Home install, not public charging

Size your home EV charger, then price the install.

The three numbers that decide a home charging project are your car's onboard charger limit, the spare capacity in your panel, and the distance from that panel to where the car parks. Get those right and the rest is shopping. Get them wrong and you either pay for a service upgrade you did not need or you buy amperage your car cannot accept.

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A 48 amp charger needs a 60 amp breaker and delivers 11.5 kW. A 40 amp charger needs a 50 amp breaker and delivers 9.6 kW. Almost no car sold accepts more than 11.5 kW, so 48 amps is the practical ceiling worth paying for, and the difference between the two is roughly six miles of range per hour of charging.

Size the circuit Check panel capacity See three complete buildouts

Top pick, Level 2 home charger

Best for most homes

EMPORIA

Emporia Level 2 EV Charger, 48A J1772

$449.00

A 48 amp hardwired station with real energy reporting, a 25 foot cable and load management on the Pro version, at roughly half what the premium brands charge. It saturates the onboard charger in almost every electric car sold, which means the money you spend goes into charging speed you can actually use rather than headroom you cannot.

Output: 11.5 kW
Circuit: 60 A
Cable: 25 ft
Connector: J1772
Install: Hardwired
Smart: Wi-Fi

Check price on Amazon Runner-up: Grizzl-E Classic 40A $299.99

Paid link. Price shown when researched.

Charger output, breaker size and charging speed

EV charging counts as a continuous load, so the circuit is sized at 125 percent of the charger's output. Read backwards, a breaker supports a charger drawing 80 percent of its rating. That one rule is why a 50 amp circuit gives you a 40 amp charger, and it is the single most common thing people get wrong when they shop by amperage alone.

Charger output	Breaker	Power	Copper	Typical use
12 A	15 A	2.9 kW	14 AWG	A standard 120 volt household outlet.
16 A	20 A	3.8 kW	12 AWG	A dedicated 120 volt 20 amp circuit, or a 240 volt 6-20 outlet.
24 A	30 A	5.8 kW	10 AWG	The dryer-circuit case. Common with splitters on an existing 14-30.
32 A	40 A	7.7 kW	8 AWG	Plenty for a car with a 6.6 or 7.2 kW onboard charger.
40 A	50 A	9.6 kW	6 AWG	The most common home install. Fits a NEMA 14-50 outlet.
48 A	60 A	11.5 kW	6 AWG	Hardwired only. Saturates almost every onboard charger sold.
64 A	80 A	15.4 kW	4 AWG	Rare. Very few vehicles can use it.
80 A	100 A	19.2 kW	3 AWG	Essentially the F-150 Lightning case only.

Conductor sizes assume a short residential run at typical terminal temperature ratings. Long runs, high ambient temperatures and conduit fill all push the conductor up a size. Work through the wire gauge calculator and the voltage drop calculator for your own distance.

Calculators

Work out your own numbers

All 11 calculators

Buildouts

Three complete installs, every line priced

Not three versions of the same list. A plug-in 40 amp setup, a hardwired 48 amp smart install, and a full project with panel work and solar-ready wiring. Every item is priced and linked, the totals are stated plainly, and the labour line is shown at full size because on most of these jobs it is the biggest number on the sheet.