Why You Cannot Buy a 22 kW Home Charger in the US

You cannot buy a 22 kW home charger in the United States, and the reason has nothing to do with what manufacturers are willing to build. 22 kW is a description of a European electricity supply — 32 amps across three phases at 400 volts — and American houses do not have that supply. The useful part of this answer is what comes next: the real US ceiling is 19.2 kW, exactly one charger in our registry reaches it, and your car almost certainly cannot use even that.

This question arrives on this site from two directions. People read European charger reviews, where 22 kW is an ordinary domestic product, and wonder why American listings stop so much lower. And people search “best 22 kW EV charger” having seen the figure quoted as though it were the top of the market. Both deserve a real answer rather than a redirect.

Where the number comes from

Charging power is volts times amps. That is the whole trick, and it is why the number changes when you cross the Atlantic.

A European house commonly has a three-phase 400-voltsupply. Three phases multiply the available power by the square root of three — about 1.73 — so 32 amps × 400 V × 1.73 comes out at approximately 22 kW. Nothing clever is happening: 22 kW is simply what a 32-amp three-phase European connection delivers, which is why so many European wallboxes are rated for exactly that.

An American house has single-phase 240 volts. No square root of three, no third phase. To reach 22 kW on 240 volts single-phase you would need over 90 amps continuous, which by the NEC’s 125% continuous-load rule means a circuit of 115 amps or more — a larger circuit than many entire houses are served by.

One row in that table is worth reading twice, because it catches people who think they have found a loophole. Three-phase doesexist in North America — in commercial buildings, in some apartment blocks — but it is usually 208 volts rather than 400. Run the same arithmetic: 32 A × 208 V × 1.73 is about 11.5 kW, not 22. So even a genuine American three-phase supply does not produce the European figure. The voltage is the difference, not the number of phases.

The actual American ceiling: 19.2 kW

US DOE describes Level 2 charging as spanning roughly 2.9 to 19.2 kW, with about 7.2 kW typical for residential installations. That 19.2 is 80 amps at 240 volts, and it is the real top of the AC market here.

In our registry of twenty chargers, exactly one publishes 19.2 kW: the Autel MaxiCharger 80A. Everything else tops out at 48 or 50 amps. And the 80-amp unit comes with a cost most people do not price in — by the continuous-load rule it needs a 100-amp circuit, which in a typical house with a 200-amp service means a serious load calculation and often a service upgrade. Our 48 versus 80 amp comparison is the page that weighs that trade honestly, and the 80A review covers the unit itself.

Why chasing it is usually a mistake anyway

Suppose the supply problem vanished. You still would not benefit, because the ceiling on AC charging is inside the car, and for most cars it is around 11 kW.

Every EV has an onboard charger that converts the AC arriving up the cable into DC for the battery, and its rating is a hard limit. The published figures across the vehicles we have researched cluster tightly: Volkswagen publishes an 11 kW maximum AC acceptance rate for the ID.4; Kia publishes 10.9 kW on every EV6 and EV9 trim; Toyota publishes 11 kW for the bZ. For the Hyundai IONIQ 5, Hyundai publishes no figure at all and our arithmetic from its own charge times lands near 10 kW.

A 22 kW charger feeding an 11 kW car delivers 11 kW. The other 11 go nowhere. Which means a 48-amp charger — 11.5 kW — already feeds the overwhelming majority of EVs completely, and does it on a 60-amp circuit instead of a 115-amp one. That is the practical conclusion of this entire page, and our 48-amp roundup is where it leads.

The exceptions exist and are worth naming, because we have found them in manufacturers’ own documents. Some Cadillac LYRIQ trims publish a 19.2 kWonboard charger — one of the very few vehicles that can genuinely use the top of the American range, and the reason the 80-amp unit is not pointless. Our fastest-chargers roundup names the rest.

What to do instead

If you came here from a European review, translate rather than convert. Their 7.4 kW is roughly our 32 amps. Their 11 kW is roughly our 48 amps — and 48 amps genuinely is the sweet spot of the American market for the same reason 11 kW is theirs: it matches what cars accept. Their 22 kW has no American equivalent, and the connector standard is different too — our J1772 and NACS guide covers that side.

If you wanted 22 kW for speed, work out what you actually need. At 48 amps you get about 40 miles of range per hour by our arithmetic at a reference 3.5 miles per kWh — roughly 320 miles over an eight-hour night, which is more than most batteries hold. Our charger-sizing guide works the mileage question through, and the honest finding is that overnight charging windows are long and daily mileage is short.

If you genuinely need to add hundreds of miles in a couple of hours, AC charging is not the technology. That is what DC fast charging is for, and it is a commercial installation rather than a home one — our AC versus DC guide explains why the rectification has to happen in a cabinet the size of a refrigerator rather than in your car.

Quick picks

Ranked on published specs, charging speed, electrical fit and value. Select a row to jump to the full write-up. We have not bench-tested these chargers — here is exactly what we do instead.

#	Product	Best for	Price
1	EVIQO 48A Level 2 Charger A lot of charger for the money: a full 48 amps, WiFi with scheduling, ENERGY STAR, and the longest usable reach in this group thanks to a 25 ft cable plus a 40-inch input lead. A strong value alternative to Emporia if you want maximum reach.	11.5 kW, which most cars max out at	$449.99 · View on Amazon $510.0012% off Price as of October 18, 2026. #ad How we’re funded
2	ChargePoint Home Flex The safest default for most homes: you set the amperage in the app to 16, 24, 32, 40, 48 or 50A, so one charger fits whatever circuit your panel can spare today and scales up if you upgrade later. The app is the most mature here, firmware arrives over the air, and the warranty is long.	12 kW, adjustable 16-50 A	$516.71 · View on Amazon Price as of October 18, 2026. #ad How we’re funded
3	Emporia Pro The answer to a panel that says no. The Pro ships with Emporia's Vue 3 energy monitor in the same box, watches what the rest of the house is drawing, and throttles the car in real time so the total never exceeds what the service can carry — which is how a 48-amp charger ends up on a panel that a load calculation says has no room for one. You pay roughly Home Flex money for it, and only the load management justifies that.	11.5 kW with load management	$599.00 · View on Amazon Price as of October 18, 2026. #ad How we’re funded
4	Autel MaxiCharger 80A The ceiling of home AC charging: 19.2 kW on a 100-amp circuit, which is roughly double what a 48-amp charger does. Almost no car can actually take it — most cap their onboard charger somewhere between 7.7 and 11.5 kW — so buy this for a specific vehicle that accepts 80 amps, or for a future-proofed circuit you already have. Otherwise it is a very good, very expensive 48-amp charger.	19.2 kW, the real US ceiling	$908.65 · View on Amazon $1,299.0030% off Price as of October 18, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

Three of those four deliver 11.5 or 12 kW, which is the number that matters, on circuits a normal house can carry. The fourth is there because the top of the range genuinely exists — it just costs a 100-amp circuit and only pays off in a handful of vehicles. Before buying any of them, check your own panel with our panel-capacity guide and price the whole job with the installation cost breakdown.