One of the main benefits of owning an electric car is the ability to charge it at home, but that’s a tedious process if you don’t have your own Level 2 charging facility. As we noted (to some controversy on social media) when it arrived, our 2022 Kia EV6 GT-Line AWD didn’t even come with a standard 110/120-volt charging cable. As some have hastily pointed out, that omission is largely irrelevant to those already familiar with the current EV ecosystem, but it’s easy to connect with those who find it puzzling that a vehicle to plug in doesn’t come with the required plug. What is this, a premium smartphone?
But here’s the thing: charging a pure EV from a standard three-prong outlet is painfully useless at best. If you’re looking for long-term EV ownership, you’ll want a Level 2 home setup – one that can deliver a solid 30-40 amps on 220/240V AC. Sounds expensive, right? It actually isn’t. All you need is an electrician, a few inches of bare wall in a convenient parking spot and a charging cord of your choice.
Yes, just a cord. While there are much more robust options on the market, there is no need to delve so deeply into the complexity of charging equipment. Hardwired arrangements have their advantages, but they are expensive and no more future-proof than a much less expensive NEMA 14-50 to J1772 (the standard level 2 plug) cable. If you’ve done a lot of RVs or trailers, NEMA 14-50 is probably familiar to you. That’s the big honest 50-amp (hence the 50 in “14-50”) service outlet you’d use to plug in your Winnebago. RV, meet EV.
I learned all this myself recently after buying a new (to me) house in the Burbs of Metro Detroit. My semi-detached garage came with just the basics for an older workshop. If you’re lucky, you’ll already have a sub-panel (or a main panel nearby) and enough headroom in your main feed to allow for expansion, as you’ll need a hefty new two-pole circuit breaker to exhaust your NEMA 14-50. What you see above is the easiest and most direct way to do this: an outlet attached almost directly to the panel. Provided you have a service panel nearby, a setup like this can be thrown together for just a few hundred bucks.
If you’re working with a detached garage or workshop (or want an outdoor charging stand), it gets more expensive, but not much more complicated. Outdoor plugs should be weather resistant and built into “in service” housings (the ones that seal over the plug while it’s in) and, depending on your code, will likely require GFCI at the circuit breaker or outlet. Your electrician can help you decide which is most cost-effective, as these equipment upgrades can easily double or triple your cash expenditure assuming that expensive always means better.
But at the time of publication, the real X factor is the cost of copper wire, which has been off the charts lately. In my case, I spent as much to add a second 14-50 outlet at the far end of my garage as I did to add the subpanel and first plug. To be clear, this setup isn’t meant to charge multiple vehicles at once, just to allow for some parking flexibility, which can be further expanded with a longer charging cord. In my case, I went with a relatively basic 18-foot cable that I found on Amazon with decent reviews — half the price of a regular “charger” (the popular JuiceBox 40, for example, costs $699).
And that’s all you need. No fancy wallbox, no wifi extender in the garage to make sure my “smart” setup can talk to the rest of the world; that’s all unnecessary. The equipment involved doesn’t cost more than a few hundred dollars, and for someone like me, it’s a universal setup that will serve me well no matter what I evaluate. Unless it’s a Tesla. I’m sure Elon’s PR people will be devastated.
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