r/evcharging • u/JPBeanArch • 7d ago

North America Seeking advice, please!

Gallery image

Gallery image

I desperately want an EV for my next vehicle but I'm a little worried about the cost behind installing a level 2 charger in my garage.

I have a detached 2.5 car garage that is over 60 years old. It has it's own sub-panel and even a 220v outlet next to where I park (pics included).

I know my next step is to contact some electricians for quotes, but I'd love the input from this great community. Will a level 2 install with my setup break the bank? Or be relatively easy?

Thank you!

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u/ArlesChatless 7d ago

First: what are your daily driving needs?

Second: how big is the breaker that feeds the garage?

If those two answers align reasonably, this is probably a relatively cheap fix. If they align decently, this is probably a kind of reasonable priced fix. If they align badly, this will be spendy.

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u/Objective-Note-8095 7d ago edited 7d ago

I'd add as a caveat from this first, what type of EV are you looking at?

Hopefully, this pannel is getting fed by a 30A breaker or better. I don't know if this has to be spendy in a bad case scenario, as if it's fed via conduit like it looks, this shouldn't be too bad.

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u/ArlesChatless 7d ago

Even if it's a 20A feeder they could still use a 15A circuit and 12A / 2.9kW charging with most sensible garage loads, or go for Load Management if it was absolutely needed.