As the title says. I am having some electrical work done that includes some work in my garage. I don’t currently have an EV but might in the future and even if I don’t have one before selling this house, an appropriate outlet would be a nice selling point.
Here is my totally-professional-and-absolutely-to-scale-architectural-drawing of my garage with a few suggested locations. Based on where ports are located on most cars what location would be best? https://imgur.com/9VfLfbq
Our garage is similar except the door to the house is where your door to the deck is, and we put ours roughly at B and then a little to the left of where you have C, at the top of stalls 2 and 3. Our electrical panel is on the other side of C but in the basement. So in theory a standard 25 foot cable could reach from C to all three stalls, or from B to the right two; we park our two EVs at 1 and 2.
Plugging in a car that’s in the driveway was not on our radar, but it’s possible that the B plug could reach out the garage door. We also had a regular outlet installed next to B that could reach out that far. In retrospect maybe we could/should have put the B plug at A in case someone visits us who needs a charge.
If you’re doing this to futureproof, then on a long enough timeline, a house with 3 cars will eventually be a house with 3 EVs, and will want to be able to charge all 3 over night. So you probably want C and D each on their own 240v 50A circuit, and then get an EVSE for C that can supply 2 cars at once.
By the door between vehicles 2 and 3.
I’m a two EV home and about to add a third with only a two car garage. If I were in your shoes, and future proofing for more than one EV, then I would C, but moved a few feet to the left. You can then charge all three spots without fear or worry of driving over the cable and ripping it out of a car. Set a rule that a parked EVs must have the charge port nearest to the EVSE (Tesla backed in, others pull forward in). I would also add a high quality 120v outlet on a dedicated circuit 20a circuit on the outside wall where D or A are, so someone could slow charge at max amps with a car outside if needed.
If you have a guest that needs to charge, then pull one of your cars out and let them sit in garage charging stall or trickle charge with that external outlet.
If you’re only putting one in I would pick D. If you’re putting 2 then also A. The reasoning is D is more central and you can run the cord outside too incase you have family/guests visiting that need a charge.
I just installed a sub panel in my garage and put one in A and D so I’m ready to go. The cord is long enough so I can reach just about anywhere in the garage so the charge port location on the car doesn’t really matter and I can reach well out into my driveway.
Yes, in your garage.
The problem is that different cars have their charging port on the right, the left, and the front. [For all I know there may be one in the back, who knows.] So hard to plan without car. I think c or D would be best.
C, D won’t reach 1s passenger side and A to 2s driver side.
The cord can only be so long.
Location C but on a swing boom with retractable device to keep the connector above head-height. So this boom might need to be rather stout as it would have a length of fat cable hanging off it plus a retraction reel. Or something like this? https://www.industrialcurtaintrack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/EV-Charger-Cable-Retractor.webp
This way the connector could cover either spot 1 or 2 and front/side/rear flank charge port locations. We are talking some future/unknown vehicle so flexibility in meeting up with the charge port would be nice.
Tesla puts its chargers on the back left of its cars (left from the driver position). Other car manufacturers will do other things, but eventually follow Tesla’s design since their cars will be using Tesla’s super charger network. So back left is going to be standard. The real question is, are you a back into the garage or a nose into the garage person? That will give you your answer.
The more likely scenario is Tesla puts longer cables on their chargers. The entire industry is not going to agree to be hamstrung by Tesla’s arbitrary design design for the next several decades when they can just tell Tesla to change out the cords.
Tesla can also just tell the industry your cars won’t work on our chargers and nobody will buy your cars because they won’t work on our chargers and then Tesla will continue to dominate the US EV market. Standards are good for everyone and it is clear that in the US that Tesla is going to set the standards.
At which point, the government takes away all charger subsidies from Tesla because the system is no longer open. And then CCS build out continues using government subsidies and eventually exceeds Tesla.
NACS is a standard CCS charger with a different plug on the end. So it’s trivial to switch back and forth, and newer chargers will have both CCS and NACS plugs because of this. Many Tesla owners already use CCS chargers because they are cheaper than the Superchargers.
The panel location is a huge factor if the installation cost is important to you.
That aside, I think D is the best spot if you have a Tesla, but will certainly be the most expensive to install
“… most expensive to install.”
While “D” is the longest run, I suspect that 90%+ of the run would be in the open attic space with only the drop down portion requiring wall work. So yeah, most expensive, but the difference shouldn’t be that bad as the biggest driver is labor cost.
D. That way you can park in 4 different spots and charge.
You can park in the two garage spots and 2, maybe 3, different spots in the driveway. So if you have company over and they need to charge, it’s not a big deal.
