40A home charging - Should I do it

[Randall Stephens]

I imagine a panel upgrade would be worth it in the long run with the way a lot of governments in the states are pushing for electric appliances. An existing electric charger installation with the wire run, etc etc also is a home selling point if you do sell

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[Lightningwaiter]

Sunrun said I only have a 100A breaker, so they recommend installing my charge station pro on the 50A breaker at 40A which would mean 15% to full in 15 hours vs the 8 hours if at 80A. What are people's thoughts? It would probably be another 5K to upgrade to a 200A so..., but thinking that is it worth it? how much will I be driving my card down to 10-15% everyday?

It depends how much you drive, but I use the 60amp breaker(48A) ford changer and it does not need anything more to change but I rarely go below 50% on the truck. I would not think it was worth it. Saying that I did up grade to a 200a panel for future expansion and tools in the shop, so I would be torn on which way to go.

 

[JRT]

Upgrade depends on how long you plan to stay in the home to me. My panel could handle the full 80 Amp install, but it was over $5k. The portable ford charger worked for 31k mile with my Mach-e. I however set the pro charger to 40 Amp and added a 50 Amp cable to use the existing nemi outlet. Works great and only $27 for the cable.

 

[jetfixr1]

I would stick to 40A. If you can find a buyer for the Pro charger, get a 3rd party charger and use that.

I just installed a Grrizle. Paid $350 for it and $250 for materials. Ill end up selling my charger whenever Sunrun mails it.

 

[RickLightning]

only you can answer that. I had the full 80a breaker for mine, but derated the FCSP to 48 as I've heard it's possible if the cables/unit get hot it could shut down for a while well it cools. But the 48amp charge times are fine with me so that's what I'm going with. 4 months, 2500 miles and it has worked just fine.

Ford Charge Station Pro is 80amps max, which is a 100amp breaker.

I would recommend upgrading to 200 A service. Eventually, you are going to have to anyway. The 100 A service will take a bite out your potential resale value for the property. If you are smart about it you might be able to get a third of the cost of the work (parts and labor) refunded as a tax rebate. The IRA has federal tax rebates for all kinds of electrification. It's worth looking into. Plus you get fast home charging as a perk.

Current tax credit is 30%, max of $1,000, i.e. spend of $3,333.33.

There will be state programs in 2024 that may also cover it.

The whole "charging to full" kind of throws the numbers off because it slows down a lot as it gets closer to 100%.

How much do you drive each day?

Even a modest 24A charger on a 30A dryer outlet will get you 100 miles (46kWh) in 8 hours. So you could charge from 55% to 90% each day easily (or 45% to 80%).

It really doesn't slow until like 99%.

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[RickLightning]

Sunrun said I only have a 100A breaker, so they recommend installing my charge station pro on the 50A breaker at 40A which would mean 15% to full in 15 hours vs the 8 hours if at 80A. What are people's thoughts? It would probably be another 5K to upgrade to a 200A so..., but thinking that is it worth it? how much will I be driving my card down to 10-15% everyday?

You need to start with a base understanding of the truck's capacity and how far it will get you.

It is a 131kWh battery. On the highway, in warm weather, figure 1.8 miles per kWh. 131 x 1.8 = 236 miles.

How far do you drive in a day?

How long will the truck be able to charge each night? This is impacted by when you get home and when you leave, and MAY be impacted by when your utility company has discounted rates.

There are a very few people that use anywhere close to 100% of their battery each day, and that also aren't parked long enough to recover the energy the next day.

 

[WhipSticks]

Current tax credit is 30%, max of $1,000, i.e. spend of $3,333.33.

Nope. The max is $1000 for the Federal tax credits for EV charger installs (to say nothing about state programs). Other IRA electrification programs have other maximums (or even no maximums). I am suggesting that maybe he be smart about it and tie the panel upgrade to another energy saving need (say, a hybrid electric water heater, high efficiency HVAC or the like). Depending on which way you go, there is no effective maximum on the rebate (up to 30% of the full cost is possible). Play out cost-of-ownership over a decade or so, and the energy efficiency gains and tax credits combined might just make the panel upgrade and charger install effectively free.

 

[Maquis]

Nope. The max is $1000 for the Federal tax credits for EV charger installs….

You said “Nope”, then repeated what he said…..

 

[Zprime29]

I like to future proof when possible. There's a good chance you'll need to upgrade service at some point in the future anyways (depending on how long you plan on staying there). It's a crap shoot to predict what the cost will be at that point, but in general things don't seem to be getting any cheaper. If you can get the panel upgrade done at a discount (either EVSE install credit or some other govt incentive) I'd go that route and put in the full 100A breaker for the FCSP.

90% of the time I don't need the full rate. But I've had several instances where I got home at night from a road trip with ~10% and I liked having that warm fuzzy feeling of being back to 80% leaving for work the next morning. Sure, I would have been just fine getting to even 50%...but I like the warm fuzzy feeling. (I'm a first time EV owner)

 

[Zprime29]

You said “Nope”, then repeated what he said…..

There's an incentive for high-efficiency upgrades, capped at $3200, that he's saying could be used to help cover more of the cost.

 

[WhipSticks]

You said “Nope”, then repeated what he said…..

The point was that there are more than EV charger install credits that can be leveraged to upgrade a home's electrical service. My reply was more than one sentence long.

 

[timbal1963]

Sunrun said I only have a 100A breaker, so they recommend installing my charge station pro on the 50A breaker at 40A which would mean 15% to full in 15 hours vs the 8 hours if at 80A. What are people's thoughts? It would probably be another 5K to upgrade to a 200A so..., but thinking that is it worth it? how much will I be driving my card down to 10-15% everyday?

I’ve been doing it that way for 10 months now.

 

[Maquis]

The point was that there are more than EV charger install credits that can be leveraged to upgrade a home's electrical service. My reply was more than one sentence long.

When you led with “Nope”, it implied you were saying that something Rick said was factually incorrect - which it wasn’t. I apologize for misinterpreting.

 

[Jim657]

We had our panel upgraded to a 200 amp service. Yes, it’s a cost upfront but in the long-term you probably wouldn’t regret it. The other thing is if you’re able to go into your utilities website, see your peak demand you may find even with the 100 amp you’re getting close to capacity anyway when you factor in all your other electrical appliances like AC, stove and dryer if they are electric. We are able to charge the Lightning and the Mach E at max settings both at the same time which is convenient when you need to do that.

 

[Jseis]

How many miles do you drive every day? If it’s 100, you can go from 50 to 80% every night in about 5 hours, for example.

This: I roll ~100 miles a day. My ChargePoint Homeflex is on a 40 amp breaker and consistently puts 100 miles on in 4.5 hours.

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