Rated output as published by each brand; the miles-per-hour and breaker columns are our arithmetic (amps x 240 V, ~3.5 mi/kWh, NEC 125% rule), printed so you can re-run them for your own car’s efficiency.| Charger | Rated amps | Power | Miles / hour | Circuit needed | Connector |
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| Autel MaxiCharger 80A | 80 A | 19.2 kW | ~67 | 100 A | J1772 |
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| ChargePoint Home Flex | 50 A | 12 kW | ~42 | 70 A (hardwired) | J1772 |
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| Autel MaxiCharger Home | 50 A | 12 kW | ~42 | 70 A | J1772 |
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| ChargePoint Home Flex NACS | 50 A | 12 kW | ~42 | 70 A | NACS |
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| Emporia Level 2 EV Charger | 48 A | 11.5 kW | ~40 | 60 A (hardwired) | J1772 |
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| Lectron Nexus NACS (Tesla) Charger | 48 A | 11.5 kW | ~40 | 60 A | NACS |
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The number that actually limits you
The box on the wall is not the charger. It is a smart switch that hands 240-volt AC to the car; the actual charger — the electronics that turn AC into the DC a battery stores — is inside the vehicle, and its rating is the ceiling on everything. A car with a 7.2 kW onboard charger plugged into the 19.2 kW Autel will charge at 7.2 kW. The Autel will sit there at a third of its capacity for the life of the car.
The US Department of Energy puts the Level 2 range at 2.9 to 19.2 kW, with a typical residential install around 7.2 kW — which tells you how far above the norm the top of this list sits. The 80-amp tier exists for a small set of vehicles, mostly large trucks and a few luxury models, whose makers fit a bigger onboard charger. If yours is one of them, the manufacturer’s spec sheet will say so explicitly, usually as “19.2 kW onboard charger” or “80 A AC charging.” If it does not say so, assume it is not.
The practical shortcut: find your car’s onboard charger figure in kW, then divide by 240 and by 0.8 to get the breaker it needs. An 11.5 kW car wants 48 amps on a 60-amp breaker. A 7.7 kW car wants 32 amps on a 40-amp breaker, and every charger on this page is overkill for it. Our sizing guide walks through the arithmetic with examples.
What each speed tier costs to install
Speed is bought with copper. The NEC treats EV charging as a continuous load, so the circuit must be rated at 125% of the charger’s current — the 80% rule from the other direction. That produces three tiers with very different install bills.
- 48 A on a 60 A circuitis the top of what most homes can add without a service upgrade, and it is hardwired-only — no residential plug is rated for it. The Emporia and Lectron here, and the Home Flex dialed to 48, live in this tier.
- 50 A on a 70 A circuitbuys two more amps than 48 for a slightly heavier wire gauge. The ChargePoint and Autel Home units publish 50 A as their maximum. It is a marginal gain — about two miles of range per hour by our arithmetic — and most owners run these at 48 or 40 anyway.
- 80 A on a 100 A circuitis a different job. On a 200-amp service it is half the panel’s rating on one breaker, and a proper load calculation will often say no. Many 80-amp installs end up bundled with a service upgrade, which is where the real cost of the fastest charger hides.
None of that is a reason not to buy fast. It is a reason to price the circuit before the charger. Our install cost breakdown and the wire and breaker table cover what each tier adds to the quote.
How we separated them
Autel MaxiCharger 80Ais first because it is, by a wide margin, the fastest home charger you can buy: 80 amps and 19.2 kW, adjustable from 6 to 80 amps in the app and by DIP switch, in a NEMA 3S enclosure rated to -40°F. The honest note from its own listing is that Autel’s two pages disagree on the warranty term. The honest note from us is that unless your car accepts 19.2 kW, you are paying a large premium for a very good 48-amp charger. Buy it for a specific vehicle, or for a 100-amp circuit you are running anyway.
ChargePoint Home Flextakes second on 50 amps plus the most mature app in the category. Its amperage is set in the app to 16, 24, 32, 40, 48 or 50, the full 50 is a hardwired-only figure, and ChargePoint’s own datasheet is unusually candid about the 40-amp cap on the plug-in SKUs. If you want the fastest charger that also has a large support organization behind it, this is the one.
Autel MaxiCharger Home 50Amatches the Home Flex on paper — 50 amps, 12 kW, a 25 ft cable — in a NEMA 4X enclosure rated to -40°F, typically for less. Its app is less polished. On raw speed per dollar at the 50-amp tier it is the pick.
ChargePoint Home Flex NACS is the same 50-amp hardware with a factory Tesla plug. If you drive a Tesla or a NACS-port EV and want the fastest native connector without an adapter in the loop, it is the top of that list; our Tesla roundup covers the rest of the field.
Emporia Level 2 is 48 amps hardwired or 40 on a NEMA 14-50 plug, and it consistently sells for less than the 50-amp units. The two amps it gives up are worth about two miles of range per hour. For most buyers whose car maxes out at 11.5 kW, this is the fastest charger they can actually use, at the lowest price on this page.
Lectron Nexus NACS is the 48-amp native-Tesla unit with no app to configure and an IP66 housing. It is here for the Tesla owner who wants full speed and nothing to maintain. Lectron publishes no operating-temperature range for it, which we note rather than fill in.
What we left off, and why
Every 40-amp unit in our registry — the EVIQO 40A, the Grizzl-E Classic Connect, the Lectron and ELEGRP portables — because 9.6 kW is the plug-in ceiling, not the fast tier; they are ranked on our 40-amp page. The Wallbox Pulsar Plus and EVIQO 48A both reach 48 amps and would slot in beside the Emporia, but they add nothing on speed and cost more here; they earn their places on the smart-charger and 48-amp pages instead. And the Emporia Pro, whose whole point is throttling down to protect a full panel, belongs on the small-panel page, not a speed ranking.
Before you pay for speed
Ask what problem you are solving. A 48-amp charger adds about 40 miles of range an hour by our arithmetic; over an eight-hour overnight window that is roughly 320 miles, which is more than any current EV battery holds. The case for faster is specific: a car that takes 19.2 kW and a routine that needs a big top-up in an hour or two — a truck towing, a shift worker with two short windows, a household that splits one charger between two cars in the same evening. If that is you, the Autel 80A is a rational purchase. If it is not, the Emporia charges the same car just as fast for a fraction of the install.
