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To make the most of EV ownership, you need high-voltage charging equipment at home. Here's everything you need to know to get started. Ev Charger Wall Mount
This article was updated in July 2023 with new products and information. We plan to update this article regularly as needed.
Okay, so you bought your first electric vehicle. Now what? There are a number of ways in which EV ownership will be different from having a vehicle with an internal-combustion engine, but a big one you need to figure out immediately is charging.
Trust us, you'll want to be charging at home as much as possible. This has two significant benefits: Charging can be accomplished when the vehicle is otherwise parked, and home charging is substantially cheaper (roughly one-third the cost) of DC fast-charging.
There are three major factors to consider when considering a home EV charger: the output of the household circuit you're connecting to, the output of the EV charging equipment, and the rate of charging that your vehicle can handle.
We've gathered seven charging options to connect your house to your electric car that range in price from $300 to $700, all of which are compatible with any new EV on sale today. The more expensive ones tend to have Wi-Fi connectivity, which lets you monitor charging, receive alerts, and control the unit via an app. Many of these products have variants (hard-wired or plug, different output capabilities, and varying cord lengths) with slightly different prices.
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ChargePoint is one of the largest providers of public charging, with thousands of units nationwide. Its Home Flex unit tested here integrates into the same app used to connect to the company's public units. You can add your vehicle in the app, which tailors the percentage of the battery replenished and number of EPA miles added to your specific vehicle. We found the app to be very user-friendly, with the best displays for charge-rate graphs, and it also shows the total charge time and total energy output during each charge. Furthermore, it offers the ability to schedule charging times to take advantage of variable-cost electricity during off-peak hours (most EVs also allow this to be configured in their settings menu).
The ChargePoint app has the most nuanced cost tracking, allowing us to select from among dozens of possible rate plans from our local utility to pinpoint the actual cost of charging down to the penny, even when on a variable rate. We also appreciate the simplicity of the built-in notch at the top of the unit to wrap the cord around and that the plug latches onto its dock in the center; many other units require mounting a second cord-management device.
Emporia offers a vast library of electricity-monitoring devices, from typical smart outlets to a system that tracks every circuit in your fuse panel. This entire electricity-tracking universe is integrated into Emporia's app, including the ability to link your EV to the app through the Smartcar API. But if you're just using the EV charging equipment, navigating around all of these unused areas makes the app seem overly complex.
Otherwise, this is an impressive Wi-Fi-connected entry at a price hundreds of dollars less than the JuiceBox or ChargePoint. The 11.5-kW-output capability is at the high end of this roundup. And short of a couple of features, such as using a specific vehicle to estimate the miles or battery percentage gained, the Emporia has just about everything, including detailed electricity pricing using your actual utility plan like the ChargePoint.
Even if you don't own a Tesla, the company's Wall Connector is a good option. In addition to Tesla's NACS plug, the brand now offers its home charging unit with the round J1772 plug most other EVs currently use. This new feature is somewhat ironic in light of a number of automakers recently announcing they will be adopting Tesla's NACS plug type by 2025. But even with the Tesla plug, connecting to a non-Tesla EV simply requires an adapter (such as this one from Lectron).
This third-generation Tesla charging unit has Wi-Fi capability, which allows for firmware updates but doesn't include any ability to control or monitor charging. But if you have a Tesla, any of that data and adjustability is available from the vehicle using a third-party application such as TeslaFi.
Although the lack of electricity tracking is probably the biggest drawback, Tesl