slow process is even slower.

Moxi