Can I change a 30a breaker to a 50a

Question

I want to change out the 30a breaker for no longer used dryer for EV charging station with 50a. I would assume if panel can handle it I would need heavier wires to outlet. Just don’t want to find out after buying an EV the charger station price jumps crazily because I would need panel/service upgrade also. Panel

Answer 1

Yes, you can change the 30amp breaker to a 50amp breaker provided you increase the wire size appropriately. You should first do a load calculation so determine if your panel can handle the increased load. Adding up the breaker amps is not a load calculation. Google it. Most of the people I know that have chargers have ones that are much less that 50 amps and they work fine. You might find out that you can utilize your existing setup.

Answer 2

Just don’t want to find out after buying an EV the charger station price jumps crazily because I would need panel/service upgrade also.

Welcome to EVs. The situation is SOOOOOO much better than you think it is. But, you need to deeply understand this, or you will get ripped off to death by electricians. Because THEY don't understand it themselves, and would MUCH prefer to sell you a $4000 service upgrade because that's pure profit to them. "We finance!"

So, EV school.

You don't actually need that much power

"There's a myth out there..." that EV stations need 50 amps or 12,000 watts. That's complete nonsense. Technology Connections has a lovely video that walks you through this, and you are careening toward a very expensive mistake, so you'll be paying yourself about $100/minute to watch it up until the point where he's waving around 12/2 Romex and saying "THIS is all you need".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyp_X3mwE1w

Oh good, you're back. Feel better? See, this is easy, and that 30A circuit you already have is "Pllllenty" as Alec said.

By the way, the "50A at home" nonsense started because early EVs were shipped with "travel charge kits" so you could stop at an RV park and get a 0-100% fill overnight. CGP Grey demonstrates proper use of this kit at 11:15. They really should have included a NEMA 6-20 plug in the kit for home use, but they didn't, and people "leapt to the conclusion" that the RV-park plug was the thing for homes. Rich early adopters started it (they can afford it) but now regular folks think they have to. Sad. 50A is gross overkill for home charging.

Now people do say "but I save so much money on the charge station since I already own this travel kit with 50A socket" - that's what you call "the fallacy of sunk costs". Forget that.

You never need a service upgrade to charge an EV

Because from the start, the right technology was built into them to easily charge on any service. This tech just needs to be enabled by a proper "wall unit" with sensors in your service panel. It dynamically adjusts EV charge rate so the panel cannot overload.

That is to say, if you have a 100A service, with consumer-grade equipment rated non-continuous (so 80A continuous). By chance your water heater (20A), dryer (23A) and A/C (20A) all happen to cycle on at once by dumb luck. So that's 63A of non-EV load. So your EV immediately adjusts to 17A charge rate. When the water heater clicks off, it rises back to 37A. Etc. Yes, cars can do that - it's been in the J1772 standard since at least 2001.

I'm hearing about load sheds aka EVEMS, and the devices differ. What's that about?

This adds typically $400 to a typically $500 wall unit. However it only works with certain wall units - Wallbox Pulsar, Emporia, Tesla [Universal] Wall Connector, Elmac EVduty in Canada, Myenergi Zappi in Europe.

This same tech can also do "Solar Capture" - where instead of exporting your solar to the grid, it is redirected into your EV. This is done precisely and in real time, using the same sensors. The Tesla Wall Connector cannot do this because Tesla went another way with Solar Capture (Tesla Brand Solar talks to Tesla Brand Cars directly).

In this day and age, you don't need a service upgrade.

Becuase today, there are efficient alternative appliances that are actually pretty good - cheaper to spend hundreds extra on a 120V water heater and dryer than thousands on a service upgrade. Load management isn't just for EVs, but it certainly works the best with EVs since it can dynamically adjust. You can use the "dumb load shed" type devices on just about anything. Technology Connections has a video series on that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zheQKmAT_a0 Also their heat pump coverage is first-rate, so if he pops up a link to that stuff, click it!