Home Charging

Home charging is one of the neatest things about owning an EV. To put it in perspective, consider what it would be like if you could install a gas pump in your garage for a couple hundred dollars that took up little more space than a cord hanging on the wall. More importantly, this hose will fill up your car at any time for 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of gas at a gas station just by pulling into the garage, putting the gas handle into your car, and walking away while it fills you car up. No fumes, no tanker hauling gas to your house, just a magic hose hanging on the wall. That is basically what charging at home involves with an EV.

So, how do you get set up for home charging? A lot of people get confused with that thinking you need to install a big charger in your home. In actuality, the charger for EVs for AC charging (home and destination) is inside the EV. You are basically just taking the cord that comes with your car with an adapter on one end for whatever type of socket you are plugging into and the other end is the smart connector that fits into your EV socket. As to the type of plugin, well that depends on how much you travel every day and a bit on the environment, but the answer actually might suprise you. Even the 460 HP Tesla Model 3 Stealth I have, I just plugged into a normal 120 v 15 amp outlet (basic wall outlet every home has) for the first few months. That charged up the car at a rate of 5.6 miles range per hour overnight so was actually plenty for us, but I wanted an outlet closer to the car so I just put a 240 v 30 amp outlet next to the car and wired it in...this, btw, is basically the same as you would have for an electric dryer so figure $300 or so in most cases to have an electrician do it for you. That will let the car draw 24 amps and charge at a rate of 24 miles per hour...so you, again, just plug in whenever you are at home and the car can be set up to charge for a couple hours in the middle of the night (or any off peak hours) when electricity might be cheaper and when you can be nice to the power grid in some states. That always keeps your EV topped off and ready to go.

For people that would rather not use the cable that came with the car or who want even faster charging (the model 3 tops out at 44 miles range per hour charge using AC charging), you can add a 60 amp 240 v AC charging base that comes with its own cable. This is usually a $500 bump but some states have incentives to drop that cost as well as installation costs down a bit (60 amp will also require thicker and more expensive wiring and sometimes might require a panel upgrade if you only have 100 amp service). A cheaper alternative if you need the faster charging but want to use the cable that came with the car is to put in a 50 amp 240 v service using a 14-50 wall socket wired into your panel. This will usually require you to buy a $35 adapter for your EV charging cable and you are ready to go. This cable also can be used to charge at many RV sites as 14-50 and TT-30 circuits are common there (yes, you can sleep in the back of many EVs...even a Tesla Model 3 has over 6' by 40" of room to put an air bed in.) I carry the TT-30 and 14-50 adapters when we travel in case we want to rough it somewhere (roughing it in AC comfort with amazing stereo and large screen to watch netflix on :) ).

For more info on the charge rate for various Teslas and receptical sizes check the chart below, for more info on various amperage settings you can set the Tesla Wall Unit to, check here.