Lucid Home Charger vs ChargePoint

[phantomias]

Hi Everyone,

I never had an EV before and therefore I wanted to get opinion from more experienced people.
Before my car arrives, I am planning to install a charging station into my garage and I couldn't decide between ChargePoint vs Lucid Home Charger. I had two questions to make a decision.

1) Does anyone know if Lucid Home Charger can be used to charge other EV cars such as Tesla , Audi, Mercedes etc. Do we need to replace the hardware if we decide to buy another brand in the future?

2) This question is more important. LCHC can charge the vehicle up to 80 A, whereas the max you can get from ChargePoint is 40A ( or 48A if it is hardwired)

How would this effect the battery health? Do you think having twice as fast charging speed could cause the car having more battery degradation in the long term? ( Since using L3 charging all the time is not good for the battery I had some doubt to choose LCHC)

Thank you for your opinion and clarification.
Phantomias

 

[borski]

Does anyone know if Lucid Home Charger can be used to charge other EV cars such as Tesla , Audi, Mercedes etc. Do we need to replace the hardware if we decide to buy another brand in the future?

Yes, it can charge any vehicle that accepts a J1772 plug, which includes Tesla since they have an adapter. No, you won't need to buy a new one.

This question is more important. LCHC can charge the vehicle up to 80 A, whereas the max you can get from ChargePoint is 40A ( or 48A if it is hardwired)

Correct.

How would this effect the battery health? Do you think having twice as fast charging speed could cause the car having more battery degradation in the long term? ( Since using L3 charging all the time is not good for the battery I had some doubt to choose LCHC)

It doesn't. L2 is L2. There is no significant difference in how it affects battery health between 48A and 80A; things change when you are on a DC charger rather than an AC charger and going at 150A+.

 

[phantomias]

Thank you for your clarification Borski!

 

[Dortreo]

One quick correction and one additional feature that makes the Lucid charger make more sense:

* The Chargepoint flex is capable of 80A provided that the electrician installs the correct gauge wire. I think it’s 3 gauge but could be wrong.
* The Lucid charger enables V2G, which isn’t implemented yet and would require additional home equipment but can be a valuable feature.

 

[lsbuffs]

One quick correction and one additional feature that makes the Lucid charger make more sense:

* The Chargepoint flex is capable of 80A provided that the electrician installs the correct gauge wire. I think it’s 3 gauge but could be wrong.
* The Lucid charger enables V2G, which isn’t implemented yet and would require additional home equipment but can be a valuable feature.

Pretty sure the ChargePoint Home Flex can only output 50A max

 

[Bill55]

Hi Everyone,

I never had an EV before and therefore I wanted to get opinion from more experienced people.
Before my car arrives, I am planning to install a charging station into my garage and I couldn't decide between ChargePoint vs Lucid Home Charger. I had two questions to make a decision.

1) Does anyone know if Lucid Home Charger can be used to charge other EV cars such as Tesla , Audi, Mercedes etc. Do we need to replace the hardware if we decide to buy another brand in the future?

2) This question is more important. LCHC can charge the vehicle up to 80 A, whereas the max you can get from ChargePoint is 40A ( or 48A if it is hardwired)

How would this effect the battery health? Do you think having twice as fast charging speed could cause the car having more battery degradation in the long term? ( Since using L3 charging all the time is not good for the battery I had some doubt to choose LCHC)

Thank you for your opinion and clarification.
Phantomias

Keeping the battery between 20-80 will help preserve battery life, at 9.6 kw you can go from 20-80% in ~7-8 hours. For me it would be a rare day that the car is not in the garage for at least 7 hours. Being able to do same in 3.5 hours adds no value for me. Many days I only use 15% or so for my commute. Not unusually to only charge 2 or 3 times a week once I get below 40%. I also have 2 14-50 plugs so if we ever go to 2 EVs I will not need to share. I have the ChargePoint plugged into a 14-50 set at 40a max. I have already moved once and plan one more move in near future so I chose not to hardwire. ChargePoint software was easy to set up and you can schedule when the car charges if you have variable electric rates.

If the idea of powering your home during an outage is appealing to you then the Lucid charger would be the way to go. Enabling that functionality will require addition equipment and expense when it becomes available.

For the car to power the home you have to have a way to disconnect from the grid.

 

[Sandvinsd]

We have both a ChargePoint Flex and the Lucid home charger since we have 2 EVs. The ChargePoint is plugged in so can run 40 amps max, but can be hardwired for 50 if desired. Our Leaf can only take 6.6 kW so the plugged version is overkill. We need to plug the Leaf almost every night so it is usually occupied.. We have charged the Lucid on it at night. The max it will input is about 55 kw during the. 12-6a off-peak TOU schedule (more on weekends since TOU schedule is longer). If we were to charge for a trip, we might have to charge two consecutive nights to get it up to 100% (I don’t charge any more than to about 70 or 80% unless going on a trip).

The Lucid Home charger delivers over 18 kw an hour into the battery, or 2x our ChargePoint rate. Unfortunately the Lucid cannot currently schedule on either unit. But if we plug it in at midnight, we can get a full battery no matter what the state of charge in the 6 hour off-peak time. I can also get a good charge just plugging it in when I get up on the weekend for a couple of hours as it is still the super-off peak rate whereas the ChargePoint would have kept my car in the garage all morning due to the slower speed. The Lucid Home charger can also work on the Leaf (we tested) but of course it is WAY WAY overkill for that car. it does future proof your garage though.

Bottom line, both work well. The ChargePoint user interface is excellent With the app. The Lucid one is essentially non existent (have to go to the unit’s IP address and log into it which pulls up a rudimentary interface). Glad to have the 80 amp speed for the Lucid though. Now just need scheduled charging for the Lucid to make weekday charging work .

 

[DeaneG]

A home charging rate higher than 50 amps does help if you come home from a long trip one evening, have scheduled charging starting at midnight for cheap electricity, and need to set out again early the next morning. It's a rare case for us but does happen from time to time.

 

[MHDave]

Here's some important factors around choosing your first home-based charging solution for your first EV. This is largely a summary of the above contributors and other posts.
First, you need to determine your normal daily power consumption expected for your new EV. If you will drive an average of say 51 miles a day, then figure out the kW you need to cover that, plus some for the abnormal days of unplanned trips, and factor in that very warm and very cold days will increase your consumption. 51 miles at 3 mi/kW, 17kW, as an example.
Second, you need to determine the normal amount of time your EV will sit in the garage unused (such as overnight) and thus the amount of time it can be charging. (Forgot to plug it in when you got home? Uh, that's on you, but common for your learning period on your new EV.) At least 8 hours in the garage and charging, you only need about 2 kW/hour, right?
kW = Volts time Amps / 1000. 10 amps at 220 volts ~= 2kW, not counting the overhead for power conversation and the battery heating/cooling. So there's your starting point.
Finally, there's the consideration of what power you already have available to your charging area -- depends on your breaker panel and unused circuits. If you're considering an 80 amp charger (charger can't take more than 80% of the breaker value), you need a 100 amp breaker, so need capacity for that in your breaker panel. So if you have an unused 30 amp circuit going to your garage, and it fits your charging needs, reuse that, otherwise you'll find the more amps you want for that new circuit, the more you'll pay the electrician.
Different story if you want to be able to power part of your house from your car, more complex but similar questions to ask yourself.

 

[Adidas]

Will the 80 amp be more efficient?

 

[DeaneG]

Will the 80 amp be more efficient?

Not substantively.

 

[thecodingart]

Lucid Charger
Pros:
V2L support
Substantially faster charging

Cons:
No app interface integration yet
Slightly bigger than the Chargepoint Home Flex

That’s really all there is. If I recall, the actual cable isn’t shorter (but I didn’t look it up). It’s an interesting debate to think if I want the Lucid charger because it doesn’t support V2L yet and does cost substantially more. I was also looking at the UniFi charger because I wanted something self hosted (there’s another open software/hardware project for self hosted chargers as an FYI).

 

[DeaneG]

Because Lucid's charging station can operate at up to 80 amps (about 19kW), it has a heavier, less flexible charging cable than the Chargepoint Home Flex, which is limited to 50 amps max (about 12kW). Chargepoint's cable is easy for a small, light person to handle and the unit has a nice self aligning holster. My wife is very happy to use her Chargepoint but I think she'd be wrestling with Lucid's. Just different tradeoffs.

 

[Sandvinsd]

Agree with the pros/ cons above. Also cost. You can almost buy 2 ChargePoints for 1 Lucid home charger. If you get a second car, might want two chargers like we have. Also the Lucid charger will cost more to install since it requires bigger cabling. Not a big deal if you are next to the panel, but might be if you have a long run.

Yes to the cable difference. The Lucid cable is much less pliable.

 

[Dortreo]

Pretty sure the ChargePoint Home Flex can only output 50A max

Yes, you’re right. My error.

 

[thecodingart]

Yes, you’re right. My error.

View attachment 8101

Sort of. It actually can only “officially” output 48kW under code. There’s a bit of a situation when trying to do 50kW where Chargepoint will not tell an electrician they can do that.

 

[borski]

Because Lucid's charging station can operate at up to 80 amps (about 19kW), it has a heavier, less flexible charging cable than the Chargepoint Home Flex, which is limited to 50 amps max (about 12kW). Chargepoint's cable is easy for a small, light person to handle and the unit has a nice self aligning holster. My wife is very happy to use her Chargepoint but I think she'd be wrestling with Lucid's. Just different tradeoffs.

Interestingly it’s thinner and lighter than our Wallbox which only does 48A.

 

[thecodingart]

Sort of. It actually can only “officially” output 48kW under code. There’s a bit of a situation when trying to do 50kW where Chargepoint will not tell an electrician they can do that.

Typo in this, meant 48A

 

[DeaneG]

Interestingly it’s thinner and lighter than our Wallbox which only does 48A.

J1772 cables are made by many vendors. Maybe the one Wallbox chose is designed more conservatively or designed to meet a different environmental condition?

 

[borski]

J1772 cables are made by many vendors. Maybe the one Wallbox chose is designed more conservatively or designed to meet a different environmental condition?

Maybe!