alt Hacker NewsFor me it's cost. I'd have to sink a couple of grand into getting my home electric up to speed most likely, and then I'll be paying a bunch of extra money to get the car. Turns into a math problem about paying for electric now or gas over the next n years and electric usually breaks even or loses.
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If you can plug your car into a standard 120v 15a outlet that will give you about 35-45 miles of range overnight. Unless you have a really long commute, that's probably enough on average, and if you have a week where you're driving more you can supplement your charging by going by a public fast-charger. 240v 15a gives you twice as much charging and probably doesn't require very expensive electrical upgrades, just finding a circuit you can dedicate to the car and swapping the breaker+outlet.
You might not need a L2 charger at home depending on driving habits?
I own an EV while living in an apartment building with only an outside parking spot and with no EV charger at my spot, and it’s so fine. Granted I only do 1000km per month on average, but still - every other week I just leave my car parked overnight at an AC charger near my apartment complex and I’m covered, while the cost of ownership is much lower than a typical ICE car
Just a heads up, you don't need an electric panel upgrade anymore for charging. There are UL-certified systems that monitor the power use for the whole panel and load shed the EV charger if needed.
I installed one from Emporia, for about $500.
Can your board run a hairdryer 12h? If you can you can produce 24kwh or basically 100-150km driving per day.
At least you have a charger option. The non-rich of us who rent appartments have none. The four chargers in my biulding would cost more per-mile than buying gas... if they were working. They are currently down for some random reason (new cell provider, no connectivity in our carpark.)
Trickle charging overnight on standard AC is more than enough for a standard commuter, of course YMMV ;)