240v at 30A is most definitely not a trivial load. Most homes have 100 amp service. That would be 30% of your homes total power capacity just for changing EV. You wouldn't be able to run AC and the dryer and charge an EV at the same time at that rate. But more importantly there is only so much power at the pole.
> That would be 30% of your homes total power capacity just for changing EV
That's the thing - most people have a 8 to 12 hour window to fully charge their car(s) overnight and when you and your neighbors are using practically no energy. Worst case is there is no active management and there is just a new peak at midnight. Best case is that the electric company incentivizes you to not only charge at non-peak times, but also pays you to allow them to manage the charging times.
This technology is not science fiction - it already exists. I got a $250 rebate from my electric company to install a connected level 2 charger. It is not currently managed, but if there is some dystopian future where all of my neighbors aren't burning hydrocarbons, all have EVs, and somehow the infrastructure hasn't kept up, as long as my car is fully charged in the morning, I don't care if it happened from midnight to 2 AM or 4 AM to 6 AM.
But also...
> Most homes have 100 amp service
Most homes built decades ago, maybe. And to be clear, we're talking about US 120V system. I would be very surprised if any house built since...lets be generous...the 1980s doesn't have a 200A supply or couldn't easily be updated.
As it stands today, an EV charger (or an outlet designated for EV charging) is considered to be 'in use' 100% of the time from a loading perspective (i.e., when counting how big of a main breaker you need to handle). Which, honestly, makes sense. You can't predict when other loads are being used reliably, and you can use an EV charger for many hours. For, say, during the middle of the night.. there's a high heating load so that loading will happen simultaneously.
There are more intelligent ways to handle this (and, the products exist today!), however they're quite expensive. Maybe less expensive than a full new overhaul of your house's electrical... but eventually electrical needs to be updated to code.
Also, regarding 100A vs 200A main panels: it heavily depends on the size of the house. I know in my neighborhood, which the oldest house was built in 2008, they only gave 100A panels to houses that were ~1700sqft or smaller. For larger houses, those got 200A panels.
As in no, it does not heavily depend on size in general in the way you describe. It may do so where you are but that's about it. My house is smaller than 1700sqft, was built quite some years before 2008 and we have a 200A panel and I don't know what I would do with 100A service. It would be impossible actually. But that might be because we use electric baseboard heating and thus lots of heating circuits with quite a bunch of amps in use by that.
In general, electric heat is a bit of a menace in terms of electrical consumption... especially given electric prices lately.
Putting in a 200 amp panel ran me about $1,000. Power company checked off on it and upgraded my meter in the process. I also added a 240v 30amp socket in the garage for things like an EV, and put a whole house surge protector on in the process.
My house has rock solid power at every socket and plenty of capacity for the future as well, definitely worth the investment.
True, but not what you said. You said the changes are not safety related, but these are safety related.
Having had a 100 amp service, it was really not a big deal. Sure I'd normally charge at 11pm, when the AC wasn't running. But the home is using WAY less electricity than when I bought in 1994 when TVs consumed a ton of power, single paned windows insulated poorly, a fair number of 300 watt halogen bulbs, and tons of the 100 watt incandescents. Between LED lighting, a more efficient refrigerator, and a MUCH lower power flat panel TV our power use per day is less than it was in 1994, even with a EV.
100 amps @ 240v is a ton of power, and if you need to peak shave there's quite a bit of room between 240v@30 amps and 240v@10 amps which is plenty for most normal driving patterns.
