Cincinnati drivers have caught on to the electric vehicle movement thanks to the great benefits they provide. Electric vehicles drastically reduce or even eliminate gasoline dependence and expenses, which helps the country depend less on oil. EVs are more environmentally friendly as they reduce emissions that harm our environment.
Because public charging stations aren’t yet as common as gas stations, many potential EV owners need to know, “Can you plug an electric car into a regular outlet?” The short answer is yes, but your car will charge slower than with a high-speed charger.
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Why Is Charging an EV at Home Important?
Cincinnati is taking small steps to offer more EV charging stations to drivers, but they are still difficult to come by and often not on your direct route.
While you wait for local politicians to make EV charging stations available across the area, can you plug an electric car into a regular outlet at home?
The answer is yes! Your home. A friend’s home. Any home! But, if you bring an extension cord to plug in your EV when you visit your mom or hang out at a friend’s, they are paying for your charge, which could lead to some friction.
Plug in your EV overnight while you sleep to recharge so your vehicle is ready for the following day.
EV Charging Options
There are a couple of different options for charging your electric car at home. Let’s take a look at each.
Standard 110-Volt Outlets
Today’s mass-produced electric vehicles include a charging unit that you can plug into any standard 110-volt outlet. This unit makes it possible to charge your EV from regular household outlets.
The downside of EV charging with a 110-volt outlet is that it takes a while. This is known as a Level 1 charger, which provides approximately four to five miles of range per hour charged. For an eight-hour overnight charge, you get around 36 to 40 miles.
For drivers who do not travel far in a day, the charge provided by a household 110-volt outlet is sufficient. Others with long commutes or who drive for work need higher efficiency from their charger. Home charging with a higher-voltage outlet significantly reduces charging time and adds more miles of range to your EV in the same period.
240-Volt Outlet
Can you plug an electric car into a regular outlet that is 240 volts? Yes! This is known as Level 2 charging. The 240-volt outlets are the type you typically see for electric clothes dryers at home and are most commonly installed for public charging stations.
Compared with Level 1 charging, a Level 2 will charge somewhere between twice and eight times as fast, depending on your car’s amperage. A Level 2 charging station will gain approximately 15 to 25 miles per hour of charging. You get about 180 miles of range over the eight-hour overnight charging period when you plug your EV into a 240-volt outlet.
Level 2 charging is the best option for drivers in a hurry and those who drive more miles in a day.
How Much Does It Cost to Charge an Electric Vehicle?
Electric vehicles have become more affordable, especially with federal and state incentives. Adding to their appeal is improved vehicle range and cheaper charging costs.
UCS.org analyzed 50 of the largest cities in the United States. The annual savings from charging electric vehicles versus fueling gas vehicles ranged from $440 to over $1,070 per year, depending on the electricity provider and local price of gasoline.
The savings are improved if EV owners are on a time-of-use electric plan, allowing them cheaper rates for charging overnight instead of during the day.
Electricity prices are more stable than oil prices because they can be generated from diverse sources, and US electricity prices are regulated.
Look at ChargEVC.org’s EV calculator to see how much you can save with an electric vehicle.
Let Apollo Home Install Your EV Charging Station
Is a Level 1 charger not cutting it? Do you have longer commutes or drive for work? It’s probably best to play it safe and install a Level 2 charger.Speed up EV charging at home when you install a home EV charging station by Apollo Home! Our licensed electricians perform the electrical system upgrades your home needs to support fast EV charging and install home EV charging units in Greater Cincinnati and surrounding counties. Contact Apollo Home today to learn more!
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Can you charge an electric car with a regular outlet? This is actually a very common question. Many people even skip past asking this question and assume the answer is “no.”
After all, a car is a giant machine. Both phones and computers use normal electricity plugs and outlets (or potentially a USB outlet in the case of phones), but a car is much larger and must have to use a much larger cord and a special charging station, right? A car can’t use the same plug as a computer, can it?
Almost as soon as one is exposed to the world of electric vehicles, they see that there are all kinds of EV charging stations on the market. They see pictures of EV charging stations — 350 kW ones, 125 kW ones, 50 kW ones, 25 kW ones, and 6 kW ones (the home chargers many companies sell, for example). For sure, you have to use one of those to charge an electric car, right?
I remember when I finally learned, even after covering this market for quite a while, that electric vehicles could charge from normal outlets. I was shocked! I had thought that you needed to use those special charging stations that were always in pictures or being marketed on their own. I was sure way back then that most people didn’t realize you could charge from a normal electricity outlet, and I’m sure that’s still the case today.
That said, Volvo Cars might have helped quite a bit to dispel this myth. It has run a few electric vehicle ads either far more than any other electric vehicle ads or its ads have just been highly tailored to me and/or the platform I mostly use for watching or listening to stuff (YouTube). I think I’ve seen these Volvo ads more than all other electric vehicle ads combined, and the ads have basically just been Volvo electric vehicles plugging into the wall with a cord that looks like the cord of an Apple MacBook Pro. I assume there were two main aims Volvo Cars had with these: 1) show how easy EV charging is, and 2) show that you can charge with a normal plug in a normal outlet. (Admittedly, these were ads for Volvo plug-in hybrids, but I think a useful point was made nonetheless — I think a normal consumer would assume any electric car can charge like that, which is indeed the case.)
https://youtu.be/gWs1qmnas_4
https://youtu.be/hl1kUVtyPBY
https://youtu.be/FDsSrD-wtxM
Yes, many EV owners decide that they need faster home charging and purchase a “Level 2” home charger. However, many others decide that charging with a normal electricity outlet is fine and that’s all they do. I’m in the latter group since we recently moved to a home with a garage, and that has been frequently reminding me of this question and helped to stimulate this article.
Even using basic 110V charging, I don’t charge every day, and I’ve stopped charging above 71%. (Why 71% instead of 70%? I don’t know. That’s just where I set the max charging.) I often charge every other day, and I may even go two days without charging. Then I just plug in when arriving home and let the trickle charge do its thing. It may spend hours and hours charging on this regular electricity outlet, but that doesn’t really matter to me if I’m in the house eating (too much), watching tennis, working, or sleeping. Even simply charging from late evening till morning would easily get the job done.
As it is, even with our Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus (SR+), whose range has dropped down to ~205 miles (last I checked several months ago), I charge between about 30% to 50% on the low end to 71% on the high end. Americans drive about twice as much as Europeans on average, but that still amounts to just about 40 miles a day on average (less than that on a regular basis if you consider that the national average includes road trips, which pull the average upward). I drive approximately that amount but without the road trips. Adding 40 miles a day or 80 miles every other day via trickle charging is not hard at all. The car is sitting parked about 96% of the time (that’s the US average), and 110V trickle charging adds about 4 miles an hour. So, even 10 hours of charging (e.g., 7:00 pm to 5:00 am or 9:00 pm to 7:00 am) will add 40 miles of range. If you’re not out for 14 hours a day, then it’s even easier to get those 40 miles in.
There are certainly some patterns of driving that make it worth it to some EV owners to get a Level 2 charging station that can charge at a much higher rate. However, I think that assuming there isn’t a gigantic chunk of the market that can easily live with 110V charging on a regular outlet is a bad assumption.
Anything I’m leaving out here? Anything else to add on the topic of regular 110V electric vehicle charging?
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