Hello from North Carolina

[suem]

Hi all
I'm an old retired chick living in north carolina looking to get an arcimoto.

I've talked to a couple of electricians about installing a 220V outlet that the Arcimoto can charge from.  I don't know if it's just that no one is familiar yet or they're trying to make me feel like an idiot so they can pad the bill.  I've been telling them class two EV plug 220v at 30 Amps although reading here it sounds like the arcimoto never actually draws anything close to the 30 Amps for safety reasons which I can understand.  I'm a reasonably technologically educated person at least with 110 and 12v and 5v as I build computers but must confess I don't know much about 220v and it sounds like there are a myriad of different plugs which I sort of knew from some past experiences with household devices.

I just talked to two electricians today one didn't ask a lot of questions gave me a price of 1100.00 which seems a bit high.  The second guy wanted to do a little more research on the Arcimoto because he wanted to be certain of which plug, said it was probably a "650" which I don't know that reference.  So I'm in here looking for the proper jargon to present to the electricians when I talk to them about an outside mounted plug for my toy.  All help appreciated.

[Kokeel]

As to your question - be aware that I am not an electrician. I have a 2022 FUV and I self installed a wall mounted 220V 16 amp wall charger that meets all my expectations for the FUV. Yes, I got an electrical permit and inspection. This is what I learned when I considered a 220V plug in charger. According to the Oregon electrical inspector, the uniform electrical code requires those circuits must have a GFCI type outlet as well as the panel breaker. According to the inspector, the 220V plug in vehicle chargers don’t work well with GFCI outlets. (At least as of January 2023.) Why do you want a plug in installation, rather than a wall mount? Are you going to go around to various places trying to find a 220V plug in spot? Good luck with that. As to the charger size, 30 amps exceeds the reasonable needs of the FUV. If you might get a electric car/truck, yes get 30 amps. 16 amps is more than adequate for the Arcimoto. Finally, if you are stuck on getting a plug in charger, pick out the charger you want first. The specifications for the unit you select will tell you what plug it comes with. It will probably be a standard 30 amp range plug. Then your electrician will know what outlet to install. Good luck. 

[CharonPDX]

EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment - the proper name for the "charge cord" or "wall unit" for charging an EV at home via AC power) installs can vary wildly based on your situation. At my old house, it cost $400. At my new house in the same city, it cost $1800.

The key factors:

1. The distance between your breaker box and the location you want the plug.

2. The voltage/amperage of the circuit. (Mostly the amperage, but if you want a 120V-only, 240V-only, or dual-voltage outlet makes a difference.)

3. If your house has sufficient spare amperage to support it, and free space in the breaker box. (Most houses do have this, but if you don't, this can easily cause the price to skyrocket into the multiple thousand dollar range.)

4. Whether you want a hardwired EVSE, or an outlet to plug it in to.

5. Whether you are buying the EVSE through the installer, or have your own.

In my case, at my old house, the distance from breaker to outlet was 2 feet straight down. We were installing the outlet on the outside of the house immediately below where the breaker box was on the inside. We were reusing a decommissioned hot water heater circuit, so the installer just lopped the cord off in the wall and ran it outside instead of into the basement. That price was basically "minimum labor charge plus a new outdoor outlet."

At the new house, our EVSE was on the opposite side of a 3-car garage from the breaker box, going up into the ceiling of the garage, across, and back down. AND higher amperage. That run of high-amp wire was not cheap.

Most installers, if they're familiar with EV charging at all, assume you're wanting at least a 40 Amp circuit. As you've discovered, the FUV can't make use of that much, so a 40A outlet is overkill.

Even a 240V, 20A circuit would be enough for an Arcimoto. (And mine came with a portable EVSE that has that plug.) But it depends if you want to "future proof" your outlet for higher-amp-capable EVs later. You could do a "minimum for the FUV" no problem. Just don't tell the installer what it's for. Just say you want a 240V, 20A (or 30A) outlet.

Most EVSEs use one of two plugs - the "household outlet" style for the most basic of charging, or a NEMA 14-50 outlet (like an electric oven/stove uses) for high-power at-home. There are simple adapters to go between different plug types, so even if your EVSE has a NEMA 14-50 outlet, if you know it will never be used to draw more than 30A because it's only ever going to be used by an Arcimoto, you can use an adapter to plug the 14-50 plug into a 30 Amp outlet. But if you ever use it to charge a Chevy Bolt or a Tesla Model 3 with a 50 Amp EVSE, you'll blow your circuit breaker.

=====

NEMA primer: The two numbers refer to the "basic plug type" and the maximum amperage of the circuit.

NEMA 5-something refers to 120V-only outlets, NEMA 6-something refers to 240V-only, NEMA 14-something refers to an outlet that can supply both 120V and 240V.

So NEMA 5-15 is a 15 Amp, 120V-only outlet - the "standard household outlet."

NEMA 5-20 is starting to become more common, especially in garages and kitchens, as it can supply 20 Amps instead of 15. It is also completely compatible with 15A plugs. These can be identified because the left hole (when looking at the outlet) is T-shaped. 15A use parallel pins like you're used to; 20A use the left (when looking at the socket) at 90 degrees, rather than parallel.

NEMA 6-50 is a 50 Amp, 240V-only socket. It looks a lot like a really big "standard household" socket, but only provides 240V.

NEMA 14-50 is a 50 Amp, 240V or 120V socket. (It looks a lot like NEMA 6-50 with an extra vertical hole a little higher than the normal two. Strangely, the spacing is different so you can't plug a 6-50 device into a 14-50 outlet, even though it should totally be possible.)

Each "voltage type" has 15, 20, 30, 40, and 50 Amp versions, although not all of them are commonly used. 120+240V 30-Amp is often used by electric dryers. 30 Amp 120V-only is often used by RVs/campers.

EVSEs don't *NEED* the dual-voltage, but sometimes it can be useful to be able to get 120V power in a location that has the EVSE outlet. (For example, when I got my new house's outlet, I cheaped out and had them only run wiring for 240V, even though it's using a dual-voltage plug. That means even though the *PLUG* is capable of both voltages, it can only supply 240V in my house. This later became annoying when I wanted to plug my RV in to run the air conditioner, but the RV only takes 120V. I ended up having a 30 Amp 120V plug installed closer to the breaker for much cheaper.)

[Odi]

Living in a condo where my breaker box and dryer are on the second floor, I opted for a Quick 220 which plugs into 2 different regular outlets until you find the 2 different 120V legs (power company sends you 240V as 120V on two legs 180 degrees out of phase with each other) and to recombine them into 240V. My EVSE is set to 12A to keep within the standard home outlet 15A peak and 80% sustained.

If you have a dryer in the garage, often people use that if they are using a gas dryer anyway.

Both methods usually require an adapter from the EVSE plug to whatever you have.