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A charger is not a large load. It is a long one, and continuous operation is what changes the circuit design.
Most household loads are intermittent. A kettle draws heavily for two minutes, an oven cycles its element, a dryer runs for an hour with a thermostat interrupting it throughout. A vehicle charger does none of that. It draws close to its rated current continuously for hours, and continuous operation is a different design category with a different rule attached to it. Circuits serving continuous loads are sized above the load rather than at it, which is why a charger drawing a given current requires a circuit rated higher than that figure rather than matching it.
Owners frequently discover this after purchasing equipment, and it is the most common reason an installation quote surprises somebody. The arithmetic looks straightforward on the charger specification sheet and the actual requirement is meaningfully larger. Establishing this before the equipment is ordered costs nothing and avoids buying a unit your service cannot support.
Where the unit goes determines how satisfying it is to live with, and this receives far less thought than the electrical specification. Cable length is finite and the vehicle's inlet position varies by manufacturer, sitting front left on some models and rear right on others. A unit placed to suit the current vehicle can become awkward with the next one. Mounting position relative to how you actually park, whether you reverse in or drive in, whether a second vehicle shares the space, and whether the cable will lie across a walking route all matter more in daily use than any specification on the box.
Cable management belongs in the same conversation. A charging cable left on the floor of a garage gets driven over, and a cable draped across a driveway in weather degrades. Holsters, retractors and mounting height are inexpensive at installation and irritating to retrofit. We walk the parking position with owners before choosing a location, because ten minutes there prevents a permanent annoyance.
Chargers connect either by permanent wiring or by plugging into a suitable receptacle, and both are valid with different implications. A hardwired unit has no connection that can loosen through repeated insertion and is generally the more robust arrangement for a fixed installation. A plug connected unit can be removed and taken with you, which suits tenants and anyone expecting to move, at the cost of introducing a high current connection that depends on maintained contact pressure. Where the receptacle route is chosen, device grade genuinely matters, because a budget device carrying continuous current is precisely the failure we describe elsewhere.
Outdoor and unheated locations add environmental requirements. Enclosures and devices need ratings suited to the conditions rather than interior components installed hopefully, because corrosion at a termination behaves exactly like a loose connection and develops silently inside an enclosure nobody opens.
Because it is a continuous load. Circuits serving loads that run for hours at close to rated current are sized above the load rather than at it. This catches most owners by surprise and is worth establishing before ordering equipment.
Not without addressing the panel. That said, load management is worth evaluating first. Where the service has capacity for everything except simultaneous peak operation, a managed charger can avoid a service upgrade entirely.
Hardwired is more robust for a fixed installation because there is no connection to loosen through insertion cycles. Plug connected suits anyone expecting to move. If you choose the receptacle route, device grade matters considerably under continuous current.
Somewhere that suits how you actually park, accounting for your vehicle's inlet position, a possible future vehicle, a second car sharing the space, and keeping the cable off walking routes. We walk the parking position before choosing.
Continuous load sizing and available service capacity both need answering before equipment is purchased. Call to have both established first.