DIY EV Electric Vehicle Solar Charging station Intro 

I went off grid ten years ago and built my own home single-handedly. In June 2021 I bought a Tesla model 3 and wanted to charge it using the sun. Here is my setup: I have three 300 watt panels. I have a flat roof and leave them flat as I live in the middle of Oregon. (If I tried to point them south I would only get rays between 11am and 2 pm.) On a sunny day I get almost 800 watts. I feed this energy into a 60 amp MPPT charge controller keeping six 100 amp hour Battle Borne batteries charged. The key is using a 3500 watt inverter (pure sine wave). On a sunny day my Tesla wants 1500 watts if I set it to 12 amps and get 6 miles of range. On a cloudy day I need 1000 watts so I change the Tesla charging down to 8 amps and get 4 miles of range. I use thick wires so I do not loose current and protect batteries and inverter with 300 amp and 200 amp circuit breakers. If I tried to use 12 amps it would drain the batteries real quick so I keep it at 10 or 8 amps and it charges for 14 hours a day. This actually is as good as if not better than someone on the grid using 120 volts AC. Make sure you use a bonding plug (connect neutral to ground) if Tesla won't charge. Some inverters don't need one.

this channel is underrated... please upload more sir! your videos are GOLD!!

That snow slide counter-balance is genius!

What a great find. Total bargain! 64kWh pack is awesome. I can't believe you got it home on that low of a charge 😂 Yeah, 240V charger absolutely necessary. Some people get by with the 120V charger, but they must be driving 20 miles a day or something. What an incredible solar array you setup!! Holy cow. Using the buckets is awesome. 60kWh from that array during winter is fantastic. Your homestead looks awesome Ian. great job.

I'm glad to see you making more and more videos. It's nice to see the guy that sells the products.

LOVE the solar panel barn roof idea. I've considered this but unsure how to waterproof as we're in the southeast and it rains quite often. Great work!

I see your 2 6548's and combiner boxes. 👍 Now I understand what you said about needing 2.

great video and good work you do

I love seeing all the creative ways you've installed panels. I only need 50 miles a day of charging and I'm usually home during the day, so I'm looking to charge my PHEV with all small 3kw system w/o investing in batteries. I'm hoping an MPP or Growatt single phase inverter will be enough.

Great video. Hey Ian, give me a shout if you have any questions about repairing your forklift. I spent 20 years repairing electric, lpg and diesel powered forklifts.

so nice to have all the toys on hand. Technically a 12v Silicon has 6x internal cell in series internally, and without a cell level BMS; as opposed to the LF with individual cell monitoring. But the price point is well taken.

Great Ian. Nice job. Nice ideas. Cool with the automatic snow clearing system. I should try your idea of adding solar panels to cover the back wall of my house, Cannot be seen from the street and it is the side that the sun shines on and would be especially good for winter when I have very little solar power. I already maxed out my small roof area. If done right will give an interesting look to the back outside walls. You defiantly prove that you can charge an EV. Your system did a great job charging my Tesla Model 3 overnight after I got to your place with almost an empty battery. If I followed you correctly, you should fix a typo on your text in minute 7:10. Should be 12kW, as you say in the video and not 16kW that is written.

Love it.

I can tell you are a thinking man.subd

Good afternoon Ian from central Europe. Neat idea with the counterbalance and pivot on the rotating panels fixture to let the snow down faster. Did You have the chance to try some charging calble or station, which can adjust its charging current according to the available power from the panels? And via communication link within charging cable, that info would be passed to the car internal charger. Thus you would be minimizing the strain on batteries while keeping the charging current close to the momentarily power praduction of the panels.

On your tilting buckets you need to move and track them panels….

This is an amazing idea but I do not live on a farm with multiple buildings,.

Just curious….when building a roof from solar panels, how do you keep water from penetrating around edge of panels??

You mentioned you got new black panels for very cheap, where did you get them?

please make a video/doc to show how to tap an old EV pack (still in the vehicle), such as an old Leaf or Mistu iMiev via the bidirectional DC Chademo port. An old Leaf with ~20Kwh (?) can be roughly $5K ?

What did you use to seal between your pants on your shed

I have an interesting situation that you might like to comment on. I don't currently have an EV, but am considering the possibility, if I were to get one, of charging the vehicle in the street during the day. I work from home and don't use my car during the week, but do use it for Uber Eats delivery driving on the weekend, usually for about 4-6 hours at a time. I found a 4000w flexible solar panel on eBay for just over $200 including a 20A charge controller, however it is obviously designed to charge a 12V battery. Is it feasible to use a setup like this along with an inverter that converts the charge to 240V, and charge my car that way? The dimensions of the solar panel are 280x560mm so should fit nicely on the roof on most cars I would think. I have seen people on YT who use a Bluetti or Jackery portable battery to get the charge into the vehicle, but is that really necessary if I don't want the expense of that extra battery and don't need to use the car during the day most of the time, only for 1 or 2 days a week? I live in a sunny location in Australia, and could of course charge from the grid although as this is a second car, and my wife's car usually sits in the one parking space next to our townhouse, it would be awkward to be constantly moving cars around to get to a wall charger next to the house. So the solar charging would be ideal, and if I can purchase the equipment for a few hundred dollars, it would soon pay for itself I would think. Any comments?

I'm just an average Joe, kind of kicking around the concept of owning an EV as a second car, concept of owning my own gas station for it is interesting....When you add up all the stuff to make that car go....having quite a bit of trouble seeing value as things are...but nice job on your side.

Mr. Ian and to all the people out there. Where is this video taken. The scenery looks like the northern part of the US or somewhere in Canada, the car is a left hand drive. Mr. Ian's spoken english dosen't sounds like North American either. More like a New Zealander.

Also, never fully charge EV’s unless your needing full charge for next day. Keep it between 20-80% to lessen battery degradation

Omg, do your research mate! You’re supposed to have a Wall box home charger at 32a 240v. That ‘granny lead’ that comes with it is only for emergency purposes. Get a solar battery to store your excess charge so you can top up your car with it and trickle with solar when not in use during the day. What planet have you been on??