The Best Home EV Chargers of 2023

If you're shopping for a home charging station, you have a lot of options—arguably too many. As electric car sales have taken off, the charging-equipment market has been flooded with products advertising the same basic attributes. This guide is your panacea for option paralysis. We've sifted through the heap to find the best home EV chargers, so you don't have to.

We started by poring over specifications and scouring customer reviews to find the most promising chargers. That research narrowed our focus to seven units that we installed in the garages of several of our editors and lived with for six months as a parade of EVs ranging from the $28,795 Chevrolet Bolt EUV to the $180,650 Lucid Air passed through our fleet. We used that experience to sniff out the nuances that separate the best from the rest.

The 240-volt Level 2 chargers listed here can be used with any electric vehicle or plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV) on sale in the United States and Canada (Tesla owners will need to use the J1772 adapter that came with their vehicle in some cases). Our top picks have a few common traits: They all can be installed indoors or outdoors, and every unit has been certified by Underwriters Laboratories (now known as UL Solutions) or Intertek, two trusted, independent safety organizations. Our favorite home EV chargers are also capable of delivering at least 9.6 kilowatts of power, which will add about 29 miles per hour of charging for a midsize crossover SUV like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 or approximately 18 miles per hour for the Ford F-150 Lightning. Even if your current vehicle can't make full use of all that power, using 9.6 kW as a baseline futureproofs your home setup for vehicles you may buy or lease in the next decade.

This guide has been written to help you find the right Level 2 home charging station for your needs. Be sure to check out some of our other helpful EV stories including 3 Things to Know Before Buying An EV and How Much It Costs to Charge an Electric Car by State.

The Grizzl-E Classic's great price, multiple installation options, and durable construction make it the best option for most EV and plug-in hybrid drivers. The Classic is a no-frills home EV charger that gets the basics right. The 23.9-foot cable has the reach to accommodate multiple parking positions and the flexibility to easily coil and uncoil it. It's also among the most affordable 9.6-kW Level 2 chargers with the Underwriters Laboratories stamp of approval. Many cheaper home charging stations, even if they're less powerful, require you to give up that peace of mind.

Grizzl-E Classic
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MSRP: $395
Max power: 9.6 kW
Cable length/diameter: 23.9 ft/0.9 in
Installation: 14-50 plug, 6-50 plug, or hardwire

The Classic doesn't have Wi-Fi connectivity or a smartphone app, and you can't use it to track your energy consumption and costs, or schedule charging during set times of the day. We think that simplicity is a selling point, rather than a shortcoming, as Wi-Fi-enabled smart chargers are overkill for the average driver. The apps are often clunky, and the key selling point—programming charging to start at a certain time—duplicates a feature built into most EVs. With the Grizzl-E Classic, charging is as simple as it should be, and the lack of connectivity leads to a lower price. If you're set on buying a home charging station with more advanced features, however, check out our pick for the best smart EV charger below.

The Grizzl-E's basic design lacks the curves of the competition for good reason. While most home charging stations are made of plastic, Grizzl-E's Classic is built around an aluminum enclosure. That makes it an especially smart choice for anyone installing one outdoors, where extreme temperatures and sunlight quickly age plastic.

Grizzl-E sells the classic with either a NEMA 14-50 or NEMA 6-50 plug, which means homeowners with an existing 240-volt outlet in the garage and basic DIY skills can install it without hiring an electrician. Alternatively, either unit can also be hardwired by a professional.

The Tesla Wall Connector is a masterpiece of industrial design that's as functional as it is beautiful. The sleek, wall-mounted box doubles as the cable storage hook and features a holster on the side (rather than the front) that keeps the charging cord out of the way when it's not in use. The Wall Connecter's 1.8-inch-circumference cable—the slimmest of any home EV charger we tested—is lighter and more flexible than the unwieldy cords on most 11.5-kW Level 2 chargers.

Note that the unit pictured here is Tesla's J1772 Wall Connector for non-Tesla vehicles. The version with Tesla's proprietary charging port is white but otherwise visually identical. We like the J1772 Wall Connector so much, we considered naming it our top pick for all EV drivers, but the price keeps us from giving it that full endorsement. Tesla charges a hefty premium to anyone buying its home charging station to power a Ford, Hyundai, Chevrolet, or any other competitor's EV.

Tesla Wall Connector (for Tesla vehicles)
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MSRP: $425
Max power: 11.5 kW
Cable length/diameter: 24.1 ft/0.6 in
Installation: Hardwire

Tesla J1772 Wall Connector (for non-Tesla vehicles)
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MSRP: $550
Max power: 11.5 kW
Cable length/diameter: 24.1 ft/0.6 in
Installation: Hardwire

The Wall Connector has Wi-Fi, but as this story was being written, it couldn't be linked with Tesla's app. Instead, the connectivity is only used during the initial setup and for over-the-air software updates. That shouldn't be a deal breaker for Tesla drivers since the app pulls plenty of charging information directly from Tesla vehicles.

Data nerds and those who drive non-Tesla vehicles can get some information from the Wall Connector using a third-party app called Wall Monitor. It's more intuitive and better-looking than the apps developed by charging-station manufacturers like Emporia and Wallbox, but it has some limitations. Wall Monitor is only available for iOS devices and only works when your phone or tablet is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the charging station. The app maker also acknowledges that the information it pulls from Tesla's home charging station can contain errors that it is powerless to fix.

The Wi-Fi-enabled Emporia EV Charger packs a ton of features into its reasonable price tag. When hardwired to your home's electrical system, it delivers up to 11.5 kW for faster charging than the Grizzl-E Classic. (Using the NEMA 14-50 plug requires limiting the power to 9.6 kW.) Emporia's app also makes it easy to schedule charging and track your costs if you're on a time-of-use electric plan that makes it cheaper to charge at night and during weekends.

Emporia EV Charger
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MSRP: $399
Max power: 11.5 kW
Cable length/diameter: 24.3 ft/0.9 in
Installation: 14-50 plug or hardwire

The Emporia EV Charger arguably offers more for your money than the Grizzl-E Classic, but it's not our top pick because it's better suited for power users rather than the general EV-driving population. Its cable is thicker, heavier, and stiffer than the Grizzl-E's, and it can be cumbersome to neatly coil in small spaces. Data junkies will love the detailed graphs and the ability to export stats from the app to CSV files, but the average driver is more likely to wonder why the app can't show the battery's state of charge, the vehicle's estimated range, or how much time is remaining until the battery is full. That's not Emporia's fault, though. No home charging station can report that information due to the limitations of the SAE J1772 charging protocol used by all automakers except Tesla. That glaring omission in the industry standard is one reason we think Wi-Fi connectivity is a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have" for a home EV charger.

Emporia sells additional smart home products that integrate with the app to provide deeper insights for the electron counters. Its Smart Plug enables remote control and energy logging of a single electronic device, while the Vue energy monitor allows users to analyze energy consumption for their whole house and individual circuits. An EV driver with home solar panels can link the Vue with the Emporia EV charger to power their vehicle only when the panels are generating more electricity than the rest of the house is consuming.

ChargePoint Home Flex
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MSRP: $749
Max power: 9.6 kW
Cable length/diameter: 22.6 ft/0.7 in
Installation: 14-50 plug, 6-50 plug, or hardwire

The ChargePoint Home Flex is a fantastic charging station if cost is no object. The integrated cord hook and pivoting holster make it the next best thing behind Tesla's design. ChargePoint also makes the most intuitive app of the units we tested, largely because it keeps things simple and offers only basic functions such as energy reporting, cost tracking, and charge scheduling. The Home Flex is one of our favorite home EV chargers, but the price premium is steep considering you're only getting aesthetic improvements over our top picks.

J+ Booster 2
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MSRP: $549
Max power: 9.6 kW
Cable length/diameter: 18.7 ft/0.6 in
Installation: 14-50 plug

The J+ Booster 2 can be used as both a home charging station and a mobile charging cord, making it a smart option for an EV driver who frequently travels to a vacation home or campgrounds with 240-volt outlets. It's built from durable materials to handle abuse on the road and stores neatly in the included travel case. Used as a home EV charger, though, the J+ Booster 2 is a compromise. The mounting bracket effectively shortens the cable length by nearly 2 feet and places the integrated cable hook so close to the floor, you'll likely need to buy a separate hook. (A Booster 2 with an extra four feet of cable is available for an additional $100.) Another downside: The Booster 2 only comes with adapters for a standard 120-volt household outlet and a NEMA 14-50 plug, and additional adapters aren't cheap.

Wallbox Pulsar Plus 40A
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MSRP: $649
Max power: 9.6 kW
Cable length/diameter: 24.3 ft/0.7 in
Installation: 14-50 plug or hardwire

The Wi-Fi-enabled Wallbox Pulsar Plus 40A allows a user to monitor energy consumption and schedule charging through an app that's more user-friendly than most, but it can't accurately track costs if you have a variable-rate time-of-use plan. It does stand apart from the crowd if you want to charge multiple EVs simultaneously, charge using solar panels, or charge at full power without upgrading your home's limited electrical service. These features all require buying additional hardware.

Wallbox Pulsar Plus 48A
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MSRP: $699
Max power: 11.5 kW
Cable length/diameter: 24.3 ft/0.9 in
Installation: Hardwire

Compared to the Pulsar Plus 40A, the 48A delivers faster charging to vehicles that can accept its full 11.5 kW. The trade-offs for more power include a higher price, a bulkier charging cable, and a requirement to hardwire the unit.

On this episode of The InEVitable, we bring on Jonathan Levy, chief commercial officer of EVgo and an absolute expert in public policy and EV infrastructure. Prior to joining the EV charging company, Levy served as deputy chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Energy, John Chu, at the Department of Energy. Levy is positively delightful and we talk about the current state of EV infrastructure. Does he have all the answers to EV charging issues? Watch below to find out!