Home Charging Recommendations

[travelermark]

Hey there,

I'm curious on everyones thoughts on the best options for charging at home. Expecting to receive my new Air Touring next month (yay!!). I'm currently not setup for home charging at all. I'll have to have an electrician run new electrical line to the garage. I've confirmed I have plenty of capacity in the panel for the 100 Amp breaker and enough power coming to the house. My real question is on if anyone has any recommendations on which home charger to purchase. I'm thinking about the Lucid Homecharging, but not sure if there is a real benefit vs a slightly cheaper option. Apologies if this is covered elsewhere but couldn't find a recommendation thread on the topic.
Thanks!

 

[idiot900]

This depends on your personal driving habits. You might not need a separate EVSE (commonly referred to as "home charger") at all. I find the supplied L2 charging cable plugged into a 14-50 outlet to be perfectly sufficient for my needs: ~10 mile roundtrip commute, occasional longer trips < 200 and usually < 120 miles, can always plug in overnight between trips. The 9 kW charging rate has never been a limiting factor for me. But YMMV.

So I had installed a 100 amp line run to a 50 amp breaker box in my garage, itself connected to a 14-50 receptacle. This way I can get a higher amperage EVSE installed in the future by replacing the existing breaker box and receptacle. I may do so if and when the vehicle-to-home functionality of the Lucid charger ever materializes.

 

[Stevepatek]

Chargepoint works great on my Touring. 48 amp charge on 60 amp circuit.

 

[DeaneG]

I use both a Chargepoint Home Flex on a 40A breaker, and Lucid's Home Charging System on a 60-amp breaker. Both circuits were left over from previous EVSE installations, so I didn't have to spend to run new circuits.

From my experience with these, if I were running a new circuit for an EVSE, I'd definitely make it beefy - if you take a long road trip in your Air, and have a time-of-use electrical rate schedule so that you don't want to start charging until midnight, and want to depart home the next morning at 7am, you'd need for example at least 11.5kW charging speed (a 60-amp breaker) to replace 80% of your battery capacity.

Most of the time, a 50-amp circuit will be enough. Once in a while you'll wish you'd installed more.

 

[Bill55]

I have EA home charger 50amp. When I lived in CA I had it charging from midnight to 6am. Now in SC there is no time of use difference so 9.6kW is plenty to get me to 80% for daily driving. Rare for me to drive more than 100 miles in a day unless I’m on a planned trip, once I‘m below 40%, I plug in and it’s at 80% in 4-5 hours.

 

[scal_air]

I agree with idiot900. Unless you take long trips, the supplied charger on a 14/50 should be sufficient. I get 30+ miles/hr when charging at home. However, I would strongly consider having the electrician install the wiring needed to support an 80 amp charger if you should reconsider in the future. I personally am waiting for Lucid to introduce their V2H feature. At that time, I will install a bidirectional charger and connect that to my solar power system.

 

[Bill55]

Hey there,

I'm curious on everyones thoughts on the best options for charging at home. Expecting to receive my new Air Touring next month (yay!!). I'm currently not setup for home charging at all. I'll have to have an electrician run new electrical line to the garage. I've confirmed I have plenty of capacity in the panel for the 100 Amp breaker and enough power coming to the house. My real question is on if anyone has any recommendations on which home charger to purchase. I'm thinking about the Lucid Homecharging, but not sure if there is a real benefit vs a slightly cheaper option. Apologies if this is covered elsewhere but couldn't find a recommendation thread on the topic.
Thanks!

Having the electrician run a 50amp circuit and installing a 14-50 plug, you will get 9.6kW. You can use the included cable as lowest cost option. There are a variety of chargers out there that work great to have a dedicated cable, I bought EA home charger, there is also charge point, juicebox, ect. A search on Amazon will bring up lots of 50A options in the $350-$500 range. Running a 100amp breaker and the Lucid charger will get you 19.2kW. A great option if cost is not an object, but in ~8 hours the 9.6kW will get you from 10% to 80%, which is plenty for many.

 

[Rossb2k]

I have a 40amp Juicebox and it's plenty. To me, anything that can charge you from <10% to 80% overnight is really all you need unless you're somehow driving >200 miles every day.

 

[EVTime]

I would strongly recommend a hardwired charger. You have the capacity on your panel; you will need an electrician regardless. Go all in. Get the max your panel will support
and avoid a potential fire caused by the 14-50 plug. I like my ChargePoint, but I am sure other brands can be hardwired as well.

 

[Bill55]

I would strongly recommend a hardwired charger. You have the capacity on your panel; you will need an electrician regardless. Go all in. Get the max your panel will support
and avoid a potential fire caused by the 14-50 plug. I like my ChargePoint, but I am sure other brands can be hardwired as well.

Are you also afraid of your Dryer plug? There is no significant fire risk from a 14-50 plug vs hard wired.

 

[Domo35]

Are you also afraid of your Dryer plug? There is no significant fire risk from a 14-50 plug vs hard wired.

If plugging an electric car charger into a dryer outlet, I’d be aware the potential for issues. Dryer plugs are meant for a limited continuous cycle of high amp draw from the dryer, an electric car can go for much longer high amp draw. Also usually you only plug in the dryer cord once into the outlet, if you continually plug and unplug the cord, the outlet will begin to wear and create resistance which leads to unwanted heat. There are a number of topics and posts on the forum about using the correct outlet for electric car charger and the repercussions of installing the wrong one

 

[lucidtouringman]

Here's my recommendation:
1. Chargepoint is what I chose not necessarily because of the charger itself but cos of the feature rich app. I run a 60 amp breaker circuit and start charging my Touring at 11pm.. it's done charging usually by 4am... do you need faster than that charging? If yes, then go bigger on Amps and breaker size.. but remember . More current is more heat... in summers my garage needs ventilation so then I'm glad I didn't go bigger than 60 amps.
2. Definitely hardwire it. Cannot recommend plugs at all. I'm a licensed electrical engineer and it's not worth second guessing this question.
3. Please hire a licensed electrician for this.

 

[Bill55]

If plugging an electric car charger into a dryer outlet, I’d be aware the potential for issues. Dryer plugs are meant for a limited continuous cycle of high amp draw from the dryer, an electric car can go for much longer high amp draw. Also usually you only plug in the dryer cord once into the outlet, if you continually plug and unplug the cord, the outlet will begin to wear and create resistance which leads to unwanted heat. There are a number of topics and posts on the forum about using the correct outlet for electric car charger and the repercussions of installing the wrong one

Pretty much every RV park has 14-50 plugs that are plugged and unplugged constantly. Many RVs pull full current just like an EV. Also, if you put a 14-50 plug in your garage and buy a plug in charger, it is going to be plugged in once, similar to a dryer. Then when you move you can easily take charger with you or if you want to change chargers, you don’t need an electrician.

 

[Bobby]

Pretty much every RV park has 14-50 plugs that are plugged and unplugged constantly. Many RVs pull full current just like an EV. Also, if you put a 14-50 plug in your garage and buy a plug in charger, it is going to be plugged in once, similar to a dryer. Then when you move you can easily take charger with you or if you want to change chargers, you don’t need an electrician.

Agree. We had a 50 amp outlet installed (in 2018) for the express purpose of being able to easily replace equipment as needed down the road.

 

[scal_air]

Please search this forum for commercial 240V vs cheap Leviton outlets. Not only is the failure rate higher causing problems with charging, you will find several near misses of cheap outlets nearly catching fire. If you don't want to hardwire your charger, the bare minimum, IMHO, is a Hubbell or Bryant brand outlet.

 

[Bobby]

Please search this forum for commercial 240V vs cheap Leviton outlets. Not only is the failure rate higher causing problems with charging, you will find several near misses of cheap outlets nearly catching fire. If you don't want to hardwire your charger, the bare minimum, IMHO, is a Hubbell or Bryant brand outlet.

Agree. Mine is a Hubbell.

 

[Lucken]

Agree. Mine is a Hubbell.

And the Hubbell has the additional value of getting great deep space images.

 

[scal_air]

 

[Rogue]

Bumping the thread as a friendly reminder for folks installing and going the plug route. We had a close call and consistent issues with charging, particularly on hot days.

Attached is a photo of the back of the receptacle. Lucid's detection of a faulty system saved the house from burning down in my complete unprofessional opinion. The car would continuously turn off the charging though no specific reason was provided via app or car.

Today after one last attempt, before calling the electrician, an attempt to charge the car flipped all the outlets in the garage and the kitchen's outlets. A faint crackling sound could be heard from the plug. Slight damage was noted on the plug itself on one side by the electrician.

Leviton was the brand as can be seen in the photos. We are getting a commercial grade outlet put in tomorrow.

I will be reaching out to our service team in Atlanta with the goal for Lucid to include instructions in the technical notes of the charging manual to use only commercial grade outlets. Our electrician is spreading the word to other electricians in the area as a service notice for them to switch to commercial grade only outlets for EV plug setups.

 

[DeaneG]

Of note - Enphase's plug-in chargers now come with an industrial-grade receptacle in the box. They don't want the liability of someone plugging their charger into that spec-grade Leviton.

IMO ChargePoint's recommendations (below) don't go far enough:
Please note—if your electrician is installing a 240 V receptable, there are some best practices to keep in mind to maximize the reliability of a plug-connected Home Flex product.

• Use a receptacle that can capture all the copper strands in the wire.
• Look for a receptacle that requires the highest torque specification.
• Even after proper torquing, the integrity of the connections can be compromised by movement when installing the receptacle in the box. Care must be taken at that step, re-torque as necessary.
• Use the largest available junction box to minimize stress at the point where the wire connects to the receptacle.