New to this EV World! Charging advice needed!

[Rocky_H]

I saw that before I posted. There have been times when my husband drove our car home from the office like on a Friday and we ran a number of errands, out to dinner, etc an ended having close to 20% SOC left on Sunday morning. I can't imagine not being able to simply charge at home overnight and instead have to drive to work to charge or go to some Supercharger just to do Sunday things and have enough SOC to drive back to work on Monday. Unexpected stuff comes up and you need to take off.

Here's another example. What do you do when your off for holiday? My husband's office gives them close to 2 weeks sometimes (depending on how the weekends fall) off at the end of the year. I'm just saying we'd be among that group that would rather spend the dollars to have anytime charging at home instead of arranging our life around trips to the office. And remembering during those times you don't need to be at work, you're looking at maybe Level 2 charging times driving there just to charge. I get that there are owners who don't have an option of charging at home due to apartment living and you have to be willing to make charging part of your routine as a result. Not everyone lives close to a Supercharger for a 30-40 minute charge. If you have a garage that you can install a charging option even if it's just a NEMA 14-50, I feel the convenience outweighs the cost unless you are looking at literally thousands of dollars to run the electrical. I'd definitely get a few quotes from qualified electricians as prices can vary and have a NEMA 14-50 installed in the garage or worse case even somehow on the outside of the house with a weatherproof box near the driveway if that's a less expensive alternative.

I notice you are still talking about this like he has no possibility of any kind of charging at all at home. He did say he has a regular outlet he can use, so he can still get 30ish miles overnight every night at home. And notice that the OP is in Chicago. If needed in this rare emergency situation, there are 9 Superchargers in the Chicago area. It's not that bad having fast charging at work and slow charging at home.

 

[SMAlset]

About the time I added my last paragraph to my post you posted your comment. Yes I do know and mentioned possible charging options in the Chicagoland area but that encompasses a lot of neighboring cities and he hasn't shared his general vacinity ("but living in Chicago area"). Depending on where he lives driving 20 minutes or more to get a 30-40 minute charge may or may not be worthwhile for him to do often. When we were getting our garage situation and home charging set up we were driving a few times a week usually late at night and on the weekend maybe 15-20 minutes away in an opposite direction we normally would go to sit and charge for half-hour or so. It does get old especially when you can charge at home.

I also don't see the wisdom in spending any money for a temporary solution that instead could be put towards a permanent solution to "update the outlet and breaker in the garage to only be used for charging at 15amp 120v".

I've lived in Chicago and know about the cold weather there. I think most people would say a regular outlet in some of the winter temps in Chicago won't provide much of a charge at all (which he understands because he mentioned even trying to heat his garage to counter that effect). So are we talking about spending more money to install a garage wall gas heating system?

As for the office he said it was a leased space, so again why put money that could go into your home solution into a building that you don't even own and it doesn't sound like a perfect install anyway ("installing a 50amp outlet at my office, where I lease the building but I could park within 20 feet of where the electrical panel is, just have to figure out how to run the cable through the back door somehow.. Doggy door... Haha time to get creative!")

The other option he mentioned was to pay to have a NEMA 14-50 installed in the basement and buy an extension cord (apx $150). To me more money out the window and doubt he would use that cord once he eventually runs the NEMA 14-50 to the garage.

Anyway that's my thoughts on his situation.

 

[jeffdom1978]

Hey guys, thanks for the advice again. I think I figured out my plan for now. I had a 2nd electrician out and he looked everything over and discovered I have two circuits in my garage and he said for about $300 he could make a 240v 15amp outlet. This would double my charge rate at home and hopefully be able to still charge in the cold spells. I spoke with the landlord at my office and he was fine with installing an 50 amp exterior outdoor outlet which I could lock or use to charge at the office. This would also run about $350.00 Considering I have 3 years left on my lease, its not that big of a deal.

So for now I think thats what I am going to do. I live and work in the NW suburbs and the closest supercharger is about 15 miles away.

 

[brkaus]

Glad you found a solution!

 

[davewill]

Hey guys, thanks for the advice again. I think I figured out my plan for now. I had a 2nd electrician out and he looked everything over and discovered I have two circuits in my garage and he said for about $300 he could make a 240v 15amp outlet. This would double my charge rate at home and hopefully be able to still charge in the cold spells. I spoke with the landlord at my office and he was fine with installing an 50 amp exterior outdoor outlet which I could lock or use to charge at the office. This would also run about $350.00 Considering I have 3 years left on my lease, its not that big of a deal.

So for now I think thats what I am going to do. I live and work in the NW suburbs and the closest supercharger is about 15 miles away.

It will actually come close to tripling your charge rate as nearly 40% of the output of a 120v 15a circuit goes to overhead.

 

[isjka]

If it helps, here is my experience, also being in the Chicago area. I took delivery in Nov 2017 and figured I would just drive to the local supercharger about 10 miles away for my charging purposes. I only drive 12 miles round trip daily so this seemed like a logical plan. That was...until winter came along. I realized that supercharging took a little longer as the cold came on, and, the drive there and back essentially used my precious range since it was so cold.

I had a few electricians give me estimates on installing the HPWC. I was looking to get 48 amps in the garage so I would charge at 35/mi per hour. The quotes I originally received were to route the 60 amp circuit to the garage. This would give me 48 amps in the garage. However, I did receive one quote that said it would make sense to install a 125 amp circuit and route 100 amp to the garage. The thought was we might as well route a larger pipe so that way we are set in the future if we need another charger. The total cost to run that was $1,900. It was several feet of pipe. Found the electrician on Home Advisor.