Retired last spring, and my spouse picked up her first EV in June while I'm still on my own EV I've had for a few years now with an outlet already sorted out at the main house. Her car lives in the detached garage instead, which has had a 240V outlet wired in since before we moved in eleven years ago, judging by the receptacle style sometime in the late 90s. Always assumed it was for a table saw or an air compressor and never gave it a second thought since we never used it for anything. Pulled the cover off out of curiosity a while back and it's a NEMA 6-50.
Her charger showed up last week — a ChargePoint Home Flex — and the cord ends in a 14-50 plug, not a 6-50. Plugged it in just to see, and obviously it doesn't seat, the extra prong slot on the plug isn't there on the outlet. Called an electrician friend of a friend who quoted me for a whole new circuit before I'd even finished describing the outlet, which felt like a lot for what sounds like it should be a simple mismatch between two plug types. Before I spend real money on a rewire, I want to actually understand what I'm dealing with here. Is there a cheaper way to make this work, or is a full new circuit genuinely the only safe option once the plug types don't match? On a fixed income now so I'd rather take another week to get this right than pay for the priciest quote out of not knowing better.
