Off Topic Landfill 5

Special EV rate?

Not unheard of for an electrician to charge a lot more to install an ev charging plug than if you ask for a nema 14-50

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What he said. Never let any trade know that what you need them to do is for a “luxury” item, somehow the prices become a lot more very quickly. Learned that lesson very quickly and stopped mentioning the word pool anytime something auxiliary needs to be done.

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Oh i meant the separate meter. But yes, the Tesla Tax is real.

Im sure they have figured that one out.

“So you say you need a nema 14-50 in your garage for work, yea done alot of those for tesla owners”

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Except the OP doesn’t just need a new circuit, he needs a whole new meter for some reason, which will require a separate panel and then a circuit for the charger. So you can technically get a quote for a meter, panel and a single unspecified circuit.

But ultimately yeah, they most likely will be able to figure it out pretty quickly.

On a side note, why would you need a separate meter for this, unless you were planning to charge others for use or something?

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Electric company might be offering a special EV charging rate?

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There USED to be a specific rate for a 2nd meter. Most have been put away.
It might be he is required by his Utility instead of upgrading the panel. (I’ve seen one case of this)

But most will charge a ‘crazy premium’ as it requires permits and inspections.

The ‘cheaper route’ is to add breakers to your current panel, but a 2nd panel is a lot of work.

So to answer the question as to why I need a separate meter. I live in a condo and will need some electrical work done regardless as the plug in the garage is currently the HOAs but my thinking is if I already need work done to get a plug that is wired to my meter, I might as well create a new meter as EV meters have lower rates in Southern California.

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Does your HOA have rules as far as insurance / bonding of trade pros? Some HOAs have pre-negotiated rates / agreements with trades, check if that’s an option.

You are going to have to do a little math as far as how long ROI is going to be. Installing a meter + panel for that meter is not going to be cheap, plus permits, not sure if the electrical company will charge something, would condo even allow additional meter? Is there space for one since it’s a condo and was probably built with preset number of spaces for service entrances. Would electrical company even allow this change?

It may be cheaper in the long run to just put a new circuit on your panel, but it’s hard to tell without all the numbers obviously.

If your utility is SCE, they offer a different rate slab for EV owners that has cheaper rates between 9 pm to 4 pm next day…

Don’t need a separate meter for that, call them to switch to that

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But then you pay higher rates during the day for your A/C, etc.

If you are with SCE, I believe they no longer offer special EV rates for new separate meters. On their website, they only mention time of use or tiered rate. The separate meter rate is mentioned in grandfathered rates.

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Yup, I think that happened last month as I remember looking at that rate for a question in Feb.

Why not just plug into the HOA and get free Energy?

Anyone up here in Mass get an ev charger installed recently? Reached out to a few electricians and they were quoting around $1k to run a 240v to the garage. That didn’t include the cost of buying the charger just to run the wiring.

Use your Dryer plug, only gives 5.6w (instead of 7.2) and you don’t have to pay $1000

Isn’t the dryer plug the same 240v outlet?

Dryer plug is usually a 30 amp 240v socket, so you would need a compatible charger and you’ll be stuck with slower charging.

Cost on this is going to vary significantly, depending on your house set up, your panel set up, what amperage you want, etc

I hear ya - I know there’s a lot of variables. Was just surprised it would be a grand to run a wire 40-50
Feet from the panel to the garage.