Charging an electric car with an EcoFlow battery and solar panel

The perfect solution for rare EV emergencies? Donning a festive jumper, I venture into the woods with a low battery to try charging from an EcoFlow Delta Max battery. And, just for fun, a solar panel! How long does it take and how much range do I add.
Products tested and prices (at time of publishing)
EcoFlow Delta Max 2000: £1,399 - uk.ecoflow.com/products/delta...
EcoFlow Grounding Adapter (C14 type): £89 - uk.ecoflow.com/products/porta...
EcoFlow 220W Bifacial Solar Panel: £379 - amzn.to/41jcvLd
Interested in this or any other EcoFlow product? Please use my referral links. Thank you!
EcoFlow: uk.ecoflow.com/?aff=178
Amazon: amzn.to/46TjgEE
Link to the article about EV breakdowns: www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/late....
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Support the channel! Visit my Ko-Fi page and buy me a coffee (or my wife a gin and tonic): ko-fi.com/misterev
Please use my referral links:
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Octopus Electroverse: £5 credit - electroverse.octopus.energy/n...
Chapters
00:00 - Clickbait intro
02:09 - Setting up the Delta Max
03:21 - Plugging in the Leaf
04:44 - Let's plug in a solar panel!

[@chriskeating3024]

Sorry, I should also have said I use the Ecoflow max and extra battery to charge all the time as I live in a flat and we cannot install charge points because Zurich Insurance will double the insurance for the block (an extra £7000 per year).. I do not need to use any grounding thingy.

[@MrEV]

Oh wow! That’s a fascinating use case!

[@Chris-hw4mq]

@chriskeating3024 just get a normal car

[@chriskeating3024]

@@Chris-hw4mq Just wait until you try an EV - you'll never concider an ICE car "normal" again. Good luck for the future

[@Chris-hw4mq]

@@chriskeating3024 I do road trips and the charging network in my country includes mostly level 2 charging so I dont like to spend hours charging. I just fuel up my car in a 10-15 minutes brake and keep driving.

[@chriskeating3024]

@@Chris-hw4mq Understood, in the UK range problems are now a thing of the past. Where do you live?

[@notbatman1001]

I find that range anxiety is exponentially proportional to the number of family members in the car expecting to get to their destination. Alone, it's just another great adventure.

[@MrEV]

So true!

[@salibaba]

Sweated like a Scotsman in Harrods when I had to drive my boss for the 1st time. Very sceptical. I’ve never once ran out, and am not religious. But man did I pray that day. No problems. And on the journey back he even full comprehended his complaint about a numpty still charging at 98% on a shared power rapid, halving our speed.

[@jamiepearcey6287]

Amen

[@smithleon]

Fun vid :) At a meal the other day the conversation got onto EVs. Usual myths to be busted. One eye-opening moment for them was when I pointed out that every 3-pin socket is a potential charger. I think people either forget that or simply don't realise it's possible.

[@MrEV]

So true. Electricity is far more ubiquitous than petrol/diesel!

[@salibaba]

“Yea, the only place you can make em work is where people have electricity” 😂

[@AdamAugustPhoto]

0:31 get that man an Oscar nomination! 😂

[@MrEV]

😂

[@kevinmills5293]

£89 for the grounding adaptor is day light robbery. Just take a mains plug, connect neutral and earth together inside the plug and plug it into a spare socket on the eco flow.

[@AndyC2_]

And £2000 for a glorified car battery isn’t ? 😂

[@CockmageLVL99]

In case anyone from the metric world is wondering, that means taking into account typical charging losses of 15%, the actual range with 2 kWh of energy from this emergency battery pack and a typical EV consumption of 20 kWh per 100 km translates to about 8.5 km. Not much, but could get you to the next charger -depending on where you are of course (country, rural area vs city and so on).

[@MrEV]

Thank you for that! I completely forgot to write the conversion in the video as I'd normally do. 🤦‍♂️

[@976rick1]

Your voice is so mellow, soothing, relaxing, i fell asleep.

[@MrEV]

Thank you, I think!

[@teuton6167]

Thanks for the video. I read through the comments and a lot of people don’t understand. They don’t get that someone who is doing this already has an electric car and a power station and may not be aware that they can be used for this (ancillary ) purpose. They aren’t buying it just for this reason. It’s good to know that these power stations can add some range (5-10 miles) in an emergency.

[@Zmywak]

I tried Ecoflow Delta Pro with Kia e-Niro. Full portable battery gave me an additional 12 miles of range.

[@MrEV]

Not too bad! The e-Niro's efficiency makes it better than most EVs for a top-up.

[@jdavison8551]

@@MrEVa very useful video and suggestion for an emergency back up ….. but did you say it costs about £1000? That would hurt even more than knocking on a strange door AND chopping off a limb.

[@paulevo511]

The best way of eliminating range anxiety is to get rid of the ev and get an ice vehicle. 😅

[@pachy444]

Had ICE cars for 35yrs, no thanks, there's no way I'm going back to paying THAT much tax every time I want to go somewhere 😂

[@Channel--Ai]

Once u go ev

[@1000ukjohn]

Thanks Andrew, cracking video. Happy Christmas to you and family. John in Stevenage.

[@MrRozebud]

ha ha, I called the AA out for my 2014 Leaf yesterday. I'd not used it for a few weeks and just assumed the cold snap had drained the little remaining mileage i'd had, everything was dead. lo and behold, it was the 12v battery. AA man handily had one to sell me on the spot and I was on my way, so guess it's quite common :) I really like the idea of an EcoFlow unit, preferably a few daisy chained together for off grid charging (and prepping for the apocalypse).

[@user-id2oz1gd7z]

Very reassuring, in your usual laid back style Mr EV 😊😊

[@bernardcharlesworth9860]

Love the black and white bit.

[@oleww50]

This is precisely what I’ve been thinking about as a portable charging station when away camping in the summer etc. excellent video and funny as well! Thanks for testing! 👍

[@briangriffiths114]

This product reminds of a much larger version of the Poweroak, which is great for keeping your TV, router and laptop running for several hours during outages. I have a couple of these and they've proved useful over the years.

[@lookoutleo]

Love my leaf , looks like yours :) it's a 20kwh capacity . It draws 2.2kwh when on granny . But you need a massive battery backup to charge :)

[@mdshovel]

Kent's own Bjorn Nyland 😁 ... he also used a V2L to charge in one test stop

[@MrEV]

Yes, I saw him do that with the Buzz. Now he just uses it for the microwave I think!

[@mdshovel]

@@MrEV and a small fan heater so he can switch off car heating to get max mileage

[@petermc7098]

Hi There, a great and informative Video and thank you for sharing your thoughts. Cheers Peter :⁠-⁠)

[@musk-eteer9898]

my 2011 leaf just went to 60% capacity and you answer my long time inquiry

[@MrEV]

Ouch, that’s low. Has it been sat for long periods at 100%? The early Leafs are notoriously bad at battery management.

[@MrRozebud]

There are companies that specialize in upgrading Leaf batteries to 62 Kw (along with stronger suspension and adding CCS charging port). Costs around $16k, but cheaper than a new car, thinking of doing this with mine. The Gen1 Leafs battery drop off seemed to be fixed by my 2014 model. I've dropped only 1 bar and I'm at 75k miles.

[@1mw2mam]

Very interesting video; liked the drama that you didn't produce at the beginning. So my take is we won't run out of juice unless we're foolish; there are chargers in most places so no reason not to head for one if running low and if we do get caught out we we may as well wait for the recovery service who mostly offer emergency mobile charging. Otherwise that's a heavy and expensive piece of kit for an extra 7 miles. There seem to be a few mobile charging options now emerging and I wonder if they may be more useful than say a full roadside assistance membership given that it is less likely to be a mechanical engine fault - you know - oil, air intake, fuel, battery - its just juice or tyres with an EV? I also like the idea that we become a community of electricity sharers - in the older times we may have stopped at someones abode to feed the horse or ask for a cup of water; now we'd knock and ask for an hours electricity say in return for a tale of adventure.

[@LoremIpsum1970]

And I thought Bjorn only had his EcoFlow for using his microwave on those long-range night-time range tests...Ecoflow have a good, but pricey, smart 12V SLA charger as well... Is it worth £2k..?

[@solarcharging9743]

You may be able to use your high frequency inverter to charge your EV now, but it's just a matter of time before the MOSFETs or IGBTs in your inverter fail and you can kiss your EV's onboard charger goodbye. A much better and safer choice if you want to charge your EV with solar is to use an inverter or power station that uses low frequency, transformer based technology in its design. Low frequency inverters can handle high surge loads for at least 3x their continuous rated capacity and they can do this repeatedly, without sustaining damages to their MOSFET transistors, for minutes, rather than the milliseconds that a high frequency inverter offers. And because low frequency inverters use a transformer, they provide galvanic isolation which protects your EV's charger. That's why the big name brand inverter manufacturers like Schneider Electric, Outback Power, Sigineer Power, Magnum Energy and Victron Energy and others, all use a low frequency topology in their design.

[@keithisaacs6092]

At the end Andrew it looked suspiciously like you were starting the long walk home. None of it would have happened if Flaviana had been with you.

[@oleww50]

I really like the “build as you want, play with set rules” update, encourages rule of cool 👌 … until they change it 12-24 months time to sell more minis in ‘meta armies of renown’ load outs…

[@joshuasummers2091]

Thanks for your video. I have a delta 2 with a pair of 220w solar panels and am planning to buy the grounding adapter as well. I think it will work great with cars like a leaf or my e-golf. I live in the US and also have a ford lightning. I'm not sure that it will make much difference in a vehicle with a 98 kwh battery and an efficiency around 2 - 2.4 miles/kwh. but I suppose in an emergency any bit helps. I am looking for any type of way to cover the truck bed in solar so I can just constantly charge a small battery bank in the bed of the truck. Probably not necessary, but here in the US we always buy based on the what ifs life can throw at us.

[@MrEV]

A truck bed covered in solar makes a lot of sense! Great to be as self-sufficient as possible. I've seen too many apocalyptic movies!

[@salipander6570]

Only the old Leaf can really extend its range with an Ecoflow. You can also use it to drive a heater, to save the battery of the Leaf 🙂

[@colinnich]

Why? Something more efficient, like a Model 3, would go over 8 miles with that 2kWh.

[@AndyC2_]

Electric ⚡️ it’s the future 🙄

[@mikeselectricstuff]

All you should need to do is link Neutral and Earth in the cable.

[@MrEV]

Certainly cheaper than buying a grounding adapter, but then it'd involve hacking off the moulded plug!

[@peteglass3496]

Aren't most 3pin plugs all sealed up these days, Mike? I guess you can suggest a workaround. 😊

[@halberghansen]

Why did you put the solar panel in shadow.. so many areas with sun around you😂

[@MrEV]

It was in the sun when I started! 😀

[@dewalddelange3502]

Good information for EV owners. Car manufacturers should make provision for adding an extra battery, because there is probably a number of voltage conversions (and inefficiency) when using a portable power pack. What might have helped stranded drivers, is the ability to transfer energy from another full charged car.

[@Foreverjc1]

Any Ecoflow tutorial how to use the grounding adapter pls?

[@MrEV]

I showed how to use it in the video? There's nothing more to it?

[@lordpitnolen2196]

To stop the annoying LEAF open door beeper press and hold in for a few seconds the "door open" switch on the B pillar.

[@TheTrinitygroup]

Solar panels are really cheap at the moment 435w panel for £85 inc vat I am thinking a smalll install on my south facing house wall with 5 panels would the ecoflow accept 2175w charging at the same time as discharging?

[@teuton6167]

No the Delta 2 Max only accepts up to 1,000 watts. And it’s hard to achieve that because it has 2 solar inputs of 500 watts each, but they are also limited by a 60V limit on each input.

[@bradleyrex2968]

5:46 Car in full sun. Solar panel with shade from branches. I realize the solar panel is not going to make up the 2K watts the battery is pushing out, but even a little shade can cut the output of a panel by 90%. Drag that bad boy into the sun.

[@MrEV]

I was concentrating more on the videoing than the solar panel unfortunately! 😬

[@Jaw0lf]

Solar panels and winter sun = low energy. If you have this and happen to run out/ get low on battery level in a nice park, do it in the summer!

[@CockmageLVL99]

Its 200W peak though, which means under best conditions you get 200W max.

[@IrnBruNYC]

Are there any portable batteries that do not require the grounding thingie to charge an EV?

[@MrEV]

I’m not sure actually, but not all EVs need a grounded supply so having a grounded battery isn’t always necessary.

[@pferdeschorshi]

There are some good cheap Chinese diesel generators on Amazon - 400V 10kWh. 30 litre tank should be enough, but a spare jerry can is probably a worthwhile investment along with a trailer to put it in.😅 Joking aside, the issue of grounding these batteries is very big in the Camper & Caravan scene where 'self-sufficiency' now very possible & affordable with Battery packs & Solar Panels. Although vehicles are fitted with RCDs, they only protect when the vehicle is hitched up to camping park mains electricity, or as some suggest in other comments, the rather Heath Robinson bridging technique. There are work arounds but I had not seen the EcoFlow solution.

[@salibaba]

It’s probably using a massive bank of resistors to work like a dump load, simulating the very high resistance of an Earth circuit.

[@HelloSwiftful]

A bit of a side question, but why does the UK still have miles? I read your country was fully metrified in 2010, except for road distance. Couldn't they just hire Banksy to spray all signs?

[@CockmageLVL99]

Probably all EUs damn fault! 😂

[@MrEV]

We all drink pints and many of us still measure our height and weight in imperial too! I think it's just too much hassle to change, and there'd be a lot of grumpy people resistant to it.

[@HelloSwiftful]

@@MrEV Ah, the grumpy people 😄

[@peteglass3496]

Andrew, I've tried to use your Electroverse link but I'm not quite sure it's worked. Keep an eye out for the credit, don't know if there is any method of resolution if not.

[@MrEV]

Thank you! When you use it to charge the first time, that’s when we’ll both get the credit. In theory! If it doesn’t, talk to Octopus and they’ll sort it out.

[@peteglass3496]

@@MrEV thanks for explaining. Tell Flaviana she earned the click for you! 😁

[@MrEV]

@@peteglass3496 I won't tell her that! She'll want some compensation from me!

[@peteglass3496]

@@MrEV Ah, a real business head on her then!

[@colinrobinson7869]

Yes range anxiety, my wife won't let me go full turtle mode shame as love the little 🐢

[@chriskeating3024]

I drive a Nissan Ariya and their EV tech person stated never to try and start an EV (any EV) with the jump starter shown as a] it will not have enough power and b] it will scramble the software. I tried to tell them that I had watched your chanel Andrew when you were having problems with the I5 and solved them with the battery pack. However they were adament regarding the above two points? Crazy world of EVs!!!

[@CarolSteele]

The commonly used battery starter kits are used solely to open up the relays to the main battery though, not to charge up the main battery. You could probably do the same with an AA sized battery I have been told.

[@MrEV]

That makes no sense to me! I’ve used them several times in Kia/Hyundai cars (and had hundreds of people commenting on my videos to say they’ve used them) and there’s never been an issue with ‘scrambling the software’. Interesting. I’ll do a bit of research!

[@salibaba]

That’s back to front advice. What you CANNOT do is, jump start an ICE using an EV, the inrush of current from the alternator and the massive voltage drops from the starter would cause problems for the power electronics in the EV.

[@Antiorganizer]

Instead of a backup battery, why not consider the last kWh in the car's battery as the backup. What you do is when you reach 2kWh, you slow down to a crawl no matter where you are. Then when you reach 1kW, you pull over and turn the car off. Game over, you ran out of battery power. But wait... to the rescue, another 1kW you kept as a backup. You wait there for 15 minutes to let it sink in. Then you start the car and you slowly slowly drive for a bit, hopefully reaching a charger.

[@CarolSteele]

I wonder hw much lugging around what appears to be a fairly heavy battery knocks off your range - which could contribute to you running short of charge in the first place?

[@MrEV]

That would be an interesting test! The battery is 22kg. I can't imagine that makes too much difference to the range?

[@CarolSteele]

@@MrEV No at that weight, probably not. It was the way you lfted it up that I sssumed it was much heavier. 22Kg is probably less than half the weight of a slim, 5'2" woman.

[@theweekthatis]

Range isn't really affected by additional mass in an EV due to the extensive use of regen braking, drag makes much, much more difference.

[@frankelf3151]

22kg of 1500kg+ Leaf is less than 1.5% of it's weight. That's not going make much of a difference in range.

[@MrEV]

@@CarolSteele It's just because I have a bad back!

[@patdbean]

0:51 for range anxiety read "range stupidity" it is just the same as running out of fule at the end of the day.

[@MrEV]

In the days of low range EVs (with inaccurate guess-o-meters) and not enough working chargers, it was arguably valid. These days things are so much better, I agree it's much the same as running out of fuel.

[@patdbean]

@@MrEV yes, I was being a bit flippant , sorry. But I agree battery faults aside , under normal circumstances today it should not really be an issue. Interesting that the AA/RAC say only 2% of EV call outs are for flat traction battery.

[@nottmfunguy]

A solar panel in this country, you'd be waiting for the car to charge in months. 😂😂

[@davestraight8219]

Look at Bjorn nyland - runs new stuff flat and charges with these - sit down when you look at the price tho

[@MrEV]

Yes, I mentioned Bjorn (and his microwave!) when I filmed but didn’t include it as it was getting too long.

[@salibaba]

What we do get as experienced EVers is “I don’t want to be a bellend-anxiety” This comes from being so cheap, and cocky. Thinking yeah, I’ll make that. Down to the last 2 miles of journey, - - - % , - - - miles remaining.😅 All to save 2 mins of time or £1 on the rapid charger since we’re so close to home and will get on the cheap rate shortly.

[@Knott1701]

Must admit i looked at portable chargers when i was looking at an ev, but i'm the kind of person who used to keep a petrol can on the boot when I had an ICE car. I park on the street and can't have a home charger so something like this would be good in case of emergency

[@salibaba]

I’d like a rentable one from petrol stations. Rent it with little wheels on it, like a granny shopping basket. Pay a high deposit & register details etc. £30-£40 rental. Return it to the station within next day once you’ve moved your stricken vehicle. Saves having to get towed or wait hours for recovery. Could save recovery membership fees if your feeling adventurous.

[@ChrisPurdy]

Seems like the only real use-case for this is shuttling small amounts of energy from an inaccessible property to a car on the street. I can't see a situation where I'd want to spend £1000-1500 to put an extra 20+ kg and a big lump in the boot of my car to provide an emergency 8 miles! Treat the battery the car already has as 2 or 3 kwh smaller than it really is, work out what that does to % readout and range predictions and hey presto, you have a built in emergency battery that hasn't cost you any weight, space or extra money. Knowing what I'm like, I'd carry that thing around in the car and either never use it, or forget to charge it so when I did ultimately need it, it wouldn't be any use! 🤣

[@TheRamblyChannel]

Clever gadget but it’s probably a better option to make sure you don’t run out of charge so never need it (hopefully not tempting fate by writing this comment) 🤪

[@MrEV]

Yes, the battery is great as a home backup primarily. This is just a party trick!

[@UKRenna]

I get 250 miles, even in winter.

[@manuelguevara1437]

All that party and expensive stuff only for 10km haha

[@MrEV]

Obviously I’d not suggest anyone buys an expensive battery like that just as a backup for the car! 😀

[@manuelguevara1437]

@@MrEV 😝

[@MrMannakin]

Carrying that lump around would probably impact your range in the first place!

[@MrEV]

It's 22kg so wouldn't make much difference at all.

[@elelegidosf9707]

I'm not convinced. Let's compare: Spare battery costs £1,000 vs the £5 that my 5 litre petrol can cost me. Spare battery weighs 22kg vs the 5kg of the full petrol can. Spare battery takes up large amount of space in the boot vs 5 litres. Spare battery gives 7 miles of extra range vs the 50 miles I get from the can. Maybe I'm missing something, but a solution that costs 200 times more and underperforms the alternative in every way does not seem like a winning idea.

[@MrEV]

I wouldn't consider getting a battery for the sole reason of having it as a backup in the car. It's far more useful to save the fridge in a power cut (as it did for us the other day), or use when vacuuming the car, but it may just be useful to keep it in the EV just in case.

[@manuelguevara1437]

Agreed

[@jimrandall1739]

✌❤

[@pmac6584]

Just a small point but Solar panels don’t work in the shade, any shade. Look at the video of you standing next to the panels and you can see branches shading the panels. I suspect that is why the output was so low even though you had them angled towards the winter sun.

[@MrEV]

It was fine when I set it up but I was too busy filming things to pay attention to the non-optimal position!

[@ericvernon1182]

maybe try putting the panel in the sun?

[@MrEV]

It was when I started! Too busy making the video to notice it was getting shady.

[@byrnc927]

We can charge at home, but rural America is so large and the charging infrastructure in rural areas is nonexistent. Why we own PHEVs. This video has you driving around with a 100 lb battery to fly through the cabin in a crash. The whole thing is ridiculous.

[@MrEV]

It’s 48lb and it’s in the trunk. Why would it fly through the cabin?

[@arod9998]

Running out of charge is 3 points and a £100 fine if caught by the police surely? It is if you run out of petrol/diesel.

[@MrEV]

It's only if you cause an obstruction I think? www.theaa.com/about-us/newsroom/aa-warns-drivers-of-low-fuel-gamble

[@ashb8572]

I wonder how many % it would add to a 64kwh EV 😅

[@MrEV]

You'd add around 3% in theory, if my maths is correct! The 64kWh Niro gets about 4.5 miles/kWh on a good day so you could expect to get an extra 9 miles.

[@teuton6167]

@ashb8572 it depends a lot on the temperature and where your driving (flat terrain v mountains).Flat Summer driving would be best/cold mountain driving is worst. Probably 5 to 9 miles from a 2kwH battery.

[@jrlee1072]

How much is the battery 😂😮

[@MrEV]

£1,399. Bargain! I'll take two.

[@johnnyjrotten59]

Be easier to use a Honda generator and a can of petrol and a shit load cheaper

[@teuton6167]

Easier yes but it’s dangerous to keep a can of gasoline in the trunk.

[@robinwilson8435]

Your solar panel has a lot of shade on it. They lose a lot of efficiency when shaded, also seems to depend on the time of year. Good video. I'm looking at buying a Fiat 500e with an 84 mile range, and have thought of packing my Goal Zero power bank, 1000wh, 1500 watt inverter in the trunk. It would give me 3-4 additional miles of range if needed. I have two, so could get 6-8 miles. If I bought and carried a splitter, I believe I could charge from both units simultaneously and get a faster charge. Yep, gotta have that ground for some reason.

[@kevinleesmith]

So the solution to your battery power car running out of battery is to always carry another battery

[@MrEV]

Not necessarily, but some people may find it of some comfort to have a battery in the boot just in case. Since most journeys are far less than an EV's range, it's really not much of a problem. I never take a battery anywhere personally. Perhaps I would if I was going on a long journey into the sticks with the Leaf, but even then there are chargers everywhere these days.

[@blackwidow3922]

Not any different when a gas car runs out of gas and you have a gas container in the trunk

[@kevinleesmith]

@@blackwidow3922 yeah. No different at all. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪

[@SD-rz8gw]

😂😂😂

[@IDann1]

The battery 🔋 probably cost more than the leaf 🌿 🫠

[@MrEV]

Close! The battery is £1,399 - the Leaf was £5,500

[@chrisbarrow9909]

Inspired by Bjorn Nyland?

[@MrEV]

Subconsciously perhaps! I remember seeing him use an EcoFlow battery to charge the Buzz ages ago.

[@stephencollins7714]

That must be the most expensive Jerry Can ever, cheaper to get a tow 🫣 I hear that you can charge them for your mobile too 😂