They all stop at the same number.

Of the eight home chargers in Car and Driver’s roundup, 4 publish an output range and all 4 stop at 11.5 kW. The figure the box leads with separates none of them. The figure that does separate them is the length of the cable, and it runs from 16 to 25 feet.

Four units, one output figure

A Level 2 charger’s headline number is its maximum output, and on this group it is not a differentiator. The Emporia units, the CleverCharge and the EVIQO all quote a range that ends at the same 11.5 kW. They start in different places — one will trickle down to a single amp — but the top of the range, which is the number in the listing title, is identical.

And the ceiling you actually get is not theirs to set. A 48-amp charger needs a 60-amp breaker, and your car may cap the rate anyway — so the box’s maximum is a number three separate things have to agree to before you ever see it.

The number that is not the same

Cord length is published for all 8, and unlike the output it is not the same twice over: 25 ft at the top, 16 ft at the bottom. That is 9 feet, or 56 per cent more cable, and it is the only figure here that decides something you cannot work around after the electrician has gone.

It decides it because the charger goes where the circuit is and the car parks where it parks. A 16 ft cord mounted beside the panel at the back of a garage has to reach a port that may be at the far corner of the other end of the car — and which corner depends on the make. Nobody has published a measurement of how often that fails, which is why this page states the spread rather than a probability.

Eight chargers, as their makers rate them

Only two rows carry a link, and the other six are blank on purpose. We open every listing before publishing it, and only these two came back showing the product named. The address Car and Driver point at for the Lectron is gone outright — it returns a 404 — and the remaining five could not be confirmed either way. A listing that cannot be confirmed and a listing that is right look identical once it is a link on a page, so the unconfirmed ones stay unlinked until they are checked. The specifications are printed for all eight because those are Car and Driver’s to stand behind; only the links are ours.

Where it is allowed to live

Six of the eight publish an enclosure rating, and the two ratings that appear are not equivalent. NEMA 4 is rated against hose-directed water; NEMA 3R is rated against falling rain and is the lower of the two. Both are outdoor ratings and only one of them covers a wall that gets hit by a pressure washer or a sprinkler.

This is a standard rather than a claim, which on this site is the rare good case: it means the figure was granted by somebody who tested against a written specification instead of asserted by whoever wrote the listing. It is the same reason the tools section is the easiest one to judge honestly.

Plug or hardwire, and why it is not a detail

Most of these come in two forms: one that plugs into a NEMA 14‑50 outlet and one wired permanently into the wall. The Tesla unit here is hardwire only — Car and Driver’s tester wired a plug onto one himself so it would run off the same outlet as the rest of the group, which is not a thing a buyer should copy.

The choice matters for a reason that has nothing to do with charging speed: a plug-in unit can be unplugged and taken to the next house, and a hardwired one is part of the building. Ask the electrician which one your inspection regime wants before you buy either.

What to buy

What nobody has measured

Everything above is a rating, not a reading. Nobody we could find has put a meter on a group of home chargers and published what each one actually delivered against what it claimed, how much it lost as heat, how the output held up at temperature, or how many of them were still working after three winters outdoors. Those are the measurements that would let you rank these, and they do not exist.

So this page ranks them on the one published figure that differs between them and is not decided by your house. If somebody publishes the meter readings, the recommendation here changes.