EV Charger recommendations

olly

Senior Member
Location
Berthoud, Colorado
Occupation
Master Electrician
I have wired quite a few, but I am not up on what I would do If I had an EV, my buddy just got a GMC EV truck and asked if he should go just the 240v outlet route or buy a charger. What do you guys recommend? He actually leased it so I think he is wanting to go cheap but have something that will give him a full charge. Thanks in advance for recommending what type of charger, or do I just put a 50A plug for him? What is the benefit of a charger?
 
He will have to buy a charge controller whether he has a plug, or a hardwired one. Or he can go cheap and just use the 120 volt that came with it, and only drive it short distances or infrequently. The EV cannot use the 240 volt outlet directly.
 
The charger Toyota provides with the Prius is modular in nature... the connection from the AC source to the DC converter is on a detachable ~1ft pigtail, and in the US (probably Canada as well) they provide both a 5-15P and 14-50P adapter.
 
It’s quite amazing that people will get an EV worth something in the neighborhood of $100K and want to go cheap on the charging setup. I think the GM comes with a portable EVSE with both 14-50 and 5-15 dongles. If you provide a 14-50R on a 50A circuit, it can charge at 7.2KW. Depending on how many miles he drives in a day, it may or may not be sufficient.
 
Many manufacturers mention not to install them on GFCIs. However 625.54 requires receptacles for EVSEs to be GFCI protected. Consequently we suggest hardwired to avoid the conflict.



Rob G
Seattle
 
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