Get The Right Car Charging Installation

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Electric Installation | Residential

After you get your car, you’ll want to set up home charging for it where you actually park it, such as your garage or driveway.

After you get your car, you’ll want to set up home charging for it where you actually park it, such as your garage or driveway. If you can charge at your workplace (often totally free) that’s great. If you can’t do either, possibly it won’t work for you to have an electric car or truck, right now.

However you may find when you call an electrician and ask to set up charging station with a 50 amp circuit that the quote is maybe $10,000 or more, due to the fact that you require an update to the electrical cable into your house. Older homes often have just 100 amps of service and electrical codes may mean the cable to the house needs upgrading. This is seldom the case on a modern house, but something to bear in mind.

Once you have an Electric Vehicle it’s important to establish if your home or workplace has the appropriate charging electrical connections.

Without entering into the full formula, if you get 80 amps worth of 240v gadgets on a 100A panel you will most likely reach the limit of your electrical system. If you have things like a 30 amp clothes dryer, a 30 amp electric oven, or an air conditioning system or swimming pool pump or other such gadget, you can quickly go over the limit. An electrician will tell what you need.  On top of that, they will need to run a line capable of 40 to 50 amps to your parking spot, and set up a 50 amp plug (cheap) or hardwired wall EVSE (“charger”). If you have a more recent panel, fear not, you do not need to change the it and you can simply include a brand-new circuit. If the length of wire to the charging station is not that long, getting the plug installed might not cost that much.

While it’s nice to have enough power to charge a car from absolutely nothing to full in one night, you  usually don’t actually need to do that often. Charging at Level One where you drive only 70 km/day. The Level One battery charger (which normally comes with nearly any electrical car) plugs into a basic house plug, and can deliver 12 amps. This means it will provide 70 kilometers in an 8-hour over night charging session. Many people have their automobile at home for far more than an average of 8 hours. So typically, even with this really sluggish charging, you will keep up.

On the days you drive more, you won’t recharge completely, however as long as you don’t keep doing long driving days several days in a row, you will ultimately top the EV up. (How rapidly depends on whether you need to limit charging just to off-peak electrical times.)

If you have a longer commute, this is not going to work for you, and you might need to bite the bullet and get a brand-new electrical circuit installed.  However most people do not need to go that far. Sometimes, the dedicated plug might really have a 20 amp breaker and 12AWG wire on it. In that case, the plug may currently have the “T” slot in it that says it is 20 amp. Get the 20 amp plug (which Tesla offers and some other chargers offer) and you will see 70 kilometers or more in an 8 hour night. It should be noted in winter environments this slower charging may not suffice, due to heating up cold batteries and the bigger drain of driving in the cold. 

Most people do not require large current installations. Your electrical contractor might say you require a brand-new panel for a 50 amp plug, but that you can put in a 30 amp or 20 amp without a brand-new panel – which can save you a fortune.

Get advice on using power after hours. This means that instead of paying a flat rate all the time, you pay greater rates at peak times (typically afternoons and early nights) and lower rates at off peak times (nights and sometimes early mornings.) If you charge a cars in the evening, that’s could be a big win for vehicle owners. The bright side, you may be able to pay a very low rate at night to charge your car. The bad news is that the rate in the day could be quite high.

If you would like us to inspect and quote on your EV charger installation give us a call us at Lake Road Electrical today.

 

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