Does 14-50 outlet in garage require GFCI breaker even if using EVSE traveling charger?

Question

I bought an electric car. Electrical service panels are inside of garage, right in front of where I park the car. Installed a 14-50 outlet with 6 AWG and conduit with a regular 50A breaker, right below the service panel (used unused 50A breaker from a decommissioned pool heater). Works great with the traveling charger.

Question: should I buy a 50A GFCI breaker for the 14-50 outlet in the garage? I was thinking it might not be necessary since the traveling charger already has GFCI protection. Will there be any interference between the GFCI protection of the breaker with the GFCI in the traveling EVSE unit? I once plugged this traveling EVSE into a GFCI-protected outlet, and it kept tripping the breaker (another house, could be many other causes, I don't have info on how that other outlet was wired, perhaps overloaded).

Answer 1

Whether you need a GFCI breaker will get driven by whether your local authority requires it.

The usual info from DIY's resident experts is that if you can use a hardwired charger you would need neither a GFCI outlet nor breaker, since, as you say, the charger itself acts as the GFCI.

However, if you want the charger to plug in, from NEC 2020 onward GFCI is required on garage outlets. Since they don't make GFCI 14-50's, you'd have to fall back to a GFCI breaker to protect the outlet.

However 2, the local authorities can decide to not implement the latest and greatest NEC, so they may not yet require a GFCI on garage outlets, at which point a regular breaker would be fine.

So you'll have to ask your local town hall code folks what they want.

PS be sure to do the NEC load calculation too, to see if your existing service can handle the extra load.

Answer 2

Triplefault gives an excellent overview. +1 - check your local NEC adoption, plus local amendments, and don't forget the load calculation.

But you are probably wondering why does it really matter? I'll give an example: hair dryers. For decades, portable consumer hair dryers have had a GFCI built in to the cord/plug. Why? Because at the time GFCIs had been proven lifesavers and most homes did not have GFCI-protected receptacles (whether protected at the breaker or the receptacle is irrelevant, they just weren't protected at all). Even today, many older homes still do not have GFCI-protected receptacles because in most cases adding a GFCI is not required if the circuit/receptacle was installed prior to 1975, and even later for states that delayed adopting the 1975 NEC.

If you have a hair dryer with a built in GFCI and the hair dryer drops in the sink, the GFCI will trip and save you from injury or death. However, if the receptacle itself gets wet and the hair dryer is not plugged in 100% and the cord gets wet and your hands are wet and your feet are wet then you could still get zapped, unless the receptacle itself is protected. Is that common? Hopefully not, but it is not nearly impossible in a bathroom. Adding an extra $5 (probably less by now) to the cost of a hair dryer isn't so bad - people will accept that. Having to suddenly hire an electrician to add $20 GFCI/receptacles - and add in labor costs far more than that - people just won't accept that. They'll do it when they remodel the bathroom or are having other electrical work done, etc. The end result is that some people just don't have that last piece of protection, but that is the nature of safety rules and cost/benefit analysis.

So back to your EVSE. Plugging in your internally GFCI protected EVSE in a non-GFCI protected receptacle protects against you getting hurt if the cable is wet and the car is wet and you are wet (let's say it is the middle of a rainstorm but you have to drive somewhere). But if the receptacle is also wet, and the plug is not quite 100% in (these 50A 240V plugs are big and heavy and hard to plug compared to 15A 120V plugs) then you could still have a problem. GFCI-protected receptacle (which necessarily means GFCI/breaker in this case) solves that problem.

Why doesn't a hardwired circuit need the same protection? Because, except for severely damaged cables, a properly installed hardwired EVSE will have no exposed conductors anywhere except where the EVSE plugs into the car. There is no plug to be only partly in the receptacle. There is no receptacle to get wet before you plug in the EVSE. So the chance of a problem before the EVSE's own GFCI detector is very, very, very small. Maybe not zero, but a lot closer to zero than with a plug/cord connected "travel charger".

The best part is that by the time you add up:

• GFCI/breaker (often $100 or more above the cost of a simple breaker)
• High-quality receptacle (daily plug/unplug means you need a really good one)
• "Travel" EVSE

you are actually close to the cost of a hardwired EVSE (e.g., Tesla Wall Connector).

And unlike the hair dryer example, most people do not already have that 50A 240V (though 20A or 30A is usually enough, but they don't normally have one of those in an older house either) receptacle, unlike their bathroom that has had 120V 15A receptacles since the day it was built. And they need to do some serious electrical work (whether DIY or professional) to install a 240V receptacle or to install hardwired EVSE. So the equation isn't: $5 on the hair dryer vs. $200 electrician, it is more like $600 electrician for receptacle + travel EVSE + GFCI etc. vs. $700 electrician for hardwired EVSE. Actual numbers will vary a bit, but you get the idea.

If you already have a "Travel" EVSE, use it as designed - for travel, so that you have something to use if you visit a location that doesn't have any hardwired EVSE. Plus the hardwired EVSE is always ready and therefore easy to use - just plug in one end (the easy one, at your car) and not "pull it out of the trunk, plug in both ends".

Answer 3

TLDR any socket in a garage requires GFCI protection. Does not matter if the thing you're plugging in also has GFCI protection, it's in the wrong side of the socket. Solution: hardwired wall units.

I bought an electric car.

Good on you! Unfortunately you'll be hearing a lot of very dumb things from inexperienced people who just "followed the crowd".

• Do you need a 50-60 amp circuit to charge at home? NO. No you don't. Technology Connections have a lovely video on this, here. A surprising number of people can get their needs met with level 1. Of course you've been told that won't be enough, but that's a lie. And if you want level 2, there are smaller options than 50A - such as 20A (giving 100 miles a night).

• DO you need a socket to charge at home? No, you're much better off with a hardwired wall unit. To start with, it's safer. But also, a wall unit does not require a costly non-meltdown socket, and does not require a GFCI breaker since it is one.

• Do you need a 14-50 socket specifically? NO. The earliest EVs came with included "travel kits" to help people get home from the distant dealer. Where do you find big power on the road? RV parks - see CGP Grey use this kit as intended (1 minute). People got the travel kit home, and mistook... and things snowballed and became memetic.

Indeed when you figure the cost of $300 travel unit + $130 GFCI breaker + $60 non-meltdown socket + $120 of 6/3 cable, you're at $600.

If you install a wall unit, you're at $500 wall unit + $12 breaker + $90 of 6/2 cable - same. The cost is a wash.

I was thinking it might not be necessary since the traveling charger already has GFCI protection.

NFPA, author of the electrical code, has been extremely unambiguous to the contrary. Indeed, they feel the 20mA GFCI protection built into EVSEs as part of the world standard * is inadequate, and is politicking this VERY hard, even aiming to close the ambiguity loophole in NEC 2020/23 that allows hardwired stations to not have GFCI breakers.

So yes, there's no question at all as to NFPA's intent which is that the socket be provided GFCI protection. That makes sense since anything could be plugged in there, a child could stick a screwdriver in there, etc. etc. (Hey, it's not like 14-50s are tamper resistant).

Did I mention that 14-50s (and sockets generally) are lousy for charging EVs?

Will there be any interference between the GFCI protection of the breaker with the GFCI in the traveling EVSE unit?

Oh, you betcha! The GFCIs don't (can't) interact - that is not physically possible. Draw the internal diagram of two series GFCIs and see. However, per SAE/UL/Euro standards, EVSEs must do a ground integrity check so they will refuse to work on an ungrounded circuit. That necessarily requires shooting some current down the ground wire to see if the circuit completes, and that current is taken from a supply wire which is being monitored by the GFCI.

So yeah, this is a hot mess. For now the best recommendation is a hardwired wall unit, and put the travel unit in the trunk for travel.

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* Standard setting which SAE administered but UL and European regulators fully participated in, and where was NFPA? The world wonders.