What level 2 charger is everyone purchasing for home use?

[robbinbadams]

I installed a 60amp breaker and an emporia smart charger. I expect to get my premium it 2-3 weeks. The charger was less than $400.

Sponsored

 

[Matt Bagne]

My understanding is that charging an MME at 48 amps does not reach full potential. A 60 amp circuit drawing down to a 48 amp delivery will supply 11.5kw at the socket . . . but an MME on-board charger is limited to 11kw. In all, when charging from 20% to 100% in this scenario it will take approximately 8 hours.

But charging at 40 amps off a 50 amp circuit is a fuzz more than 9 hours. So really only about one hour difference . . . therefore you would have to decide if the extra cost for the 48 amp wiring from a 60 amp circuit with a charger that needs to be wall-mounted (hard wired) in some jurisdictions at that amperage, is worth it. Especially when many MME owners will simply be charging overnight, the one hour difference wouldn't mean anything.

 

[Kabish]

Its more about feature proofing. Might as well put in what you can afford so if you buy a new EV 3yrs from now you can take advantage of the faster charging.

 

[RickMachE]

My understanding is that charging an MME at 48 amps does not reach full potential. A 60 amp circuit drawing down to a 48 amp delivery will supply 11.5kw at the socket . . . but an MME on-board charger is limited to 11kw. In all, when charging from 20% to 100% in this scenario it will take approximately 8 hours.

But charging at 40 amps off a 50 amp circuit is a fuzz more than 9 hours. So really only about one hour difference . . . therefore you would have to decide if the extra cost for the 48 amp wiring from a 60 amp circuit with a charger that needs to be wall-mounted (hard wired) in some jurisdictions at that amperage, is worth it. Especially when many MME owners will simply be charging overnight, the one hour difference wouldn't mean anything.

Not true.

I have gotten 11.25 at least. 11.27kW in one test at 48amps. I normally run at 32.

 

[Triggerhappy007]

Good to hear, I just ordered one myself after my ford mobile charger started acting up randomly. I’ve only seen good reviews for the emporia so far, but it’s good to hear it from someone in this community.

Does it require the monitoring system to get the usage information? It wasn’t clear from their marketing info, or I may have just missed it.

Another Emporia owner here.

No it doesn't need the monitoring system (that's for your whole house). The EVSE has the monitoring built in. The app isn't the best out there but it'll show you instantaneous, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly usage.

Currently charging at 12.25-12.3 kW at 48A.

48A isn't future proofing, it's already here. Mach-E, ID4, Ioniq 5, EV6, Polestar 2 can use 48A.

80A, now that's future proofing.

 

[Glen]

I got the Charge Point home flex and could not be happier. Been using it for about 3 months now. Its been great. My humble opinion. 50 amp breaker, number 6 wire in conduit. I did the 10-50 plug. In case there is a problem. Just unplug it and mail it back. 3 year warrenty. Didnt know what else to do. So opted against hardwiring it. My first EV and home charger.

 

[Tangible]

I’m also not an electrician so don’t understand why when I hire one to hardwire my ChargePoint Home Flex for max 48A charging that #6AWG wire max rated at 55A can’t be used vs #4AWG wire rated at 70A max going through a 60A breaker. If the estimating electrician says to use #6AWG, quoting its max rating, should this be a deal killer?

My understanding is this: The breaker should be the weakest link in the circuit. If the wire is the weakest link then anything that pulls more than the ampacity of the wire but less than the ampacity of the breaker will overheat the wire rather than trip the breaker. So. the question is whether to rely on the “promise” that the maximum load will be 48 watts, or allow for the possibility that more will be demanded either by that device or some future load on the circuit, either through malfunction or a poor choice by some future owner.

 

[mkhuffman]

I‘m not an electrician, but the online sources I found all seem to agree on #4, with no mention of a difference based on NM versus conduit. Example:
https://learnmetrics.com/60-amp-wire-size/

That author rather nastily says choosing #6 is something only amateurs do, while pros will always go with #4. His proof arguments seem authoritative, but it’s hard for an admitted amateur like me to judge.

Well, am certainly an amateur and I put in 6/3 copper on my 60 Amp circuit. Maybe I should have put in #4 but my use case will never exceed 48 Amps, so I am not worried about it. If someone wanted to pay me to do it, I would probably only agree to do #4 for liability reasons. I would expect a qualified electrician to insist on running #4.

 

[ZuleMME]

#6 THHN would be fine at 60A. Romex 6/3 is a completely different thing at 55A due to the thermal properties of the casing it's wrapped in. Be safe. Don't be sorry.

 

[Zapata]

A couple things I like about the Charge Point Flex is that I could set it to 240V 20Amp because of my older house wiring and I can monitor my monthly charging cost since my wife pays the electricity bill out of her own account.

 

[ridgebackpilot]

I installed a Tesla Wall Charger in 2020 when I purchased my Model 3. Used 6/3 Romex because my garage wiring is older and limited to 50 amps max. So I had to set the Wall Charger to 40 amps max.

This system has worked well for the past two years. When I acquired my MME earlier this year, I purchased a TeslaTap Mini 60 amp adapter, and that has worked flawlessly with the Wall Charger.

 

[Aferreira613]

Have 100A sub panel in the garage split into 2 50A each with a juicebox 40. Overkill for my wife’s PHEV. did get some incentives, but don’t recall exact $.

In SoCal juicebox (now enel X) partners with Edison to give you juicepoints - every 4-5 months or so I collect enough for them to send $50 to me through PayPal.

had one juicebox go bad a few years back - their customer service was good.

most of the evse mentioned in this thread will do fine.

Will juice box chargers work without an inter Connection? Can they be hardwired?

 

[timbop]

Will juice box chargers work without an inter Connection? Can they be hardwired?

I assume you mean "without an internet connection"? If your charger location is too far from WiFi, then there is no point to getting a "smart" charger unless you also plan to put a wireless access point where the signal can reach the charger.

IMHO, the only real feature a smart charger gives you over a dumb charger like the grizzl-e or clippercreek is the ability to more tightly track power use. The fordpass app can give you a rough idea of kwh drawn from the grid (based on percentage put into battery + 10%), and the car does a pretty good job with charging schedules (although it sometimes goofs up).

With that said, my wife is getting a PHEV and I now wish I had gotten a smart charger to track utility usage on her car as well.

 

[Accord07]

A couple things I like about the Charge Point Flex is that I could set it to 240V 20Amp because of my older house wiring and I can monitor my monthly charging cost since my wife pays the electricity bill out of her own account.

I have a ChargePoint HomeFlex as well, and like it for the most part, it keeps track of my charging cost accurately. Two complaints: 1) the app depends on their backend server to communicate with the HomeFlex, over the past six months I have encountered two outages (there could've been more, just not when I needed to use the app), in one case it lasted hours and prevented me from overriding the charging window (I set it on the HomeFlex rather than on the car) during those hours. I don't know about other "smart" EVSEs, but some IoT devices fall back to direct connections when there is no Internet conductivity. 2) they recently removed the ability to change breaker amperage on-the-fly from the app, so I am no longer able to reduce the maximum charging current during the hottest months.

 

[Zapata]

2) they recently removed the ability to change breaker amperage on-the-fly from the app, so I am no longer able to reduce the maximum charging current during the hottest months.

Yeah, I wondered what that was about. I was a bit upset I couldn't change my charging from the app anymore. I had to call the 24hr hotline. I wonder if that was a liability issue. Probably had many people who have no experience with electronics, changing amperage on a whim, and causing burned out circuits or worse.

Sponsored