I recently purchased and took delivery of a model Y and still have my model 3. I've been using the same charging kit that came with my 3 but am about to sell it so I opened the kit that came with my Y and noticed there's no 14-50 connector. Did Tesla really get that cheap? Do I need to buy one or was it supposed to come in the kit? Is there any difference between the model Y charger vs the model 3?
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charging kit for Y vs 3
- Thread starter hoops129
- Start date
Blue_Skies
Member
Yes they've gotten cheap. Exact same charger but no 14-50 adapter. I bought one from Tesla for $35.
Yes, but it makes a bit of sense.
That's not Model Y specific. They stopped including the 14-50 adapter with any of their cars about a year and a half ago? Maybe two years ago?
The reason I say it kind of makes sense is that it's weird to assume everyone is always going to use that one outlet type. Many people won't, and then it's just wasted and is going to sit unused in someone's charging bag for years. A lot of people get a wall connector instead. Or some people already have a 6-50 outlet at their house. Or maybe they don't have the capacity for an extra 50A and are going to be installing a 14-30 instead. Lots of people have lots of different situations, so it does make more sense to just let people buy whatever adapter they want, or none.
CoastalCruiser
Member
Yeah, I think it's been a little over a year and a half. By June of 2019 a number of new Model 3 owners were reporting that the 14-50 adapter was no longer supplied in the kit.
Given the ubiquitous nature of 14-50 outlets, at home and on the road (the main reason a 14-50 was included with the first cars), I suspect this was simply a cost savings move on Tesla's part. The new GEN2 Mobile Connector that started shipping with all Tesla cars in 2018 costs Tesla 60% more than the original GEN 1 MC.
Given the ubiquitous nature of 14-50 outlets, at home and on the road (the main reason a 14-50 was included with the first cars), I suspect this was simply a cost savings move on Tesla's part. The new GEN2 Mobile Connector that started shipping with all Tesla cars in 2018 costs Tesla 60% more than the original GEN 1 MC.
I will give this a "no" and "yes". I don't see 14-50 outlets as ubiquitous in homes by any stretch. My friend Jeff had an extra outlet in his garage when he bought his Tesla, but it was a TT-30. My daughter and son-in-law bought their first house a few months ago, and he found a high amp outlet behind the garage that he thought could be used for car charging, and it's a 6-50.
But yes, it was quite obvious that Tesla chose 14-50 early on because that was the ad hoc charging network across this country in RV parks and campgrounds.
I think you mean the Gen 2 only costs 60% of the price of the Gen 1--not 60% more. And yes, that's probably some cost cutting too, but also was for an important safety purpose. There are a lot of existing outlets out there that are 50A outlet types on circuits that are only 40A for the breaker and wiring. It's odd, but legitimate and by code. So I think Tesla wanted to get away from the potential liability and bad press that would come from people plugging into those, without knowing this and overdrawing things and causing fires, etc. So limiting the cord to 32A was I think mostly for that purpose.
CoastalCruiser
Member
I actually did mean more. It's the difference between using a full blown circuit board in the GEN2 adapters vs just a resistor in the GEN1 adapters. The GEN2 adapters have the board and a temperature sensor to enable reduction of charging current if the outlet starts to overheat.
I got that from the owner of EVSEAdapters when penning that article on the GEN2 adapter last year. He had to source those same boards for producing his 3rd party GEN2 adapters.
For Tesla End-To-End Charging, There's Supercharging & Destination Charging. For Everything Else, There's The Mobile Connector — Part I
Good point. Although that accounts for the reasoning behind reducing the MCs max current carrying capacity, in a way that made it safer to include the 15-40 adapter, did it not? ;>
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I almost didn't even bother to ask because I was 100% certain it was a mistake, but you're continuing to say this? It's just false; math says so.The Gen2 mobile connector costs $275.
Gen 2 Mobile Connector Bundle
The Gen1 mobile connector is not literally for sale right now, but I think was about $500 or so. The corded mobile connector they sell now actually is a Gen1, but with the plug molded on instead of changeable, and it is $520.
Corded Mobile Connector
Therefore: 275 / 520 = 0.5288
So the Gen2 costs about 53% of the price of the Gen1. So I thought you were being pretty accurate in saying it's about 60% of the price. The Gen2 would have to cost $832 to be 60% more than the Gen1, which it certainly isn't. The Gen1 was a higher power unit for handling more current and used thicker cable. It obviously cost more, not less.
Um, this wasn't about the price of the adapters, but they have always been about $35 or $45--not much cost difference.
"14-50" Safer to use 50 amp plug types? Sure. But that still doesn't address that everyone's situation is different and giving everyone a one size fits all thing that they may never use is just wasteful and isn't really the way to go. What they probably should have done, which would be more appropriate, is just to mark on people's accounts that they have a one-time credit to order one free extra adapter of their choice with the purchase of the car. So people who need to get a 14-30 or 6-50 instead can get that. I saw several people on the other forum propose that when this change was made, and it's a very sensible and fair solution.
CoastalCruiser
Member
Ha ha. Friend Rocky, I am talking about wholesale costs. And this is about adapters. That's the subject of the post. It literally costs Tesla more to produce the GEN2 14-50 adapter than the GEN1 14-50 adapter. Again, circuit board and sensors over a simple resistor. I am simply speculating that perhaps the extra manufacturing cost of the adapters may have contributed to Tesla choosing to include fewer adapters in the kit. The company has shown a propensity over the years to reduce costs, however minor, wherever it can in order to extract a decent margin.
Within a few months of releasing the updated GEN2 kit they dropped the 14-50 adapter.
BTW - Your comment about why Tesla reduced the max charging current from 40A to 32A is the best explanation I've heard to date as to why they made that move.
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Yeah, I saw the picture of the tiny one inch circuit board in the article you posted. Those are also really cheap to mass produce. And you seem to think that is massively more expensive such that it would overwhelm the cost savings they have from getting to use much thinner cable for the 20 feet of charging cord in the Gen 2 because of it only needing to handle 32A instead of 40A. That seems pretty crazy.
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