evse recommendations?
- Thread starter KeninFL
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Toi
Well-Known Member
Same here... I charged my car once with it as we have power outages in my area -often- in winter and wanted to see if I would still be able to charge with it. Worked fine, pulled full 32A off of it.
SKnight25
New Member
For those of you that have gotten your EV chargers installed professionally, how much did it cost and what went into that price? Like was it $100 because it was installed right next to the electric panel or was it like $1000 because the panel was on the other side of the house and very difficult to fish the wiring?
I paid $800 to have a trench dug between my house and garage to bury an underground conduit carrying electricity to the 60-Amp circuit-breaker panel the electrician installed in the garage. Then I pretended I was an electrician, bought some 6-gauge electrical cable, and connected my hardwired 48-Amp ClipperCreek EVSE on the opposite wall of the garage. The only tool I had that could cut that thick cable was a hacksaw. I didn't think ahead to consider the possibility of getting a separate meter so I could take advantage of Time-Of-Use rates for charging my plug-in cars. So I never go to the DTE website to see how cheap TOU electricity would be.
Because my Clarity PHEV called dibs on my one-car garage 3 years ago, my MINI Cooper SE lives outside and the garage door has to be open while it's plugged in. So I'm working on a Rube Golberg-esque retractable extension charging cable coming out of a hole in the front of my garage. If it works I'll be able to keep my SE plugged in with the garage door closed so I can precondition it on cold winter mornings. I bought one of the magnetically attached EcoSolaris Eco-Domes (a gray one to go with my grey MINI) to keep the snow out of the SE's charging port.
GetOffYourGas
Well-Known Member
I have a similar situation; my wife's PHEV has dibs on the one-car garage so my car sits in the driveway. In the 5.5 years we've had this situation, I've tried various approaches. For a while, I had an EVSE fed out the milk door in the garage (yes, my house was built in the 1950s, so it has a milk door). I didn't like how the metal door wanted to chafe the cord. Eventually I settled on a final solution. I installed a NEMA 14-50 outlet in an outdoor enclosure (kind of like this one: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Eaton-50-A...craqHp49l3JoXDBcGGQaAvmoEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds) on the outside wall of the garage. I now have a JuiceBox Pro plugged into it, providing power to my EV in the driveway.
Lainey
Well-Known Member
Our panel is on the far west side of the house and our driveway and garage is on the far east, so we had over 30' of house to run wire. To cut down on costs, we ran the actual wire ourselves and had a family member who has the knowledge, training, and ability (and has helped us rewire our kitchen) do the box work. The 6g wire alone was about $125. Parts total came around $175. Installation would have been at least that had a professional run the wire. It went much faster with 2 of us and having it ready. Helped that our ceiling in the basement was removed to do updates though.
MichaelC
Well-Known Member
I paid $525 to get a dedicated 240V/50A NEMA 14-50 outlet installed in my garage, which is on the opposite side of the house from the panel box in my (unfinished) basement.
Puppethead
Well-Known Member
I had to have a second meter and new circuit panel installed in my garage (requiring trenching) and then actually run two 60 amp circuits and wiring in the walls because I have two garages which are both drywall finish. One hardwired EVSE and one NEMA 14-50 outlet. I also had some other electrical work done, ended up paying $4000 for two days of work. Minus the $1000 tax rebate I'll be getting.
Might be on the high side, but it was quality work and now I have EVSE metered service of only $.04 per kWh (normal rate is $.13/kWh). It looks like it costs me less than $30 per month to charge my SE and I drive almost 100 miles per day.
Might be on the high side, but it was quality work and now I have EVSE metered service of only $.04 per kWh (normal rate is $.13/kWh). It looks like it costs me less than $30 per month to charge my SE and I drive almost 100 miles per day.
fizzit
Active Member
I punched out one of the holes in the breaker box, added a 2-pole breaker, and ran wire from it to an outlet box I got from home depot and screwed it to the wall next to the breaker box. Total cost was about $20.
I was originally going to put the outlet and EVSE outside but found out you need a GFCI breaker for outdoor outlets and for 240V they're like $200+. And a Level 2 EVSE is pretty much a glorified GFCI anyways. So instead I kept the EVSE inside ($180 amazon POS) and cut the cable, drilled a hole in the wall between the basement and the driveway, and then spliced the cable inside so the J1772 plug is outside and the EVSE is inside.
I was originally going to put the outlet and EVSE outside but found out you need a GFCI breaker for outdoor outlets and for 240V they're like $200+. And a Level 2 EVSE is pretty much a glorified GFCI anyways. So instead I kept the EVSE inside ($180 amazon POS) and cut the cable, drilled a hole in the wall between the basement and the driveway, and then spliced the cable inside so the J1772 plug is outside and the EVSE is inside.
F14Scott
Well-Known Member
$500 each to install two Gen 2 Tesla HPWCs (high power wall connectors), plus $200 to run conduit to put one of them on the far side of the garage and to run a communication cable between the two connectors. They are in parallel on a 60A/240VAC breaker and output 24A x 2 if both cars are charging, or up to 48A if only one car is charging.
SKnight25
New Member
I ended up paying $500 for the installation. I ran the 6/3 cable myself through the basement up to the point where the electrician would have to drill through some cinderblock. I didn't go the NEMA outlet route, so direct hardwire to my Chargepoint. I guess the price is not too bad, seeing I should still quality for the federal 30% rebate for everything.
Texas22Step
Well-Known Member
i too installed the Siemens' EVSE in my garage, about 2-1/2 years ago for use with my (then) new Honda Clarity PHEV. It worked like a charm with the Honda PHEV and works now like a charm with the SE I purchased a few weeks ago.
If you want a reliable EVSE with ample (pun intended) power for your MINI SE, this is a good choice. It is relatively inexpensive, is portable (mounts on a wall rail), has a long cord, doesn't have all of the WiFi 'goodies' that often break and in any event increase cost while duplicating many functions already offered in the vehicle's manufacturer's app anyway, and has a manual delay charge timer for up to 8 hours of delay, which is maybe useful for time-of-day electrical rates.
GetOffYourGas
Well-Known Member
I paid about $250 in materials for 50' of 6/3 wiring, a 50A breaker, and an outdoor 14-50 enclosure. A friend and I did the labor ourselves. This does not include the actual EVSE, which is a 32A JuiceBox.
Lainey
Well-Known Member
I should add we did the labor ourselves and already had a lot of needed tools including drills to go through concrete blocks. We may or may nor have a retired electrical person who likes to keep toys like that just in case. We only had to buy the 50amp breaker, 50' of 6/3 wire, some metal outdoor wire sheathing, and a 14-50 receptacle. The ChargePoint I got was on sale for $650.
They did extend the fed rebate of 30% of cost including installation for this year as well.
They did extend the fed rebate of 30% of cost including installation for this year as well.
bldxyz
Well-Known Member
Question for those who bought the Siemens EVSE...
Isn’t it only 30A, but the Mini SE can draw up to 32A? Does that reduce your charging speed relative to something that can draw 32A or more?
I may have misread some of these posts, but it seems that you’d want at least 40A of service so you can draw 32A to the Cooper. I was trying to decide between the Siemens and the Juicebox. I don’t figure to get another electric car for 8 years or so.
Isn’t it only 30A, but the Mini SE can draw up to 32A? Does that reduce your charging speed relative to something that can draw 32A or more?
I may have misread some of these posts, but it seems that you’d want at least 40A of service so you can draw 32A to the Cooper. I was trying to decide between the Siemens and the Juicebox. I don’t figure to get another electric car for 8 years or so.
GvilleGuy
Well-Known Member
I think you are correct regarding needing 40A service to maximize the Mini's charging. I ordered the Chargepoint Home Flex because it can handle 40A plugged in (or 50A if you hard wire it).
The MINI Cooper SE sold in the USA can handle 7,400 Watts of single-phase, 240-Volt AC charging power. 7,400W/240V = 30.83 Amps. That means a 30-Amp EVSE would be able to supply pretty close to the SE's max. I believe that after a 30-mile drive, the extra charging time on a 30-Amp EVSE would be unnoticeable.
I didn't read the fine print when MINI unveiled the Cooper SE in July, 2019, saying it could handle 11 kW of AC charging power. I ran out and replaced my 40-Amp Bosch EVSE with a heavy-duty 48-Amp ClipperCreek EVSE. Long before my SE arrived 13 months later, I learned the 11-kW charging is only with 3-phase AC power, which the J1772 connector on USA cars can't use. Now I have a very thick charging cable, which gets pretty stiff in cold weather, but the big relay in my EVSE makes a very loud, satisfying THUNK! when I plug it in.
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