A lot of good advice here. There are two type of chargers - ones you plug in (to a dryer-like outlet) and ones hardwired to the circuit box. Hardwired charge at 50A while the plug in charges at 40A. I opted for the plug in because if there is a warranty issue with the charger, you just unplug it and ship it back. If you have a problem with the hardwired, you need an electrician to pull it. For me the difference between 40A charging and 50A isn’t a big deal.

As others have mentioned there are enough credits that you should just get the charger. When we got it in MD 2 years ago we had to take a photo of the charger plugged into the outlet. Then the cost of the install and the juicebox both counted towards the credit. Also if this is part of a larger project make sure you get a permit and have that outlet itemized separately or even on a different invoice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Based on all of the replies (thanks!), I think I understand what I’m asking. I need to run enough power from my panel to the garage so I need to know is it 120 or 240 that I need? Maybe an electrician would know but I have not engaged one yet. After I get an EV, I would know which car charger I would need. But right now there’s not enough power going into the garage- only one 120v outlet that’s shared with the garage lighting.

It’s simpler than you think. Pretty much any car charger works for any car (Teslas use a different connector but you can get an adapter for a standard one). But if you don’t have the car yet, just run the wire for the big outlet and don’t worry about the actual charger yet.

Doing the electrical but waiting on the charger means OP probably won’t get a tax credit.

Yeah, you may as well buy the charger and install that, too, and then all the work is eligible for federal (and, in D.C., city) tax credits. You can sort out any connection questions once you have the car, but certainly Teslas can charge on the level 2 chargers that non-Teslas can use, too, just with an adapter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Based on all of the replies (thanks!), I think I understand what I’m asking. I need to run enough power from my panel to the garage so I need to know is it 120 or 240 that I need? Maybe an electrician would know but I have not engaged one yet. After I get an EV, I would know which car charger I would need. But right now there’s not enough power going into the garage- only one 120v outlet that’s shared with the garage lighting.

It’s simpler than you think. Pretty much any car charger works for any car (Teslas use a different connector but you can get an adapter for a standard one). But if you don’t have the car yet, just run the wire for the big outlet and don’t worry about the actual charger yet.

Doing the electrical but waiting on the charger means OP probably won’t get a tax credit.

You can just do the standard outlet that works on every EV. No need for special charger.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Based on all of the replies (thanks!), I think I understand what I’m asking. I need to run enough power from my panel to the garage so I need to know is it 120 or 240 that I need? Maybe an electrician would know but I have not engaged one yet. After I get an EV, I would know which car charger I would need. But right now there’s not enough power going into the garage- only one 120v outlet that’s shared with the garage lighting.

It’s simpler than you think. Pretty much any car charger works for any car (Teslas use a different connector but you can get an adapter for a standard one). But if you don’t have the car yet, just run the wire for the big outlet and don’t worry about the actual charger yet.

Doing the electrical but waiting on the charger means OP probably won’t get a tax credit.

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Based on all of the replies (thanks!), I think I understand what I’m asking. I need to run enough power from my panel to the garage so I need to know is it 120 or 240 that I need? Maybe an electrician would know but I have not engaged one yet. After I get an EV, I would know which car charger I would need. But right now there’s not enough power going into the garage- only one 120v outlet that’s shared with the garage lighting.

It’s simpler than you think. Pretty much any car charger works for any car (Teslas use a different connector but you can get an adapter for a standard one). But if you don’t have the car yet, just run the wire for the big outlet and don’t worry about the actual charger yet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We did this when we had a renovation done. He ran a separate high-voltage circuit to a j-box on the inside, and outside of our garage (2 circuits total). It's just a "blank" faceplate with the wires inside. It's pretty easy to have an electrician wire in a charger from that. The hard part is getting the circuit and wiring to where you need it, so we got that part covered.

I think this is what I’m asking. On the outside, how do you control if some rando wanted to use your car charger? Is there a switch somewhere inaccessible to strangers?

We had one in our old driveway. No one ever tried to use it.

You could turn off the circuit at the panel if you were worried about it. Or the electrician could possibly add an interior switch but that seems like an unnecessary cost.

If you are going to the trouble/cost to get an electrician to run the circuit, just add the universal outlet IMO. You can change it later but it should work for almost all EVs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We did this when we had a renovation done. He ran a separate high-voltage circuit to a j-box on the inside, and outside of our garage (2 circuits total). It's just a "blank" faceplate with the wires inside. It's pretty easy to have an electrician wire in a charger from that. The hard part is getting the circuit and wiring to where you need it, so we got that part covered.

I think this is what I’m asking. On the outside, how do you control if some rando wanted to use your car charger? Is there a switch somewhere inaccessible to strangers?

We have a charger in our driveway, just outside the garage. Have yet to encounter anyone randomly parking there to charge. Most of the time, our own car is parked there), but I guess it's possible in the future. With ours (a Wallbox), you can set the app so it's locked. I actually did do that the last time we went out of town for a couple of weeks, but felt unnecessary (and anyway it'd be like $6 if someone did decide to charge using our electricity, so... I wouldn't care that much.)

Anonymous wrote:We did this when we had a renovation done. He ran a separate high-voltage circuit to a j-box on the inside, and outside of our garage (2 circuits total). It's just a "blank" faceplate with the wires inside. It's pretty easy to have an electrician wire in a charger from that. The hard part is getting the circuit and wiring to where you need it, so we got that part covered.

I think this is what I’m asking. On the outside, how do you control if some rando wanted to use your car charger? Is there a switch somewhere inaccessible to strangers?

This is OP. Based on all of the replies (thanks!), I think I understand what I’m asking. I need to run enough power from my panel to the garage so I need to know is it 120 or 240 that I need? Maybe an electrician would know but I have not engaged one yet. After I get an EV, I would know which car charger I would need. But right now there’s not enough power going into the garage- only one 120v outlet that’s shared with the garage lighting.

We did this when we had a renovation done. He ran a separate high-voltage circuit to a j-box on the inside, and outside of our garage (2 circuits total). It's just a "blank" faceplate with the wires inside. It's pretty easy to have an electrician wire in a charger from that. The hard part is getting the circuit and wiring to where you need it, so we got that part covered.

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/wallconnector_NEMA_14-50_en_us.pdf

All Teslas can charge on a NEMA 14-50 outlet as well.