Owning a Model S as a Renter

I was in a similar position, I rent a condo as well and I tried to have the HPWC installed at my parking garage, however, the electrician said it would be roughly $10k. Naturally, I thought this was steep, got other bids around the same numbers, and then thought about having one installed at work or some other place I frequent. My in-laws live roughly about a mile away, so I had the charger installed there instead, it's been working out fine, but now they might be moving. They'll still be the same distance away, but I'll have to move the charger to their new house so I'm researching getting a NEMA installed at my office.

Long story short, I think you should be ok with the blink chargers. About 6 months after I got my car the LV supercharger opened, now I go there to charge sometimes if I'm in that area as well. Definitely helps.

Probably depends on the length of your commute and the business of those Blink/ChargePoint chargers. My building has 3 Chargepoints charger on site. I have a relatively short commute, and charge about twice a week. The risk is going to be when you take a long trip and need a charge when you get home, but the public charger is occupied. So you should weigh the likelihood of that situation carefully, and determine if you have a backup plan should it occur.

I don't know how far that eventual Supercharger is from you, but I can pretty much guarantee ferrying your car out there to charge is going to get old really fast, even if it's relatively close.

Yes, this is doable but it depends on your level of patience, length of commute, time commitments, etc. One of the beauties of the car is that you don't have to muck around with public charging due to the large battery capacity. Range anxiety does not need to be an issue with this car. Unfortunately, in your situation this benefit is negated. Admittedly, Tesla does not have a solution for those in rental situations. I would concentrate on sorting out a long term solution for the charging needs of the car.

I was/am in a very similar situation.

I rent a condo, and had my car delivered in late Dec 2013. It took me a while to get the required permissions from the HOA. Also, I could not install an HPWC, not even a 40A line. I had to settle for 30A. With all these issues it took me until mid Feb 2014 to get all set. In the mean time, I charged at an SC on my way to work, early mornings once every 4-5 days. My daily commute to work is about 40-45 miles total. Finally, by the time I got the charging system set up at home, they installed ChargePoint stations at work, and I started using those.

Long story short, now I charge solely at work, using ChargePoint L2 (30A) daily. I use the home charger very rarely - only when I am going on a long trip from home.

Given that you have Blink at home, and CP at work, I do not see any issues whatsoever with not having a charging station at home. Once you have a SC close by, you can use that in case of an emergency quick charge need. I would not recommend using SC for day to day charging. It is a big waste of time, may cause inconvenience to others unless you use it at odd hours, and may affect your battery negatively (no proof of this exists at this time).

Blinks charge you for the entire time you're connected, not just for the time the car is actually charging, so you may want to time your charging closer than that.

See my responses in bold, below.

d47m122 said:

Hi guys, thanks for all the replies. A few replies.

- My commute is about 30 miles round trip.
- There are 4 L2 chargers in my building and they are usually always empty. I am thinking once or twice a week I'll just leave the MS plugged in overnight.
- There are lots of L2 chargers at work, but there can be competition for them so I'll try and get on them as needed.
- The Seattle supercharger is rumored to be in Seattle itself where the service center is. This is just a few miles from where I live.

I guess one of the things I'm curious about is, how often will I really feel like I need to charge. Provided I keep the battery mostly full am I gonna need to do this once a week and only worry about it if I want to road trip?
Provided you run the car's systems every 1-2 days (even just enable cooling using the mobile app), I don't see an issue with this. Battery management including temperature control will occur when the car is on.

Will my range anxiety make me want to have it plugged in as much as possible?
With your commute, I doubt it. The 85 and P85 have an approximate 260-300 mile range, fully charged. For optimal battery life, try to charge up to 85% (about 220 miles) for your normal driving needs. Recharge when your range falls below 50 miles, and be aware of the distance to the next charger/Supercharger.

Am I going to lose charge overnight?
There is an Energy Savings mode you can enable in the Model S, accessible from the control window. This can help with overnight mileage losses (probably in the <5 mile area) but might result in slightly slower start-up times. More information is available in the manual.

I guess these aren't concerns when you can just plug in your garage every night vs being a renter and working off public chargers...

Thanks for everyone's help.

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davewill said:

Blinks charge you for the entire time you're connected, not just for the time the car is actually charging, so you may want to time your charging closer than that.

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True and if you're regularly using Blink then get a membership card; the discount makes charging ~$1/hr instead of ~$2/hr.

d47m122 said:

- My commute is about 30 miles round trip.
- There are 4 L2 chargers in my building and they are usually always empty. I am thinking once or twice a week I'll just leave the MS plugged in overnight.

...

I guess one of the things I'm curious about is, how often will I really feel like I need to charge. Provided I keep the battery mostly full am I gonna need to do this once a week and only worry about it if I want to road trip? Will my range anxiety make me want to have it plugged in as much as possible? Am I going to lose charge overnight? I guess these aren't concerns when you can just plug in your garage every night vs being a renter and working off public chargers...

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Sounds like you'll be fine. Your situation is similar to my own, and I charge once or twice a week up to 80-90% once the range drops below 100 miles or so (when it starts getting noticeably sluggish). I try to charge on Fridays so I can take long weekend trips if I feel like it without worrying if I have enough charge.

If you're not routinely taking long trips, I don't think you'll feel a need to keep it topped up, though I'm certain you'll tend to do so naturally for the first month or two as you get comfortable with the range.

You will lose charge every night. Between 1 mile (Energy Savings on) and 7 miles (very upper bound of Energy Savings off, probably more like 4). It's not a big deal. You shouldn't be putting off charging when losing 10 miles of range overnight would strand you, anyway.

NigelM said:

True and if you're regularly using Blink then get a membership card; the discount makes charging ~$1/hr instead of ~$2/hr.

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Definitely do this if your apartment building doesn't provide free charging cards. And you should probably order it now. I don't know if their backlog has eased, but I waited nearly 3 months for my Blink card (you can use Blink codes and the app in the meantime, assuming your Blink stations support that).

d47m122 said:

Thanks everyone! Glad to know there are other out there that have given this a try. I have my blink card and I was also thinking of just an overnight charge on it once or twice a week. That way the public space is all cleared out and I can get away with leaving it in a charging stall all night.

One question though:
Sounds like you'll be fine. Your situation is similar to my own, and I charge once or twice a week up to 80-90% once the range drops below 100 miles or so (when it starts getting noticeably sluggish). I try to charge on Fridays so I can take long weekend trips if I feel like it without worrying if I have enough charge.

The car starts to get sluggish below 100 miles?

Sorry if some of these are rookie questions answered elsewhere.

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Sounds like a good plan.

Yes, depending on how sensitive you are. It's still quicker than most cars even at that battery level, no doubt about it, but the edge absolutely does come off as the battery is depleted. You can see the effects when people take them to the drag strip for multiple runs. Their first run is almost always the fastest, and it degrades slightly with each run from there. I lost what seemed to be (hard to tell for sure with traffic) a second or two (out of 65 second laps) around Laguna Seca starting at 85% vs 100% SOC.

Personally, I feel it really starts to become noticeable once the range drops below 100 miles, but you may not. It'll depend on largely on your driving style, and how quickly you get used to the power.

I wouldn't worry about acceleration at low charge levels. You're talking about less than a second's time difference between high versus low charge states: ".... 0-60 MPH in 3.9 (seconds) on a full charge and 4.3 (seconds) with 50 miles left...." from fiksegts in /archive/index.php/t-15639.html.

If there were a problem in this area, we'd be seeing more posts complaining about it and likely a proposed solution/comments from Tesla too.

Also, congrats on your decision to get a Model S!

Like I said, it's still fast, but I would be awfully surprised if someone didn't notice that their car was 10% slower, assuming that number is correct. That's a substantial difference.

Tesla doesn't have a solution because the P85 is battery limited, and the rate at which power can be pulled out of LiIon batteries drops as SOC decreases. It's an expected physical limitation of the batteries.

In any case, what I was getting at is that it's not a significant concern but that he will notice it.

I went through about a month of not having my own dedicated charger at a rental. It was very frustrating:

The Blink network was down many times
The Semaconnect charger was down or wouldn't unlock the connector
People leaving their plug-in Prius on the hook for days
Going downstairs to move my car every night
Getting ICE'd
The apartment building management actually told contractors to use the charging spaces one weekend
Getting over billed by hundreds of dollars by Semaconnect ($1.50 per kWh instead of per hour)

It's possible but certainly not desirable. I should note that I have the "40kwh" car, so my need for charging is a lot more urgent than with a P85.

I have had my Model S P85 since Dec. 2012, and I have lived in an apartment complex with the same lack of charging in that time. My commute is 55 miles roundtrip, and I have access to ChargePoint L2 chargers at work. So the bulk of my charging during the work week happens there, and on most days I don't need more than 1-2 hours of charge time total. On the weekends, I use of the ChargePoint L2 chargers at a local library about 30 minutes walking distance from my apartment. I get some exercise in, and charge at the same time. I've also used the HPWC chargers at the nearby Service Center if I want to get a quicker charge. So far I have had only two occasions where I had to fall back to my MINI Cooper because I was unable to get the the charge I needed. I have zero regrets getting the Model S even with my current arrangement. It seems like in your situation you should be fine for the most part, unless I am missing something.

I've had my Model S since March 2013. My apartment was going to let me have 120v installed at my parking space, but they backed out at the last minute. It is not as convenient as home charging, but I easily make it work. On the days I work at the office I have access to 120v charging. Since I have a 12 mile round trip commute, I can return home with more range than when I left . When I have to drive around the bay area to visit clients I have to do a little more planning, depending on how much driving I'll have to do each week. Sometimes I can just make it with charging at the office, other times I have to visit public chargers. There are a few Blink Chargers within a 5 mile bike ride (and even more L2's within a 15 min bike ride) of my apartment, so when I really need a charge I will visit them. I've so far only needed to charge at public L2s when I wouldn't normally be using my car, so it's not like I'm waiting for it to charge. If I'm running really low on juice I'll leave my car overnight at one of the chargers with no time limit on parking late in the evening, and return early in the morning to a full charge.

Personally, I can't imagine not having a charger I plug into every night.

One thing that might make your life a little easier is to get a folding bike that fits in the frunk.