How many Amps to charge an EV?

[DarkBlack]

I believe the cable he linked from Lowe’s is USE-2 cable aka mobile home feeder, not USE, or maybe I’m wrong.
Local and state rules aside, it can be run indoors in conduit with no NEC issues that I’m aware of, if desired.
If you don’t need the direct burial feature, I would call a couple local electric supply places and see what other types they can get you on a budget

 

[John_Mc]

This brings up a good point- EV charger circuits need to have derated breakers- the breaker is smaller than the wire capacity. Where welders can have uprated breakers. It's because the charger's demands are continuous but the welder is intermittent.

I didn't understand this when I had "welder/EV" wiring added to the garage. It's on a 50a breaker but I don't know if that's welder 50a or EV 50a. If it's welder 50a that might be about 30a for a charger. The wire's super thick and the electrician complained about how hard it was to deal with so maybe it's EV 50a.

Another mistake was to spec a 6-50 plug. Welders use that, and back then about half the chargers did, but now chargers seem to use 14-50. My wife still hasn't found an EV she likes so it only got used for welding.bb

The code for a circuit used for a continuous draw such as EV charging says to derate to 80%. So your 50A breaker (and presumably wire gauge to handle 50 A as well) would be suitable for up to 40 Amps when charging an EV.

We have a Chevy Bolt which can accept a max of 32A charging current, so we have a 40 A breaker and an EV charger rated at 32 Amps. (The wiring is actually sized for 50 A, so we could put in a larger breaker in the future to get a bit more out of the circuit if we ever got a different EV that can handle a larger charger. I suspect we'd just keep using the same charger unless it broke down. The Bolt is mainly used for my wife's commute to work. It typically only needs a couple of hours of charging each night.)

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

I am no expert!!

I chated with Southwire about a year ago on their chat function from their web page and on the Lowes.com website under specifications both confirmed 2-2-4 for a service drop was rated up to 165 amps given a bunch of assumptions like run length, insulation they use, the high temp. rating they have on the insulation, etc....
So I am just parroting what I have been told by Southwire and from Lowes website

the no alum. observation comes from the chargers installation manual.

View attachment 870197

This ampacity rating is for conductors in free air, suspended overhead. The free air gives up the heat, voltage drop would also be higher at higher amps..
In conduit #2 AL would be rated for 75 amps.