A Redditor posting to r/KiaNiroEV was flabbergasted by the charging time they were seeing when plugging in their electric vehicle at home.
"I just plugged my car in for the first time and was shocked to see 52 hours until full on the screen," they wrote. "It was only then that I noticed the 9.5 hour charge time on the window sticker stated 220v. I should have paid more attention."
The problem is that they didn't have a faster Level 2 charger at home. They only drive 10-20 miles each day, so they were juggling whether they could get by with Level 1 or if it was worth springing for an upgrade.
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How long would you be willing to wait for an EV to charge? Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. |
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Most commenters were surprisingly fine with the original poster sticking with the baseline charger and not upgrading. The top commenter had a lot of nuance in their opinion but settled on being fine with Level 1 charging.
"I drive around 35 miles a day, 3-5 days a week," they said. "… Let's say for around a very low price of $500 you could have all the materials yourself, install the breaker split, the plug on the wall, and purchase the level 2 cable used. Even in this relatively unrealistic scenario, which is the one that I was in, I still opted to just plug into the regular outlet. … If you have a quick charger somewhere around you, I would say absolutely not, if it's a second vehicle to the family, I would say absolutely not."
"With 11 mile RT commute, I drove mine for three months with level 1 charging before opting to install the level 2. I plug it in once a week," said another commenter. "It's not the most cost effective in my scenario, for sure. I'd do it again for the convenience, as long as the tax credit lasts."
Tax incentives are a big pull for upgrading to a Level 2 charger at home. Rewiring America has a guide for navigating the process to those EV charger incentives, but it's best to act fast. They may not be around forever.
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