Thanks, Flasher. I did note the potential (heh) for varying voltage and its effects on power in the "boring caveats" above. I fixed the typo on the NEMA name for the welder outlet (should be 6-50 as you note). I stand by the "typically 30A delivery on a 40A breaker" comment, though. You are of course correct that any EVSE could have different specs, but almost all non-Tesla installations are 30A on 40A, and "typically" covers the few exceptions. If you pull in to a public EVSE and charge, I'll bet chances are 95% or higher that you'll get 30A delivered on a 40A circuit.
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Differences between outlets, EVSEs, and chargers (optional reading for the curious):
OutletsThere are many, many types of outlets. See HERE. Fortunately you don’t have to worry about all of them. The ones Tesla supports are listed HERE (click “adapter guide” to see the list). I’ll call out some of the more familiar of Tesla’s supported outlets:
- “Ordinary” 110V household outlets (aka NEMA 5-15); your Model S comes with an adapter for that. SAMPLE.
- The most common 240V outlet for charging is a NEMA 14-50 (aka “campground”) outlet; you find those at campgrounds, and some hotels and restaurants, fire, police and ranger stations, fairgrounds, appliance stores, and in some garages and workshops. Many people install such an outlet at home for charging; in fact Tesla recommends it if you don’t buy their High Power Wall Connector (which is an EVSE; see below). It is far cheaper than installing an EVSE (a few hundred to put one in a garage, versus over $1 - 2k for an EVSE). SAMPLE. Your Model S will come with an adapter for this unless you tell Tesla before delivery that you’d prefer one of their other 240V adapters instead.
- Many early EV drivers have also charged from a NEMA 10-30, commonly used for “older” clothes dryers. SAMPLE. Newer dryers use NEMA 14-30.
I have done almost all of my charging from a 14-50 “campground” outlet. I have used a 10-30 “dryer” outlet five times. I have never used 110V charging or any other outlet.
So with the included Tesla plugs, you can plug in to:
- 5-15 “Ordinary Household” 110V outlets, and
- 14-50 “Campground” 240V outlets
- You can also use 6-50 “welder”, 10-30 “old dryer” or 14-30 “new dryer” outlets if you buy another plug from Tesla
EVSEsEVSE is a clumsy acronym that stands for “Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment”. It is very similar to an outlet, but it contains extra circuitry to protect you. If you plug a cord into an outlet and accidentally touch the prongs, you can get electrocuted. But an EVSE doesn’t put current out over the pins until it detects that it is plugged in to a car. An EVSE is not the same as a charger, but often is called one – it looks and acts the same, it’s just a matter of where the charging smarts are. An EVSE relies on the charger being in the car. Your Model S has one or two (“twin”) AC chargers built in; one charger lets you pull up to 10kW, twin chargers let you pull up to 20kW.
Of course, if it’s in your garage, the outlet end normally stays plugged in, and you only plug the car in – and the connector between them has the same protection built in. So I think EVSEs are oversold, and cheaper outlets work just fine for most people.
Almost all EVSEs use a “J1772” connector SAMPLE. This is the standard for 240V AC vehicle charging, sometimes called a “J plug”. However, this standard was not adopted until 2010; so in California you can find old EVSEs that use different interfaces – their numbers are dwindling as they get upgraded.
Almost all EVSEs (at least outside of CA, though this is becoming more and more true even there) that don’t use J1772 belong to Tesla. The Roadster was released before 2010, so they had to invent their own EVSE: the HPC (SAMPLE). It operates just like a J1772 EVSE, just the plug is different – it uses a plug found only on the Roadster. Then for the Model S, they wanted to do DC fast charging (see “Chargers” below) using the same connector as their AC charging, so they created (sigh) yet another plug. This is the “Tesla connector” (SAMPLE) that is on your Model S. So the Model S is the only plug-in vehicle being sold now that doesn’t have a J plug. It does include an adapter, however, so you can use J1772 EVSEs. And Tesla has created their own EVSE with a Tesla connector: the HPWC, or High Power Wall Connector (SAMPLE).
Ignoring the old CA EVSEs that seem to be disappearing, the only EVSEs you might run in to are:
- J1772 EVSEs. These are by far the most common. Your Model S includes an adapter to use them.
- Roadster HPCs. Some have already been converted to J-plugs. Some, I suspect, may someday be converted to Tesla plugs for the Model S (only after Tesla offers an upgrade to Roadster owners). To use the rest (like the ones in Ferndale, Ellensburg, and Centralia WA), you can buy an HPC adapter for your Model S for $650 from Tesla. They are in very limited supply right now, and they are currently only selling them to people that own both a Roadster and a Model S.
- Tesla HPWCs. None of these are out in public; for now these only exist in the garages of owners. This will plug directly into your Model S.
ChargersChargers are more than just outlets, or even smart outlets that try to not kill you. They know what they’re doing. They know they are sending power to your batteries, and they can manage the power delivery to get your battery full in the best manner – fast, but without frying the batteries. You always need a charger; but when you plug in to an outlet or EVSE, you use the AC charger built in to your car. Your Model S therefore only uses DC chargers.
Tesla’s DC Chargers are called Superchargers. They use the same Tesla plug as Tesla’s EVSE (the HPWC), so they will plug right in to your car. They are fast, free, and solar powered. It's just too bad they are not very numerous yet. They are in Southern California, and there are a couple on the East Coast between Boston and DC.
The SAE (the standards body that defined J1772 too late for Tesla) recently defined a new standard (once again, too late for Tesla) for DC charging. There are not yet any cars that use it, and no chargers yet being made, so none installed anywhere. Bummer. But if they ever do get installed, Tesla uses the same communications protocol, so you should be able to plug in to these chargers with just a simple adapter.
The Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV use a TEPCO connector and the CHAdeMO communications protocol. There have been at least 5 projects installing CHAdeMO DC chargers around the nation; WA and OR have the most. Great! Except...not just the plug, but also the protocol is different. Creating an adapter is difficult and expensive because it requires a bunch of electronics. Tesla is working on it, but has not suggested a date or price.
So that makes 3 types of DC chargers, but you can’t use any of them yet unless you happen to live near a Supercharger. That’s really sad, because DC chargers are a lot faster than AC outlets or EVSEs.