The "120 volt cable", assuming you mean NM-B aka Romex, is rated for up to 600 volts if you look at it closely. It is absolutely acceptable to use that wiring for a 240V circuit, as long as you wrap colored (not green) electrical tape around the white neutral wire to indicate it's another hot.

Yes, there are 3-conductor (plus ground) wires one can also use for switches and 240V circuits with neutral. That neutral can be used to have 120V and 240V together (your oven may use 240V coils, but the light bulb probably runs on 120). Doesn't mean you need to have it, if your 240V circuit doesn't need a neutral. My air compressor is just a motor that can run at 240, no neutral needed, and its outlet is wired up with the same kind of Romex used for a 120 right next to it (with black tape to indicate a second hot)

I believe dryer outlets are typically 30a@240v. That’s a nice step up than a standard outlet and simple math shows 4x the power of 15a@120v

If you have one in your garage, then you already have an outlet that can do faster charging than a standard outlet.

Just like you technically don’t need a 50a level 2 charger, you may not have to settle for a standard outlet. I bought a heavy duty extension cable with adapters for several different outlet types.

Can you cite a time stamp? I don't want to watch a 30 minute video.

I'm very curious where "42 amps max" comes from, as NEMA outlets are rated for 15A, 20A, 30A, 50A, or 60A. 42A is a rather oddball number; I'd like some context for it.

Most dryer outlets are rated for 30A, NEMA 10-30, or 14-30.

A small 30 amp level 2 charger can put another 10 miles of range in a 450 Wh/mi car in 40 minutes.

A 15 amp level 1 charger can put another 10 miles of range in a 450 Wh/mi car in 2.5 hours on paper, but practically it takes longer, over 3 hours if it downrates itself to 12 amps, and almost 5 hours if it chickens out to 8 amps.

Another 4.5 kWh of battery gets another 10 miles of range without charging.

Having a level 2 charger at home means any time you go home for just about any reason you can always take just about any trip again right away, without an expensive vehicle with an oversized battery.

What electric vehicle gets 5 miles/1.2kWh? That's only 240 Wh/mi.

What electric vehicle gets 5 miles/1.2kWh?

Most of the small ones.

If you screw up, you can usually get to a charger a few blocks away and snag 50% of your battery in 20 minutes.

I charge entirely off of a standard 120 outlet, and it easily handles my daily and weekly travel needs, along with my partner's numerous errands and extra trips throughout the week.

This.

That said, it's rare that only one or two outlets in a garage are tied to a breaker. Usually they're all on one circuit in older homes, in my experience.

If you can find a circuit like this, though, it's perfectly valid. Many chargers made for 110V also have a 230V/15 or 20 amp mode. My Mother-in-law's portable charger has a 230V NEMA 2-20 adapter that comes in the bag with it.

In recent test of a German auto club they found out that it‘s cheaper/ more effective to charger faster. You loose a lot of energy if you load slow over hours.

This energy is taken by the electricity of the car. So, while charging the car is on and takes some Watts. There are just a few brands that have decoupled the charger circuit from the overall electric circuit of the car.

Can’t find the article now, but I think charging a PHEV through a standard power plug had about 20% energy lost. It was clearly visible that a charger is a good choice.

Edit: link https://www-adac-de.translate.goog/rund-ums-fahrzeug/elektromobilitaet/laden/ladeverluste-elektroauto-studie/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

You‘ll loose

• ~10-30% AC 2.3kw Standard Power Plug
• ~ 5-10% DC 11kw Wallbox
• Internal car electronics are crucial: Is the loading circuit de-coupled or the entire car On?
• Temperature or pre-heating the battery before loading reduces losses at DC charging

Not the same person and cba to get a timestamp right now, but it's the 80% rule - the electrical stuff isn't designed to deliver the rated amperage continuously for hours on end, so for car charging, you're apparently supposed to limit it to 80%. Now, 80% of 50 isn't 42 but 40, so not sure if it's a case of 80% not being a precise number or a mistake here, but it roughly checks out.

Wat. Do you think there's like a L1.5 or something?

There's the option of a level 1 charger at home, supplemented with an occasional stop at a fast charger.

The L1 charger is not quite enough to keep up with their usage, but their usage isn't enough to make an L2 absolutely necessary.

Did that account for battery lifetime, because if not, that could offset efficiency gains as fast charging degrades batteries.

I watched the video and it seems to make good points, but no matter how many times I see something related to US power circuits it just feels so ... antique? I have 3x25A fuses on the house and several 3x16A outlets around so getting 11kW out is just a matter of plugging in a socket.

Obviously it would be a good thing to have controls so that water heater, floor heating or sauna stove aren't all on together but I think I've replaced a single 25A fuse over 10 years we've lived on this house and I'm pretty sure that was caused by a small(ish) surge on the grid and not our load.

We have a granny charger that came with one of our EVs that we use as a backup and with our caravan to charge on sites that allow it. As I am UK it tops out at 2.4kw (10A @ 240v) and its annoyingly slow even charging for more than 12 hours at a time.

Our main home charger is 7kw, and as we get cheap electric every night for 7p a KwH for 5 hours, we can charge about 40kwh in that time period. Means even our largest battery is fully charged in two nights from completely empty. If we tried that with the granny charger it would cost significantly more, as it would be up to 40p a KwH outside of the main hours and take 40 hours to charge the same amount.

Now if you doing only a few miles a day, less than 40 miles (4 miles per KwH, charge for the 5 cheap hours using the cars charging timer, charge 10 KwH), it might work out ok for you, but then charging every day cannot be good for the battery? I know it would get annoying quite quickly. It would also get pretty painful if you have more than one EV, we have three between us and the kids, so its not remotely practical.

Granny chargin', not triple phasing like you should.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Any modern US house would have a similar capability, it's just older homes that would struggle since there would never be a need for such high power devices in a garage.

Most older garages would only need enough power to run a single lightbulb, if it was slightly newer, maybe a low power automatic garage door opener.

It's the same in any country with buildings over 100 years old.

You almost had me charging? You never had me charging - you never had your car charging, it had tripped the socket

Pedantic but: 7kw isn't three phase in the UK, just 30A. Three phase electric can give you up to 22kw in the UK for charging, obviously not every EV can charge that fast, most only go up to 11kw AC. I would kill for that extra charging speed but I can't justify the extra cost and effort to get it fitted by the electric company

Any AC load you can throw at an EV is effectively “slow charging”.
My car supports a maximum of 9.6kw from an AC charger, but up to 150kw from DC fast chargers. Even with the fast charging, its not like a phone, it has active thermal management which will cool the battery and slow down the charging if it gets too hot. phones don’t really have that and is mainly why they degrade faster if quick charged.

you are assuming functional infrastructure, not everywhere has that.

My wife had to try charging on a 120V outlet last winter. The plug couldn't even keep up with the battery heating requirements to actually start charging; the battery percentage was going DOWN while plugged in. It was -25°C outside though, so it's a specific situation, but it's actually why she had to try to charge; it's a trip we can easily do without charging in the summer.