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How smaller, more affordable electric cars can accelerate the green transition
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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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I don't see anyone talking about the significant cost to upgrade homes to allow for charging. I am going to buy a bolt, but I need to save an extra 6k to upgrade my panel, service and have a circuit put in. On top of that, the soonest I can get the work done is 10-12 weeks out.
There is a lot of addressable market that can add chargers inexpensively. But I get that doesn't mean much to anyone in a 70 year old home with a full panel, all electric appliances, and 2 AWG cable buried in the yard.
To try to save some money, make sure you really need the 40 amp charger circuit and make sure your panel really needs the upgrade. I don't want to imply that you are getting into $6k of work without thinking very hard, but here's some thoughts and observations, just in case your electrician didn't suggest all this.
Tandem breakers can be used to move two single-pole circuits into one breaker slot. Doing this with four circuits can free up space for a double. Also check on how much peak load you are actually pulling, then figure on how many reactive starting loads are realistically going to happen at once (like AC coming on). I have the 40 amp charger circuit, a 50 amp hot tub circuit, a dozen servers pulling ~7 amps all day, and two air conditioners (main 40 amp and garage mini-split 15 amp). My peak 1 minute load is like 59 amps while charging the car. All that said, if you have electric baseboard heat in your home that can be a lot tighter of a squeeze.
I have had the EV for two years and I also find that a 240v 15 amp charger circuit, 12 amp max charge would have been perfectly fine for me. That would allow recovery of about 60 miles overnight, or ~90 miles in a typical commute-to-commute time-span of 14 hours. That's with a big chonky Nissan Ariya, the Bolt will do better.
My understanding is that post NEC 2023 tandem breakers will not meet code. Yes, you can still buy them and yes I could put them in without people knowing..but that's not the way I do upgrades. You can still buy quad breakers but I don't think those ever met code.
Thanks for the info. I likely could be fine with a 20a/240v circuit...but i don't even have that available currently. I'll do some more research on the tandem breakers.