VEH

Home charging, model by model

The charger on your wall does not set your charging speed. The onboard AC charger inside the car does, and it varies from 6.6 kW to 19.2 kW across the cars people actually buy. That single number decides whether you should be paying for a 40 amp circuit or a 60 amp one, and getting it wrong in either direction costs money.

Short answer

Look up your car's onboard AC charger limit, then install a charger that matches it and no more. A car with an 11.5 kW onboard charger wants 48 amps on a 60 amp circuit. A car with a 6.6 kW onboard charger gets identical charging from a 32 amp unit on a 40 amp circuit, and paying for anything larger buys nothing at all.

Start with the most common car Work out your charge time

Top pick for most of these cars

For cars that accept 11 kW

EMPORIA

Emporia Level 2 EV Charger, 48A J1772

$449.00

The right answer for the ten cars in this section with an onboard charger of 10.5 kW or more: 48 amps hardwired on a 60 amp circuit, with a 25 foot cable and energy reporting. It saturates the onboard charger in every one of them and it can be dialled down in software if the panel load calculation comes back tight.

Continuous: 48 A
Breaker: 60 A
Power: 11.5 kW
Cable: 25 ft
Install: Hardwired
Connector: J1772

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

Paid link. Price shown when researched.

Every car in this section, with the circuit it needs

Sorted by onboard charger limit, largest first. The miles-per-hour columns use each car's own efficiency, which is why an efficient sedan gains more range per hour than a truck on the identical circuit. Watch for the rows where the 40 amp and 48 amp columns are the same number: those cars have hit their onboard ceiling and the larger circuit is buying nothing.

Vehicle	Pack	Onboard limit	Circuit	Port	32 A	40 A	48 A	Full charge cost
Ford F-150 Lightning	131 kWh	19.2 kW	100 A	CCS1	15 mi/hr	19 mi/hr	23 mi/hr	$24.02
Rivian R1T	135 kWh	11.5 kW	60 A	CCS1	17 mi/hr	21 mi/hr	25 mi/hr	$24.75
Tesla Cybertruck	123 kWh	11.5 kW	60 A	NACS	18 mi/hr	23 mi/hr	28 mi/hr	$22.55
Chevrolet Equinox EV	85 kWh	11.5 kW	60 A	CCS1	26 mi/hr	33 mi/hr	39 mi/hr	$15.58
Honda Prologue	85 kWh	11.5 kW	60 A	CCS1	25 mi/hr	31 mi/hr	37 mi/hr	$15.58
Tesla Model Y	75 kWh	11.5 kW	60 A	NACS	30 mi/hr	37 mi/hr	45 mi/hr	$13.75
Tesla Model 3	75 kWh	11.5 kW	60 A	NACS	32 mi/hr	40 mi/hr	48 mi/hr	$13.75
Chevrolet Bolt EUV	65 kWh	11.5 kW	60 A	CCS1	28 mi/hr	35 mi/hr	41 mi/hr	$11.92
Volkswagen ID.4	77 kWh	11 kW	60 A	CCS1	25 mi/hr	31 mi/hr	35 mi/hr	$14.12
Hyundai Ioniq 5	84 kWh	10.9 kW	60 A	NACS	27 mi/hr	34 mi/hr	38 mi/hr	$15.40
Kia EV6	84 kWh	10.9 kW	60 A	NACS	27 mi/hr	34 mi/hr	38 mi/hr	$15.40
Ford Mustang Mach-E	91 kWh	10.5 kW	60 A	CCS1	25 mi/hr	32 mi/hr	35 mi/hr	$16.68
Toyota bZ4X	64 kWh	6.6 kW	40 A	CCS1	23 mi/hr	23 mi/hr	23 mi/hr	$11.73
Nissan Leaf	60 kWh	6.6 kW	40 A	J1772	23 mi/hr	23 mi/hr	23 mi/hr	$11.00

Full charge cost uses the US average residential rate of 16.5 cents per kWh and includes roughly ten percent for charging losses, because the energy your meter records is always more than the energy that reaches the battery. At a California or Connecticut rate those numbers roughly double, and on an off-peak time-of-use window they can nearly halve. That spread is worked through on the rates by state chart.

Three of the fourteen cars here cap at or below 7.2 kW: Nissan Leaf, Toyota bZ4X. For those, a 32 amp charger on a 40 amp circuit is not a compromise, it is the correct specification, and it usually saves a conductor size, some panel load and several hundred dollars. 5 of the fourteen ship with a NACS inlet, which changes which connector you buy but changes nothing about the circuit.

Panel load: this is a planning estimate, not a code calculation

A service load calculation is a code-defined procedure with several accepted methods, and the result depends on details of your house that a web form cannot see, including existing loads, conductor temperature ratings, panel bus rating and local amendments to the National Electrical Code. Treat the number here as a first look at whether the project is plausible. A licensed electrician must perform the actual load calculation, and a permit and inspection are normally required before the circuit is energised. Do not attempt panel work yourself.

Onboard charger ratings vary by trim, model year and options, and the figures here are researched from published manufacturer specifications and EPA ratings. Confirm your own car's rating on the window sticker or in the owner's manual before anybody sizes a circuit around it.

More: electrical safety policy

Large packs, where the fast circuit earns its money

A big battery in an inefficient shape is the clearest case for spending on the circuit. A Rivian R1T holds 135 kWh and covers about 2.2 miles per kWh, so a day that a Model 3 replaces in three hours takes this truck most of a night. When the pack is large and the efficiency is low, the difference between 40 and 48 amps compounds across a nine hour session into something you can actually feel on a weekday morning.

These are also the vehicles where cable length stops being a nicety. Trucks are long, the inlets sit in awkward places, and a garage that fits the vehicle may not leave a 16 foot cable enough reach to the port. A 25 foot cable is worth more here than any amount of extra amperage.

Efficient cars, where 40 amps is quietly enough

The mid-size crossovers and sedans here mostly accept 10.5 to 11.5 kW, so a 48 amp circuit is fully used if you install one. The honest question is whether you need it. At three and a half miles per kWh, a 40 amp charger returns about 34 miles of range per hour, which replaces a 300 mile week in under nine hours of plugged-in time. If the run to the panel is long or the panel is tight, the cheaper circuit here costs you very little.

The case for going to 48 amps anyway is timing rather than need: if the electrician is already in the garage with the panel open and the run is short, the incremental cost of a 60 amp circuit over a 50 amp one is small next to the cost of doing the work twice. The numbers behind that trade are in 32A vs 40A vs 48A.

Cars that cap low, where you should spend less

If your car accepts 6.6 kW, a 48 amp wall unit delivers exactly 6.6 kW, the same as a 32 amp unit on a circuit that costs several hundred dollars less to install. This is the single most useful thing on this site for a Leaf, an early bZ4X or a low-mileage household, and it points in the unusual direction of spending less rather than more.

Put the savings into the parts of the installation that do improve your life: a longer cable, a better enclosure if the unit lives outside, an EV-rated receptacle instead of a builder-grade one, and a holster so the cable is not on the floor. The one caveat is future proofing: if you expect to replace the car within a few years with something that accepts 11.5 kW, wiring the larger circuit now while the walls are open is cheaper than doing it twice.

How to use this section

Start with your own car's page and take three numbers off it: the onboard charger limit, the circuit size, and the miles per hour you can expect. Then check whether your panel can carry that circuit with the panel load calculator, because that is the question that decides whether this is a 1,600 dollar project or a 9,000 dollar one. If the panel is full, read load management vs panel upgrade before accepting a quote for a service upgrade.

With the circuit settled, the buildouts turn it into a shopping list. The plug-in Level 2 buildout is the cheapest route to real Level 2 charging at $1,605 including labour and permit, and the hardwired 48 amp buildout is the buy-once version at $2,466. Both list every line item with a price and a link, including the labour, which on most home charger installs is the largest single line on the sheet.

Everything on these pages is researched from published manufacturer specifications, EPA ratings, listed safety certifications and verified owner reviews. We do not test vehicles or chargers and never claim to. All of it is planning information rather than professional electrical advice.