5 Steps to Prepare Your Home for an Electric Vehicle

While there are many public electric vehicle charging stations across Seattle, you’ll still need a primary method, which is also known as your electric vehicle home charger. When you return home after commuting to work or to run your daily errands, you can easily recharge your EV in your garage. If this is your first time owning an EV– whether it is an iX or i4 model, you can prepare your home for an electric vehicle in 5 steps! Learn more along with the EV home installation tax credit below.

1. Decide on Your Electric Vehicle Home Charger Level

The first step that you need to do to prepare your home for an electric vehicle is to figure out what the charging levels are. Most EV owners either go for a Level 1 or a Level 2. Some other information to keep in mind when you choose the level are: 

• Level 1 EV charging often takes days to fully charge an electric car. 
• Level 2 EV charging often takes several hours to fully charge an electric car. You can often get between 60-200 miles of range in just 20-30 minutes with Level 2 DC charging, though. For this reason, most people intermix daytime “top-off” charging with overnight charging.

2. Get Your Garage Ready 

Clean out and make some space in your garage for your electric vehicle home charger. This way, when it delivers to your home in Bellevue, you’ll know exactly where it will go and you can get it all set up in the same day. 

3. Find Your Power Panel & Assess Consumption

The power panel in your home distributes electricity throughout the entire building and it is most likely rated for a maximum amount of current flow measured in Amperes. Most new homes come with a 100 Amp power panel, but there should be an amperage rating printed on your main circuit breaker. Figure out how much electrical energy you consistently use in your house by performing a self-assessment of your electricity use before you install an at-home electric vehicle charging station. You want to be sure you do not want to overload your electric distribution panel.

4. Hire an Electrician

Then, you’ll need to hire an electrician. Talk to them about any concerns you have about your power consumption and installing an electric vehicle home charger. You can also have them install a dedicated 240-volt plug or add a hardwired circuit back to the power panel. On average, this can cost a couple of hundred dollars but could be up to $1,000 or $3,000 if it’s found that your power panel in Redmond is not sufficient as-is and requires upgrading. 

5. Buy Your Charger & Have It Installed

Finally, you’ll need to order your charger to complete your at-home electric vehicle charging station. Once it arrives, have an electrician professionally install it, so you can start charging your EV in your Everett home.

EV Home Installation Tax Credit 

As you can see, when you prepare your home for an electric vehicle, the cost can vary quite a bit depending on if your current electric system at home is already compatible with the charger. However, don’t forget about available electric vehicle home charger financial assistance that you can take advantage of! For example, the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit is an EV home installation tax credit that you may be eligible for. You can potentially earn up to generally the smaller of 30% of the property’s cost or $1,000, so be sure to remember this credit when you’re doing your taxes for the year you installed your electric vehicle home charger!

Discover the BMW Electric Power at BMW Seattle Today! 

Prepare your home for an electric vehicle today! If you want to learn more about BMW electric lineups, be sure to contact us for more information or with any questions. You can even drop by our Seattle showroom to test drive the iX and i4 and even meet the BMW iX M60 when it is released this summer!