With the arrival of our fully electric Audi e-tron, I decided to look into what our charging options would be. The e-tron comes with a portable charging system as all EVs and PHEVs (plug in hybrid electric vehicles) tend to do. This one is pretty robust and comes with interchangeable dongles that can allow for a standard 120V household outlet or for an uplevel 240V outlet. It comes with a 15 foot cable, so it should reasonably be able to reach the car from an electrical outlet in your garage.
Now, on a standard 120V, charging times can be LONG. Audi notes that a complete charge, from a fully depleted battery, could take upwards of 129 hours. That’s over 5 days! Now, most driving won’t leave you completely at or near 0, but if you were to drive it down low and then need to drive any significant mileage the next day, level 1 charging just isn’t going to cut it.
With a level 2 outlet and appropriate charging system set up, that same full charge could be done in just over 10 hours. I think access to daily level 2 charging at home absolutely opens up the possibilities for people to make the EV plunge, even with a vehicle with “just” over 200 miles of electric range, at least for 80 to 90% of daily driving needs. Level 2 allows you to top off every night if needed and you could start the day with full range capabilities.
Our set up:
We elected to get a dedicated charger for our garage. This would allow us to leave the portable charging system in the car for any emergency needs or if we were to go to a friend’s house and need a top off, etc.
There are so many level 2 charging systems available on the market today. Many have numerous features, smartphone apps for connectivity and charge scheduling and even ties to public charging ecosystems. So be sure to see what features might be of interest or matter to you.
Some are hardwired systems that need to be tied directly into your electrical wiring, typically recommending a professional installation. Others are plug in based, where again, you may need an electrician to come install the appropriate outlet, but once you have that you would be able to plug in your charging unit, and even potentially take it with you should you move from that house. We opted for a plug in based system.
While lots of features and connectivity sound great, I didn’t see a ton of value in them. Most cars allow you to set charging parameters from within the car. And while most of the country tends to have differing electrical rates for peak/off-peak hours that would incentive charging during night time hours, Virginia actually doesn’t offer that at this time. We do still elect to move charging times to between 11 PM and 7 AM.
Prioritizing reliability and durability of the charger, my research kept me coming back to Clipper Creek. Clipper Creek is one of the original charging system companies in the country and all their reviews seemed very positive. We chose the HCS-50P, Plug-In 40 AMP unit. They all come with a 25 ft cable, which is the max allowed by electrical code. The only thing to note is that the length of cord from the charger box to your level 2 outlet is relatively short, so you’ll need to be cognizant of where your outlet is, or where you’re going to install your outlet.
Back to the outlet installation. Now, the Audi’s charge port is located closer to the front of the vehicle, alongside the front driver side quarter panel (for the 2019 model – the 2021 can have one on each side on the upper trim vehicles). So ideally we’d place the charger and outlet near the front of the garage. There’s no rhyme or reason to where electric cars and PHEVs place their respective charge ports. Some mount them on the front of the car, some on the driver side, some on the passenger side, some towards the rear of the vehicle. Teslas tend to be closer to the rear of the vehicle.
Had we decided to install the outlet during the construction of our house a few years ago, we could have placed the outlet literally anywhere and they would have run the appropriate wiring behind the walls to do so. However, with our garage walls already finished off, we made the decision (mostly on cost) to have the outlet installed just along the electrical panel itself, which was located towards our garage door, or near where the rear of the vehicles are when you pull in. Bringing the necessary cabling to install the outlet in the front of the garage would have required either ripping into the walls or having a large conduit to be installed from the panel to the front of the garage. Luckily, the 25 foot cable would allow us to reach the charge port on the e-tron easily as long as we park on that same side of the garage.
The electricians we hired installed a new 50 AMP breaker to our electrical panel and ran the wiring to the NEMA 14-50 outlet just below the panel itself. They also took care of the necessary permitting with our county for the installation itself. With the outlet in place, we were able to easily mount our charging unit and get it plugged in within a matter of minutes.
Also, 30% of the cost (up to $1,000) of the charging system and installation of the outlet itself can be claimed for a federal tax credit, for any systems done before the end of 2020.
Charging up each night couldn’t be any easier and we can start each morning off with a full charge, eliminating any sort of range anxiety for 99% of our daily needs.