Charging looks simple. Then you try to do it well.
The Charge Sheet is a free, honest guide to EV charging. All of it. What happens between the car and the charger, what it costs in your garage or across a 20-stall site, and how to get it right the first time. No sales pitch, no signup, and nobody will call you.
Built by Aatish Patel, founder of XCharge North America. Six years and four million kWh of lessons, given away free.
A note from the person who built this
Why I built this.
I'm Aatish. In 2021 I founded XCharge North America, and for the next six years I did nearly every job a charging company has: product, sales, finance, hiring, logistics, and a trip to Nasdaq. Our chargers put out more than four million kWh along the way, and I learned most of it by getting it wrong first.
The part the résumé leaves out: I don't just like charging as a business. I like charging. The handshake between car and charger, the panel math in a garage, the 11pm question every new owner asks about whether 7 kW is enough. At home I run a Tesla Wall Connector on its own circuit, plus a NEMA outlet as backup, because even I don't trust one plug.
None of this is secret. It's scattered across vendor brochures, tariff books, owner forums and dealer showrooms, and most of it is trying to sell you something. So I wrote it down, for homeowners and site owners alike. It's free, it's open source, and it's staying that way.
The goal is simple: more people who understand charging well enough to run it themselves, and a few more who decide driving electric makes sense. If the numbers say it doesn't for you, the site will say that too.
Aatish Patel
Three things most people learn too late.
Two come from public data on thousands of US fast chargers. The third is arithmetic your utility will happily do for you.
Median daily sessions at US fast-charging stations with nothing nearby, versus stations with 11 or more places to shop or eat around them. Same kind of charger. Different address.
4,105 stations, Q4 2025. Electric Era, Paren and TEI.Why location winsPublic charging visits in 2026 that ended without a charge. The best result in six years of tracking, and still roughly one driver in eight leaving with nothing.
J.D. Power 2026 EVX Public Charging Study.Why chargers failOne month's electric bill for a fast charger that ran exactly one session. Blame the demand charge, then learn how to beat it.
150 kW of demand at $15 per kW, one 30 kWh session.Meet the demand chargeRead it in order. Or don't.
Nine short guides, from what happens inside the cable to paying for it and running a fleet depot. Each one stands on its own.
- 1How charging worksWhat actually happens between the plug and the battery, and why the car, not the charger, is in charge.9 min
- 2The businessWhere the money comes from, where it goes, and the electric bill that ruins most spreadsheets.8 min
- 3It's a real estate businessWhy the address decides everything, and how to underwrite a charging site like the development it really is.7 min
- 4Paying for itCash, grants or a loan: the three ways to fund a site, and why most people should finance.9 min
- 5BatteriesWhat storage fixes, what it earns, and the tax rules that can hand you 30% back or nothing at all.11 min
- 6ConnectivityThe invisible part of every charger, and the cause of more "it's broken" than anything with a power module in it.7 min
- 7Software and OCPPThe backend decides who charges, what they pay and what it costs you. What OCPP is, what it isn't, and how much software you actually need.8 min
- 8BuyingWhat to ask vendors, what a good answer sounds like, and when to politely leave the meeting.8 min
- 9Fleet chargingCharging curves, the 80% rule, and why the people moving the cars matter as much as the chargers.8 min
Then run the numbers.
Free tools, no sign-up. Every assumption is visible, and you can change all of them.
Site planner
What a site costs to build and run, what it earns, and how many sessions it needs before it stops losing money. Batteries included, literally.
Open the site plannerInstall cost estimator
Wire sizes, conduit, trenching, gear and concrete, priced from how far the chargers sit from the electrical room. Distance gets expensive fast.
Estimate an installSBA loan check
How much you'd borrow, what it costs a month, and whether your cash flow covers it the way a lender will want to see.
Check a loanFleet throughput
How many vehicles a depot or lot can charge in a day, what stopping at 80% buys you, and Level 2 against DC fast for your fleet.
Model a fleetUtilization forecast
How busy a site will be, from the traffic or people already there. Gives you a range, because anyone who gives you one number is guessing.
Forecast a siteConnectivity check
Grade the cellular signal where the charger will stand, and get a setup that won't leave drivers staring at "authorizing."
Check a siteGlossary
Demand charges, ratchets, make-ready, OCPP, DSCR and FEOC, in plain English. For the next time a vendor talks in acronyms.
Decode the jargonReal sites. Real numbers.
Sessions per charging port per day at real operating US sites. Actual results, anonymized, not forecasts. The spread is the story.
Charging at home? There's a whole other side.
Level 1 or Level 2, what your panel can take, time-of-use rates, home batteries, and cars that can run the house. Same honesty, smaller electrical bill.
From the blog.
What is changing in charging, and what I would do about it.