What is the earliest that a time-traveling electric vehicle of current era could be recharged?

Question

Taking modern gas engines into the past is hard because the fuel isn’t refined enough and damages the engines. But electricity has been the same since time began, limited by human capacity to produce and store it. So, if a 2020s-era electric vehicle went time traveling, what’s the earliest point in Earth history that it’s driver could rig up something to charge the vehicle? Acceptable answers are either by tapping a local power producer or by building the generator directly, but assume the driver has no modern tools other than the vehicle itself and basic car repair tools. I’ll even grant a set of jumper cables even though such cables are typically useless with an electric vehicle.

Please include the education level the driver would need to pull off the feat in the era you specify.

Answer 1

Correct voltage (if possibly lackluster current levels resulting in multi-day charge cycles) would have been available via a transformer anywhere that used alternating current (either 50 Hz or 60 Hz, doesn't matter in this case as far as I'm aware, since it's converted to DC internally), any time after alternating current became available. If you're in the right location, that might be as early as 1886, or if you happen to land in Con Ed country, might have been as late as 2007 (a few blocks of Manhattan had their DC service discontinued on November 14th of that year).

Of course, if you're going to travel before about 2015, you'd be very strongly advised to carry heavy duty transformers for 110-125 V supply to 220-250 V as well, as various parts of the US and Europe might have either voltage -- and you'll naturally want a correct connector wired into a box in which you can scab in a power cord for whatever AC you can find.

Your operator would need to be able to operate a simple multimeter to verify that the electricity available is AC, and what voltage is supplied, as well as the ability to do simple (screw-clamped) wiring connections, comparable to replacing a lamp cord.

Answer 2

There are 4 ways to produce electricity:

• chemical battery: you need enough amount of two metals with different enough electromotive force, an electrolytic solution and metal wires (better if gold, copper or silver to reduce resistive losses). With this method you can go back to any time where at least two different metals were produced. The concept is known from high school. This will produce DC current, which is OK for recharging a battery.
• dynamo: you need a movable magnet and metal wiring. With this method you might travel back to the times of Ancient Greece, where they could build mechanisms and knew of magnets. This is also known out of high school, and produces AC current, which cannot be directly tapped into a battery.
• solar generator: you would need silicon and related dopants available. You can't get past the early XX century with this. Though the concept is know in high school, the details require university level knowledge. It produces DC current.
• electrostatic generator: if you have wool and amber (known in Ancient Greece) you can build one, and if you have metals you can discharge it toward the battery. It produces DC current. Also known from high school.

All the above neglects that you need to have ways of controlling the voltage and the current if you want to really recharge the battery and not risking some sort of explosion, and also assume you don't care much about how long and how much it will take.