Ideal home charging system

lucilius

Active member
I'm not an EV owner [yet] but wondering what is a proven / no brainer garage EV home-charging system (for 1-2 vehicles) currently available? I have some PV solar that can help but largely powered by the grid in a relatively cold, dark, northern rockies environment. The vehicle(s) will ideally be kept in the heated garage. Thanks.
 

Fenderfour

Active member
I'm not an EV owner [yet] but wondering what is a proven / no brainer garage EV home-charging system (for 1-2 vehicles) currently available? I have some PV solar that can help but largely powered by the grid in a relatively cold, dark, northern rockies environment. The vehicle(s) will ideally be kept in the heated garage. Thanks.
I have a model 3 for daily driving. I installed a high quality 6-50 outlet (hubbel) on it's own circuit and use a tesla travel charger. Level 2 charging has been great for my commute + a bunch. The car recharges in a few hours without fail. Two cars can probably be kept charged with one charger pretty easily as long as you only needed to recharge every other day.

Level 1 charging (120VAC) is very slow, and in winter can only keep up with heating the battery overnight. DC supercharging requires specialized equipment and is generally cost-prohibitive.
 

3laine

Member
The Tesla charging stations are very competitively priced and known to be reliable.

The Tesla "mobile connector" that Fenderfour mentioned is an exceptional value: like ~$230 or something, and it can do 120V and 240V (at 32A, which is a mid-range rate for 240V). That will get you ~13 miles to ~26 miles of range per hour of charging depending on how efficient the EV is. If you have a non-Tesla EV (unless it's switched to the Tesla port as many are over the next few years), you'll also need a ~$150 adapter to use with this. This is what I did when I bought my current non-Tesla EV.

There's also the Tesla "universal wall connector" that is a hard-wired option that has a built-in charging adapter, letting one easily charge vehicles with the Tesla port and the J1772 port that most non-Teslas have, currently. It's ~$550. It can also charge up to 48A, which maxes out most EVs as far as AC charge rate. That will get you ~20 miles to ~40 miles of range per hour of charging depending on how efficient the EV is. (Less, if it's interstate driving in 0*F weather, but these are ballparks)

There are other brands generally considered reliable, like Grizzl-e, etc., but the value and time-proven reliability of the Tesla charging stations are hard to beat.
 

Jeremy P.

Adventurer
I installed a 14-50 outlet in our garage and have been using it for the last 5 years for our bmw i3, and for our Rivian R1S as well for the last two months (and for the welder when needed). I do want to add another circuit for a hard wired evse eventually to be able to go up to 48 amps, but even at 32 amps our Rivian max pack can be charged up plenty overnight.
 

emulous74

Well-known member
If you have the money, IMO the best charging system out there is a SPAN charger albeit integrated with their SPAN electric panel. It can turn circuits on and off to prioritize or deprioritize charging, you can schedule when to charge and can allow for variable charging rates based on your homes usage of energy.
 

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