Will a 60 amp service run a 48 amp EV charger?

Notes

• Do not let anyone guess your existing load, including this page. NEC 220.87 gives the real method: take the highest demand recorded in the last 12 months from the utility, multiply by 1.25, and that is your existing load. Most utilities will supply the figure on request; where there is not a year of history, a recording ammeter left on the service for 30 days does the same job. That measured number, plus the 60 A above, is the answer.
• 60 A on a 60 A service leaves nothing for the house. This is not a marginal case that a careful load calculation might rescue — the addition alone is at or past the whole service. Plan the upgrade as part of the project rather than discovering it after the equipment arrives.
• This is a continuous load, so the code counts it at 125%. A 48 A device is counted as 60 A because it runs for three hours or more without stopping, and conductors and breakers heat differently under a load that never lets up. It is not padding — it is the reason a 40 A charger goes on a 50 A circuit.
• Load management can save the upgrade, and it is worth pricing first. An EV charger with a load-management device, or an energy-management system that sheds the charger when the range comes on, is a listed and code-recognised way to add a large load to a service that could not otherwise take it. It is frequently a fraction of the cost of a new service.
• A panel swap and a service upgrade are different jobs. If the panel is full but the service is adequate, a subpanel or a panel with more spaces solves it for far less. If the calculated load exceeds the service, new breakers change nothing — the conductors from the utility, the meter base and the mast all have to grow.