Choosing a home charger for your electric vehicle (EV) can be hard. There are lots of different options to choose between, and understanding the differences can be complicated. ChargePoint has simplified the process by making their ChargePoint Home Flex charger both top tier in performance and quality. The ChargePoint Home Flex is also universal, meaning it will work with any EV, including Teslas (using the adapter included with all Teslas). ChargePoint also does a great job ensuring their Home Flex charger qualifies for as many government and utility rebates as possible, ensuring you get the best deal possible. Now we’ll explain the features that make a ChargePoint Home Flex charger installation at home the right decision.
Charging Speed
The most important aspect when it comes to home chargers is charging speed. While your needs may vary depending on your car’s acceptance rate, we always recommend getting a high speed charger to future proof your charging setup. A ChargePoint Home Flex installation can offer a variety of charging speeds as the charger can be set to different amperage levels ranging from as low as 16 amps all the way up to 50 amps. This means that at its maximum output, the ChargePoint Home Flex delivers 12kW of power. This can equate to up to 37 miles of range added per hour. That is more than enough power to fully charge an EV from empty to full overnight.
It’s important to note that the maximum power is only available when the ChargePoint Home Flex installation is hardwired. If you prefer to use it plugged into a 240V outlet, its maximum amperage would be 40 amps. Although it’s still plenty fast to fully charge EVs overnight, we recommend hardwiring the ChargePoint Home Flex as it offers a cleaner look and faster speeds. Either way, installing a ChargePoint Home Flex at home will ensure you wake up to your car at 100%.
Functionality and Durability
Ease of use is often overlooked when choosing a home charger. How hard can it be to plug in a car everyday? Everyday is the key part. If you’re only plugging in a car occasionally it doesn’t really matter how simple and easy the charger is. But if you’re doing it everyday, minor annoyances add up.
Convenient Holster
ChargePoint has put in a lot of thought into potential issues when designing the Home Flex. First, let’s consider how the holder for the charging connector swivels. When not in use the connector swivels down and the charger takes up less space. When you remove the connector from the holster and plug in your car, the empty holster swivels upward so it is easier to align the connector when returning it to the holster after charging. This may not seem like a big deal, but it will save you significant amounts of time over the years. The holster also has slightly tapered edges meaning you don’t have to fiddle to get the connector to click into place when holstering it.
Cable Flexibility
Another common gripe when it comes to home chargers is the flexibility of the cable. If you’re coiling the cable everyday before hanging it up, you want it to be a quick and easy task. Often chargers come with thick, unwieldy cables that you have to wrestle into place. These issues can be magnified in colder weather as the cable can become effectively frozen in whatever shape it’s in. The ChargePoint Home Flex on the other hand has a nicely flexible cable that is easy to handle. Furthermore, it also handles the cold well, maintaining flexibility. This is another aspect of the ChargePoint Home Flex that you will be grateful for overtime. It’s also worth noting that the cable is 23 feet long. You won’t have to worry too much about how you park, as the cable is long enough to reach even if you’re a little further away than usual.
Build Quality
The quality of the hardware itself is another major consideration. As with your car, a charger should last for many years. The ChargePoint Home Flex is built with this in mind. ChargePoint has an Advanced Test Facility where all their chargers undergo rigorous durability tests. This ensures that all of ChargePoint’s chargers will survive many years of daily use in a variety of conditions. Whether you install the ChargePoint Home Flex in a garage or outside, its weather proofed design is up to the task.
Connected Features
If you download the ChargePoint app and connect your Home Flex to WiFi, you can enjoy some great connected features. The most basic but also arguably most useful feature is easily tracking all your charging in one place. You can see how long each session is, the amount of energy used, estimated cost of the session, etc. Furthermore, if you use ChargePoint’s public charging stations, information from those sessions will be listed here as well.
Time of Use Rates
Another valuable connected feature is scheduling charging for when energy is cheapest. For example, if your energy is cheaper between 11pm and 5am, you can set the charger to only charge during these hours. This means you could arrive home at 6pm and plug your car in, but it would only start charging at 11pm once the cheaper rate starts. It would then stop charging at 5am, even if you don’t unplug it until 7am. This is a great way to save some money on charging. We recommend checking to see if your power provider has time of use rates.
Finally, you can use the app to set reminders to plug in. The app can also integrate into your smart home so you can ask your home assistant what the charging status is. The ChargePoint app is also useful for finding public chargers. This is great for planning a road trip or for last minute charging if you’re ever in a pinch.
ChargePoint Home Flex Installation
We hope after reading this you see why the ChargePoint Home Flex is one of the best home chargers on the market. It offers best in class features across the board, something you’ll be hard pressed to find elsewhere. We are happy to offer installations of the ChargePoint Home Flex. While we recommend hardwired installations for the cleaner look and faster charging speeds, we also install outlets for the NEMA 6-50 or 14-50 plug variants. We sell the ChargePoint Home Flex as part of our installation package. Feel free to reach out if you have questions about the ChargePoint Home Flex or our installation package. Contact us today to schedule a free estimate for a ChargePoint Home Flex installation in Northern Virginia, or the metro Maryland area.
