Considering a charging station

1) any of them are fine, look for a good price.

2) any electrician can do it.

 

You don't necessarily need an electrician if your house already has a 240v outlet for a clothes dryer. There are plenty of charging stations that can plug directly into that outlet. To name of few, TurboCord is an option if you want portability. Clipper Creek sells a bunch too. If you're into DIY, you can build one using parts from OpenEVSE.

I personally never thought a charging station was worth it for the Prius Plug In because of the limited battery capacity and charging rate. You save at most 1-hour of charging time compared to 120v (assuming a completed depleted battery), but easily spent mid 3-figures for a complete DIY assuming no electrician (4-figures if you hired an electrician) in the process.

Also, don't forget that you bought the plug in so that you can use gas if you don't have enough electrons.

 

I just wired in my own 50 amp 240v outlet. It's super easy.

I used 20 ft of 6 AWG NM-B cable and wired it to a 50 amp breaker that I installed into the breaker panel. It was easy because I have access in the attic of my garage.

I also had purchased a Nissan Leaf EVSE unit since my PiP didn't come with one. I modified the Leaf EVSE to charge at 240v, and that cut the charging time in half.

The total cost to install my 240v outlet was probably $80
The total cost to purchase the Leaf EVSE was $200
The total cost to modify the EVSE was $20 in parts

So I did the whole thing for $300, and my garage is now ready for any EV in the future.

You can send your EVSE unit in to a guy I don't really care for who owns evseupgrade. His service costs $240 plus shipping. Keep in mind the "upgrade" is only $20 or less in parts.

I'd be willing to upgrade a Leaf EVSE for a fee to cover my time, parts, and shipping if you want to PM me. My rate would be much lower than the ridiculous $240 plus shipping.

Or do it yourself by following these instructions. Note that the instructions apply to a 2011-2012 EVSE unit, and different instructions apply to the 2013+ models.

It should also be easy enough to modify the EVSE unit that came with our cars, but so far I haven't found any instructions.

 

real men don't need instructions.

 

I keep banging my head against the wall ....

 

Ironic that after 2 months of no hits on my Aerovironment 25' EVSE this post comes up 1 week after I finally sell my unit for much less than I anticipated

For modern day electric vehicles (except for Tesla which requires an adapter), they all use the same plug on the car side (called J1772) for L1 (120V) and L2 (240V) charging. For 240V charging, different models take different maximum amperage. The Prius Plug-in can only accept up to 16 amps, so a 3.3 kW EVSE (electric vehicle service equipment, fancy name for a charging station) will do. However, I would highly recommend installing a 6.6 kW EVSE, which is capable of charging up to 30 amps. It's not much more expensive to get the 6.6 kW over the 3.3 kW, and if you get an electric vehicle which can support the faster charging in the future you will be ready to charge it at full speed when you take it home. I got a 6.6 kW charging station without knowing I would purchase a LEAF down the road, and now I'm very happy I did. Also consider getting a plug-in model in case you decide to move or sell the unit later on, as it's much easier to unplug it than unwire from the breaker.

Any professional electrician can install it. Get multiple quotes from multiple electricians before deciding on one. Consider the cost of a pulling a permit to add a breaker and install the charging station (or outlet for the charging station if you buy a plug-in model instead of a hardwired model) for your total cost depending on your municipality.