The Best Electric Vehicle Chargers for Home

I’ve been a science writer for more than a decade, covering a wide variety of topics from particle physics to satellite remote sensing. Since joining Wirecutter in 2017, I’ve reported on surge protectors, rechargeable batteries, power banks, and more.

For this guide:

• I spent 28 hours researching and 85 hours testing dozens of EV chargers.
• I interviewed Paul Vosper, former CEO of JuiceBar (a manufacturer of commercial EV charging stations from 2009 to 2022), about the history of the EV charging industry.
• To learn about installing an EV charger in a private home or an apartment building, I spoke with Tracy Price, founder of Qmerit, and Caradoc Ehrenhalt, CEO of EV Safe Charge.
• To better understand the needs of EV drivers, I interviewed Joe Flores, deputy director at the nonprofit electricity provider San José Clean Energy; Suncheth Bhat, former director of clean energy transportation for Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E); and Aaron August, PG&E’s former vice president of utility partnerships and innovation.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.

Whether you’re in the process of buying an EV and want the fastest possible at-home charge, or you already own an EV and want to upgrade a sluggish Level 1 charger to a speedier Level 2 charger, this guide is for you.

EV drivers have widely varying lifestyles, needs, and priorities, but having a powerful EV charger at home will likely be a worthwhile investment in most cases. Per the U.S. Department of Transportation, a Level 1 charger can take days (40 to 50 hours) to charge an EV battery from empty to full, whereas a Level 2 charger can complete the same task in just four to 10 hours. Even if you don’t put many miles on your car, and topping off the battery overnight works for you most of the time, you still might want to have a charger at home that lets you juice up quickly in the event of a wildfire, flash flood, or other unforeseen disaster.

In addition to faster charging times, Level 2 chargers often come with features you might not get from the charger that came with your EV, such as:

• the option to hardwire the charger directly into your home’s electrical grid
• a long cord that can reach across a two-car garage or carport
• a smartphone app that supplements your EV’s app to track battery life, charge times, and more
• a weatherproof enclosure to add protection from elements

As is true of any home-improvement project, upgrading your EV charging setup will come at a cost. In addition to the sticker price of the charger, you’ll likely pay around $400 to $1,200 to have it professionally installed. You can circumvent some of these installation costs by buying a plug-in model, but if you don’t already have a 240 V outlet installed at your parking spot (they’re typically used for RVs or electric stovetops, among other things), you’ll still need to spend at least a few hundred dollars to take advantage of the Level 2 charger’s higher current. The silver lining here is that to help recoup the costs of going electric, many federal, state, and regional programs offer rebates and other incentives.

If you rent your home, and you’re unsure whether your rental agreement allows you to install a Level 2 charger, check your state’s “right to charge” laws. Likewise, if you own a home or rental property, the U.S. Department of Energy has a trove of resources on installing EV chargers.

To find the most well-known and widely available makers of Level 2 EV chargers, we searched the websites of major retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, as well as industry publications such as Car and Driver, CleanTechnica, Electrek, and InsideEVs. From there, we built a list of contenders based on the following features:

• Costs less than $2,000: Most chargers we considered cost $1,000 or less, but we were open to pricier options with extra features. The annual savings from switching to electric will vary depending on your driving habits, the type of car you drive, fuel costs, and a variety of other factors. But whether you spend $500 or $2,000, your EV is likely to pay for the cost of your charger in less than a year. According to a AAA study, in 2022, powering the average EV would cost $2,100 less per year than fueling a traditional car. And that doesn’t even include the reduction in maintenance costs. (You can see how your car stacks up using an online calculator from the U.S. Department of Energy.)
• Has at least a 32 A maximum current rating: To provide the fastest possible at-home charge, Level 2 chargers run off a 240 V circuit, passing between 16 to 80 A of current to your vehicle. Since most EVs come with a portable Level 1 charger capable of trickle charging up to 32 A from a standard 120 V outlet, we made that our cutoff.
• Has at least a 20-foot cord: Longer cords tend to be thicker and more unwieldy than shorter ones, but a lengthy cord is critical for an EV charger, to ensure it can reach the car’s charging port. A typical two-car garage is 20 to 24 feet wide, and the National Electrical Code (NEC) caps cord length at 25 feet. So we struck from our testing pool any chargers with a cord shorter than 20 feet.
• Has a NEMA 14-50 plug and/or can be hardwired: Hardwiring is generally preferable to a plug-in installation because it creates a more seamless (and therefore more energy-efficient) connection between your home’s wiring and the charger. Hardwiring also offers better protection against the elements and can deliver between 15 A to 60 A to your vehicle, whereas a NEMA 14-50 (plug-in) connection can handle only 15 A to 50 A. On the downside, in order to hardwire your charger, you’ll need to have it installed (ideally by a certified electrician). We required each model in our testing pool to have at least one of these installation options, and we preferred those with both. We considered additional plug configurations (such as the less-versatile NEMA 6-50 plug, which lacks a neutral wire and is most commonly used for welding equipment) to be nonessential bonuses.
• Certified by a reputable testing facility: A seal of approval from any Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL) indicates that a product meets rigorous safety and compliance standards. So we required that each charger have a certification from one or more of these organizations.
• Has at least a one-year warranty: We think a year is ample time to use your charger on a regular basis and ensure that it’s not a dud.
• Can be used safely outdoors: Even if you plan to keep your charger in an enclosed garage, it’ll still be exposed to the elements when the door is open. We gave preference to chargers with more-robust Ingress Protection (IP) or National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) ratings (two common grading scales for weatherizing) and those rated to withstand more-extreme temperatures.
• Has a cord organizer: We preferred that each model in our testing pool included some type of cord organization system, whether it was a simple wall-mounted hook or an elaborate retraction system. Not only does this keep your garage looking tidy, but it helps prevent accidents and damage.
• Has positive owner reviews: We ran some of our top contenders through FindOurView, a program that analyzes online user ratings and reviews to highlight common patterns. Some models had an insufficient number of reviews for the software to analyze, but doing this allowed us to identify a few models with consistently reported problems; we then cut those models from our list.

To test the chargers, we rented a 2022 Tesla Model Y Long-Range AWD and borrowed a 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 Pro for a week apiece. The former has a J3400 port, and the latter has a J1772 port, so testing with these EVs allowed us to confirm the chargers’ compatibility with both connector types.

Over the course of two weeks, we drove the cars up and down country roads, circled parking lots, and waited in fast-food drive-through queues to run the batteries down to a 65% charge. We then charged the batteries up to 75% and recorded three key measurements, as reported by the cars’ built-in software: time elapsed (in minutes), battery capacity (in kilowatt-hours, or kWh), and maximum current (in amps, or A).

In general, to make them last longer, EV batteries should be kept at a 20% to 80% charge, and ideally they’d never get lower than 10% or above 90%. We chose an even narrower window for our testing, though, since staying above a 65% charge and below a 75% charge puts minimal strain on a lithium-ion battery (the kind found in most EVs).

We ran the majority of our charging tests using a NEMA 14-50 wall outlet, which is rated for 240 V and 50 A. Even though hardwiring offers some well-documented advantages for long-term use, we didn’t think we’d glean any additional insights by hiring an electrician to install and uninstall all 10 chargers for our two-week testing period.

Before getting started, we used a Klein Tools electrical test kit to make sure the voltage and wiring conditions of both outlets were up to snuff (they were). And we used a Kill A Watt power meter to verify that its time, capacity, and amperage measurements matched the readings shown on the EVs’ respective display screens (they did).

As needed, we used a Lectron Tesla to J1772 Charging Adapter (Max 48 A) or Tesla SAE J1772 Charging Adapter to connect the Tesla or Volkswagen (respectively) to a non-compatible charger. Once we’d identified the most powerful chargers, we used them to test the other prospective adapters.

In addition to these quantitative tests, we spent hours collecting qualitative data. Throughout our two-week testing period, we took stock of the overall look, feel, ease of use, and build quality of the chargers. We also assessed the efficacy and added value of any extra features, such as a mobile app or cord-storage rack. We did the same for the adapters we tested.