There are lots of charging stations on the market. I researched quite a few of them. Generally there are ones designed to operate on 40 amp and 50 amp circuits, and some for 30 amp circuits. You do not want to load the circuit over 80% so a 30 amp can supply 24 amps, a 40 amp supplies 32 amps, and a 50 amp supplies 40 amps. It all depends on what your car can accept. Some Leafs only come with the 1600 watt internal charger and so having anything capable of supplying more than this is of no value. The optional package on the Leaf is the high capacity 240v/6.6Kw charger -plus- a super high rate, DC direct to the batteries unit that some dealers have. Those direct DC chargers can run upwards of $100K or more. The high capacity charger that comes are part of this package can draw (or be supplied) up to 6.6Kw. Thus, having a wall unit capable of supplying the car with more than 28 amps is a waste of money, as the car will not draw over that anyhow. If you want to charge a Leaf at max, get a 40 amp (input circuit, 32 amp output to the car) charging station and be done with it. The car "talks" to the charging station via a handshaking circuit and the car's charger agrees not to draw more than the charging station "says" its capable of providing.
While I am not sure of it for all chargers, I think most only need to be supplied with the two hots and a ground. Clipper Creek makes theirs with various plugs some being three prong such as a NEMA 6-50, while others use a NEMA 14-50 or 14-30, which are both four prong (but I don't think they actually use the neutral for anything), and you can also get it in a hardwired version. Its the same NEMA 4 housing (weatherproof) on all of them, but the plug models lose their outdoor rating due to the plug. The 32A/7.7Kw models with plug are $589 and hardwired, with just a pigtail are $565. Some charge stations have time delays, which is simply a timer that again handshakes with the car to tell the car when to begin charging. However, I think, not sure, that the Leaf can be programmed to delay its charging also, so the time delay in the wall unit is redundant for it.
Siemens, Leviton, Schneider (Square D), EVoCharge, Bosch, and a whole bunch more also make charging stations. Word on the internet is the Bosch units are pretty junky/problematic. I read alot good about the Clipper Creek as being trouble free and simple without a bunch of bells and whistles. Siemens puts either 12 ft or 20 ft cords on theirs, while Bosch and EVo use an 18 ft cord, Some others seem to be rather short, and the some models of all brands have cords as long as 25 ft. Its hit or miss, but research this before buying. Also check and make sure that a very necessary wall mounting bracket is included, most of the time it is not, and without it you don't have the UL/ETL certification. In all cases, download the manuals and read them carefully as to mounting and installation, to make sure you won't have to spend a bundle on "options" to install it.
The Federal tax credit for the installation of the wall charging station is over, but in Georgia, Georgia Power, if you are their customer, will give you a $250 credit if you install a charging station.
Charles
