It is important to know how to charge your electric car at home. When the topic of EV charging appears, someone brings up a case General freight infrastructure. While having more public chargers is a good thing, the truth is that drivers do the vast majority of charging electric cars at home.
This is the most convenient and cost-effective way to do it, after all. No more trips to the gas station, Find an electric car charging station near you. You get home, deliver, and just pay the same fee as your power company. It couldn’t be easier.
But there are several different ways to recharge at home, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Here’s how to charge your electric car at home.
How to charge your electric car at home
There are several ways to charge your electric car at home, and we’ll talk about them now. First, it is important to familiarize yourself with your cables.
While countless gadgets support wireless charging, this technology has not made it to the electric vehicle. So, if you want to charge your battery, you will need to connect it with a charging cable. Dedicated EV chargers have their own tethered cables, making the process super easy, whether you’re recharging at home or on the go. Simply connect the cable and you are good to go.
But your car will also come with what’s called a mobile phone charging cable – allowing you to plug into a regular power outlet. One side of the cable has J1772 . plug, that matches your vehicle, with a standard wall plug at the other end. Somewhere along the cable will be an adapter with the charging status lights on.
Every electric car will come with a portable charger that supports standard 120-volt outlets that you’ll find throughout your home. Other automakers, such as Tesla, offer cables or adapters that support 240 volts and a current of up to 50 amps. But this is less common.
Using a standard 120V wall socket
The easiest way to start charging your electric car at home is to plug it directly into a regular 120-volt power socket – just as you would any other device. However, this is a very slow process.
All you have to do is find your mobile phone charger, then plug it into both the car and a nearby power outlet. Simply. Of course this simplicity comes with a lot of caveats – particularly in regards to speed.
The standard US power socket provides 120 volts with a current of 15 amps, which translates to charging speeds of approximately 1.8 kW. For reference, most home chargers offer speeds of at least 7 kW, while ultra-fast chargers offer anything from 50 kW to 350 kW.
Needless to say, this is a very slow way to recharge. Too slow, in fact, it’s better to measure recharge time in days rather than hours. Tesla, for example, claims that its mobile phone charger provides 2-3 miles of range per hour with a 120-volt socket. Meanwhile, the supercharger can add upwards of 160 miles in 15 minutes. So there is a very big difference.
In short, the 120V charging option isn’t ideal, even if you don’t drive often. So its use should be temporary, at best, and limited to emergency situations.
Using a high-power 240V outlet
While it’s not what you’d call “fast,” by any means, charging your electric car from a 240-volt socket is a more realistic proposition. Most plugs in the United States provide 120 volts of electricity, but 240 volts sockets are not uncommon.
Many large appliances, such as dryers and water heaters, also need a 240-volt socket to function—which means you may already have one in your garage. If not, getting one should be a simple case of hiring an electrician to install it. Just make sure you can get a compatible 240V portable charger first. Some automakers sell them directly, such as Tesla, while others may only be available from third parties.
The charging speed from a 240V socket depends on the current available to it. Most homes in the United States have circuits with 15 or 20 amperes of current, which will provide charging speeds of 3.6 kW and 4.8 kW. Both are noticeably slower than a dedicated electric car charger, but they’re still much faster than a standard 120-volt outlet.
At this point, the recharging process will take several hours. You may be able to do this overnight, depending on the car model and how much charging you need, but there are times it can take longer.
More specialized sockets can handle 30 to 50 amps of power, increasing the possible charging speed to 7.2 kW and 12 kW – both on par with the speeds you get from various charging stations for electric vehicles. Although this is probably an easier option, as you can use your regular electric car charging cable, rather than go through the hassle of searching for (and buying) a compatible portable charger.
Installing a dedicated EV charger
The most convenient way to charge an electric car at home is to get a dedicated electric car charger. Not only can they recharge the majority of electric cars within a few hours, or overnight, you don’t need any special cables.
US car chargers come with their own built-in cables, which means you don’t need to buy anything else.
Home EV chargers typically range from charging speeds of 7 kW up to 22 kW. Which option you choose will depend entirely on your vehicle and your budget. The charger may provide faster recharging speeds, but it will end up costing you more as a result. So if the possibility of recharging your car is up to 7 kW, there is no point in paying extra for a 22 kW charger.
Even if your car can handle these speeds, a 7 kW charger can recharge the majority of electric vehicles overnight. So, is it worth checking recharge times to see if it’s worth the extra cost. Because in all likelihood it may not be.
The cost of the chargers themselves varies, and can cost upwards of several hundred dollars – plus any additional installation costs involved. Usually the faster and more feature-packed the charger, the more you will have to pay.
Home charger 11.5 kW from Tesla (Opens in a new tab) It costs $400, but it’s basically just a cool plug socket—albeit one that can be installed safely outside. while HomeFlex 12 kW from ChargePoint (Opens in a new tab) It costs $749, but it comes with additional features. It includes the option to set charging schedules, Alexa voice control, usage statistics, and more.
How long will each method take to recharge your car?
How long does it take to charge an electric car? Well, there is no simple answer, because it depends on a combination of things: the model of the car, the size of the battery, the amount of available power, etc. But the power works according to the rules, and the lower the voltage and current, the more time it will take to fill the battery.
Take 40 kWh Nissan LeafOne of the cheapest electric cars in the US, for example – and also one of the smallest batteries you can buy in a brand new electric car.
According to the calculator from EVadept (Opens in a new tab), recharging from zero to 80% from a standard power outlet (120 volts and 15 amps, or 1.8 kW) would take 18 hours and 43 minutes—an additional seven miles per hour. Upgrade that to a NEMA 6-20 outlet (240 volts and 20 amps, or 4.8 kW) and that number jumps to 7 hours.
The same calculator claims a Long range Tesla Model 3 It takes 35 hours and 5 minutes to recharge from 20% to 80% using a standard wall socket. A NEMA 6-20 socket does this in 13 hours and nine minutes, while a 30-amp NEMA 14-30 (7.2 kW) socket can do it in 8 hours and 46 minutes. A dedicated Tesla wall charger, which recharges a maximum of 11 kW to the car, will do it faster.
In other words, you definitely want something a little better than a standard power outlet. But the choice of what you get is up to you.
How much does it cost to charge an electric car at home?
The benefit of charging your electric car at home is that it only costs you the same as your power company. Use a generic charger and you’ll pay a premium, since the cost includes both power and a small fee for the charging network involved.
So if you pay 30 cents for every kilowatt-hour of electricity you use, recharging a 40-kilowatt-hour battery (like on the Nissan Leaf) will cost you $12. Of course the bigger the battery, the more it will cost to recharge – although this battery should offer more range as a result.
It’s worth noting that some energy companies may offer discounted energy prices at certain times of the day – usually anti-social in the middle of the night. This means that you can time your charges, whether from the shipper or the vehicle itself, to save yourself extra money. Likewise with anyone Solar Panels It can make use of the free energy effectively if it is connected during the shining of the sun.
If you are looking for more tips on electric vehicles, be sure to read our lessons on how to find electric vehicle charging stations and how to rent an electric car. Looking for infotainment help? Read about how to set up wireless Android Auto and how to set up wireless Apple CarPlay.
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