How does SPAN Drive allow me to charge dynamically?
Other Level 2 EV charging solutions usually require your electrician to set a fixed maximum charging rate during installation, based on load calculations. Otherwise, you may need costly upgrades to the wires connecting your home to the utility grid to maximize the charging rate.
SPAN is certified to UL standards as an Energy Management System, allowing for dynamic charging management based on real-time home energy monitoring. This means you can charge faster (up to 48 Amps!) in most situations. If SPAN detects you’re nearing the limit of your utility connection rating (for example, if running multiple air conditioners while cooking on your electric range), SPAN Drive’s charge rate will be temporarily decreased until that extra power is available.
How does SPAN Drive allow me to charge on schedule?
To make the most of your utility plan, SPAN Drive allows you to select an off-peak time window to charge your car. When your car is plugged in, SPAN Drive will automatically start charging when the time window begins and stop charging when it ends.
To avoid charging conflicts, we highly recommend removing scheduling configurations previously selected on your car dashboard or car mobile app.
Learn more about Charge on Schedule
How does SPAN Drive allow me to charge from solar? (Coming Soon)
By sitting at the electrical center of your home, the SPAN Panel has visibility into all grid, solar, battery, and load energy usage. This insight can be used to selectively direct power generated from solar into your EV, so you can drive on sunshine!
How does SPAN Drive help manage EV charging in an outage? (Coming Soon)
Without SPAN, it’s difficult to manage large loads like EV charging in an outage without having them drain or overload your home battery. Without SPAN, these circuits are usually permanently installed as “non-backed-up” loads, limiting your options for charging during an outage.
Your SPAN Panel uses your backup priorities, along with whole-home energy insights to automatically modulate the charge rate of your vehicle when you are running off of limited battery+solar energy during outages. This helps you last through any outage while ensuring EV charging is always an option if you need to get away.
Can I install multiple SPAN Drive chargers at my home?
SPAN Drive is designed to support charge-sharing between multiple SPAN Drive units for homeowners with more than one EV. Today, the SPAN Home app supports full functionality for one SPAN Drive charger. We are excited to release charging-sharing functionality at a later date.
Does SPAN Drive need an internet connection to charge my car?
No, your SPAN Panel and SPAN Drive will continue to follow your settings even without an internet connection. To adjust Drive settings without an internet connection, SPAN is developing a local control dashboard which will be available after a future OTA update.
Can SPAN Drive open my Tesla EV's charging port door automatically?
This feature will not be available out of the box, but we're exploring future updates to SPAN Drive to allow automatically opening vehicle charge port doors. Please note that all Tesla charge port doors are equipped with capacitive touch sensors and can be opened from outside of the vehicle.
Can SPAN Drive help me back up my home with my vehicle?
SPAN Panel and SPAN Drive are engineered to be extremely flexible hardware platforms. However, industry standards for vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-home (V2X) functionality are still in early stages. While we have not announced V2X functionality with SPAN Drive at this time, we recognize this is a rapidly evolving space, and SPAN is actively participating in discussions around V2X.
Can I lock my Drive if it’s in a publicly accessible area?
Yes! SPAN Drive’s Lock feature adds an extra layer of security if your Drive is installed in a location where someone outside of your household might be able to access and use your charger. Read here for more information on Lock Drive and instructions for setup: How do I lock Drive?
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