Why is a charge cord so expensive?

5644 Views 16 Replies 14 Participants Last post by Rampage_Rick, Nov 28, 2016

dharper

Discussion Starter · Nov 27, 2016 (Edited)

I finally cleaned out the junk from the garage, and now I can finally park my Volt inside. Although I had no problem with the 120V/12Amp charge outside, it would be nice to have a proper L2 charger in the garage, as the main panel is right beside the Volts charge port. I live in BC where there is no incentives for single home EV chargers, so I have been searching hard for a charger that isn't so expensive. $700CAN seems to be as cheap as I can find for a complete unit. I have found some for $450-500CAN after US conversion, but they don't have a cord. If I look for the price of a cord, they run from $150-200CAN. Why they heck are charge cords so expensive? The cord itself shouldn't be worth more than around $2/ft, that would be about $50 for a 25 foot cord. I looked for the price of a J1772 connector to connect to a EV, with no cord, and I only found 1 at alibaba for $96. Add the two together and that is the $150. But why the heck is the connector so expensive?

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hellsop

· #14 · Nov 28, 2016

dharper said:
I have found some for $450-500CAN after US conversion, but they don't have a cord. If I look for the price of a cord, they run from $150-200CAN. Why they heck are charge cords so expensive? The cord itself shouldn't be worth more than around $2/ft, that would be about $50 for a 25 foot cord. I looked for the price of a J1772 connector to connect to a EV, with no cord, and I only found 1 at alibaba for $96. Add the two together and that is the $150. But why the heck is the connector so expensive?

It's not a volume item. Even cords for kitchen ranges cost $20-40 and they sell a million or so of those per year in North America alone. EVSE cords have multiple sizes of conductors in them, precision-molded plugs with moving parts (the latch) that have to also be electrically connected, and volumes are down in "whole world market is maybe 100,000 per year" range. Combine the wholesale expense of the item with that you're buying them through retailers that don't have other products or volume of sales to make profit in and it's easy to understand why mark-ups of 30-50% are common at the jump from buying three dozen at a time to buying one.

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