The problem is giving advice and then being responsible for it. If you tell someone to install a 14-50 and it later causes a fire? The fires are relatively rare, but far from unheard of. There's also a lot of cheap Chinese 14-50 outlets for sale. The proper Hubbell 14-50 I trust is about $50, but most electricians will just install the $9 Chinese one, and these are not the quality ones which were the ONLY only ones you could buy 25 years ago!
If you know what you are doing, as most people on this list, you are probably safe to do a plug-connected EVSE. I'm definitely not comfortable recommending people take shortcuts when the outcome could be so bad. On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 9:04 AM Tom Mandera via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, 2026-02-10 at 09:50 -0800, (-Phil-) via EV wrote: > > Personally I always advise people get a permanently installed EVSE > > now. > > I do not like recommending a 14-50 (or other outlet) connected unit, > > there > > have been too many melted outlets and fires, yes it CAN work, but it > > also > > adds another point of failure. > > I think in some locales you have permitting differences between > "installing an EVSE" and an "RV outlet" or even a "drier outlet" > > There's also the evolving standards at play - my Leaf uses a J1772 to > charge. My Tesla uses the NACS. > > If I had hard wired the J1772 unit, it would have been more difficult > to change it out to the NACS. > > (In actual practice, I use the Tesla J1772 adapter rather than swap out > EVSEs) > > > Having the outlet gives me the flexibility to move on with the times. > > It also allows me to quickly - and permitlessly - replace a failed EVSE > with another at any time. > > If you hard wire your EVSE and someone runs over the cord and breaks > it, wouldn't you need a new permit and electrician to replace it? > > I do think if you want the 48A charge rate, you're stuck hard wiring, > but I haven't found a need for it. The Leaf uses a 32A charger so it > can recharge to full in ~2 hours typically, and the Tesla actually uses > a 16A L2 most of the time. Since it can make multiple trips to town on > one charge, I can afford to charge at the slower rate over night. > > _______________________________________________ > Address messages to [email protected] > No other addresses in TO and CC fields > HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/ > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20260211/62940872/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ Address messages to [email protected] No other addresses in TO and CC fields HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/
