Some dumb home-charging questions

[Phlier]

Everyone has different charging needs according to their daily driving habits. You need to determine how many miles you need to be able to replace (or add) for each charging session, and plan your charging setup appropriate to that need. You should also account for how often instances arise that would require you to add additional miles over your routine needs.

Since electricity is extremely cheap where I'm at ($0.06kW/h), I wanted a setup that would be able to charge my car up quickly for short notice road trips. So I went with the HPWC with the long cord, and have zero regrets. I had an electrician put in a 220v 100a breaker and the associated wiring. This will allow me to get another HPWC for when we buy the second Tesla, and the HPWC's will intelligently load share the available power.

When you are planning your charging setup, don't forget about the future, and how many Teslas are in that future.

 

[Zaxxon]

I wish I got HPWC installed instead of 14-50. 48A charging rate instead of 32/40.

...I went with the HPWC with the long cord, and have zero regrets. I had an electrician put in a 220v 100a breaker and the associated wiring. This will allow me to get another HPWC for when we buy the second Tesla, and the HPWC's will intelligently load share the available power.

When you are planning your charging setup, don't forget about the future, and how many Teslas are in that future.

These are both good points. To expand on my prior post, we now have 2 HPWC sharing a 60A circuit (48A combined charging). Putting aside the fact that a HPWC will let you charge a single Tesla at the (current) max of 48A, the HPWC carries another advantage over pretty much every other option out there: it can share a circuit intelligently.

This can be important if/when you have more than one Tesla in your garage, especially if your electrical panel is not in the garage, or is loaded enough that you can't spare 120A (2x 60A separate lines for 48A per car charging) or 100A (2x 50A for 40A charging) of additional load. In my case, my panel is on the back of my house, and is loaded up. For me to run two lines to the garage, both sufficiently sized to charge two vehicles quickly, would have cost a significant amount in both wiring runs and panel upgrade.

In contrast, when we got the 2nd Tesla we were able to pull out my old JuiceBox Pro and its 14-50 outlet, convert that outlet to a hard-wired HPWC, split the electrical run in the garage to a 2nd HPWC, replace only the breaker (50A --> 60A since the wire used was of sufficient capacity), and now either HPWC can pull 48A. When we have both cars charging, the HPWCs communicate and split the load, delivering 24A to each car. As soon as one car finishes or begins to taper, the other car ramps up so the full 48A is distributed where it is needed. No need for me to play musical chairs with a single plug, nor to derate both chargers so as not to overload the circuit.

Lots of the time, people focus on the fact that the HPWC is $500 and doesn't get you much over the 32A UMC that comes with the car. That certainly can be true. But if you're in a situation like mine (and a lot of homes are, when looking at charging 2 EVs and having solar tied into their panel, as well), the HPWC is a very good value. The savings in avoided extra wiring run and panel upgrade easily entirely paid for the cost of the two HPWCs, for example. And the HPWC can extend to up to four units in the same manner, granting flexibility to charge any car at the max speed your home's capacity allows while sharing that load evenly when more than one car is charging simultaneously.

 

[Feathermerchan]

I had my panel replaced for age and general terrible looks. Even though it was a 200A panel it did not have many slots left. The new panel is much nicer and I have added 2X 50A circuits to the garage so there is no sharing for me. With the Model 3 and having driven 10,000 miles over the past year, 30A charging is plenty. I probably average about 7 kWh charging per day.
That's about one hour per day at 240V and 30A. So probably most with a three don't need more than that. An S or X will require more kWh for the same mileage. I really only charge every few days because I just don't need more than that and it's quicker/easier not to plug in every single time I park.

 

[Big Ike]

Everyone has different charging needs according to their daily driving habits. You need to determine how many miles you need to be able to replace (or add) for each charging session, and plan your charging setup appropriate to that need. You should also account for how often instances arise that would require you to add additional miles over your routine needs.

Since electricity is extremely cheap where I'm at ($0.06kW/h), I wanted a setup that would be able to charge my car up quickly for short notice road trips. So I went with the HPWC with the long cord, and have zero regrets. I had an electrician put in a 220v 100a breaker and the associated wiring. This will allow me to get another HPWC for when we buy the second Tesla, and the HPWC's will intelligently load share the available power.

When you are planning your charging setup, don't forget about the future, and how many Teslas are in that future.

I agree. I added the 100 amp breaker to my garage as well with the intention of adding a couple more EV's to the stable sometime in the future.

 

[Zaxxon]

I had my panel replaced for age and general terrible looks. Even though it was a 200A panel it did not have many slots left. The new panel is much nicer and I have added 2X 50A circuits to the garage so there is no sharing for me. With the Model 3 and having driven 10,000 miles over the past year, 30A charging is plenty. I probably average about 7 kWh charging per day.
That's about one hour per day at 240V and 30A. So probably most with a three don't need more than that. An S or X will require more kWh for the same mileage. I really only charge every few days because I just don't need more than that and it's quicker/easier not to plug in every single time I park.

Agreed. We have an LR 3 and a 100 kWh X. So theoretically our max need in one night if both cars pulled in at empty and needed 100% in the AM would be around 160 kWh, That'd take about 15 hours at 48A. But that's obviously a very rare case. More typically we'd max out needing about 100 kWh, which is around 9.5 hours, easily fitting into our evening time-of-use window. So even at a shared 60A circuit, 2 Teslas is going to be pretty easily doable. 100A is great, but unless you're a realtor or something it's likely that you can get by with less.

 

[srs5694]

I'll need to have an electrician either way BUT I love the idea of a corded wall connector instead of the mobile one for the garage. I know it's not on Tesla's site currently but anyone know its official name to see if I can pull up the URL manually? Maybe there's an "email when back in stock" option on that page if so...

The URL to the device on Tesla's page seems to be dead, but this Electrek article provides a fuller description (as well as the dead link). It's conceivable there's another URL that still works, but if so, I don't know what it is.

 

[Shadnic]

The URL to the device on Tesla's page seems to be dead, but this Electrek article provides a fuller description (as well as the dead link). It's conceivable there's another URL that still works, but if so, I don't know what it is.

Thank you so much! I had found it earlier today too. Not sure why they killed the link instead of just labeling it as out of stock. Makes me wonder if they're not planning on producing it or if there was some kind of safety or quality issue with it..

 

[srs5694]

Thank you so much! I had found it earlier today too. Not sure why they killed the link instead of just labeling it as out of stock. Makes me wonder if they're not planning on producing it or if there was some kind of safety or quality issue with it..

As I recall, the same thing happened a while ago, but then it reappeared for a short period. Maybe it's been discontinued and they found some forgotten stock in a warehouse, in which case the odds of it reappearing aren't great. OTOH, maybe they've been pulling the Web page for some other reason.

If you really want this product, you can always buy a regular one without the plug and add a plug to it yourself (or have an electrician do so). The caveat is that the UL certification would no longer be valid. Various non-Tesla companies make EVSEs with NEMA 14-50 plugs, too. You could use one of those, but you'd need a J1772 adapter (either the one that comes with the car or another one). Also, I don't know of any third-party EVSEs that provide over 32A of current for the Wall Connector's $500 price point.

 

[Kamban]

Thank you so much! I had found it earlier today too. Not sure why they killed the link instead of just labeling it as out of stock. Makes me wonder if they're not planning on producing it or if there was some kind of safety or quality issue with it..

It was there for less than 5 days about a couple of weeks ago. I ordered it right away since I have a 14-50 on one side of a 3 car garage and could plug this in to get a 40A max charge which is more than sufficient for my 32A Model 3.

On the other side I also have a 14-50 but plan to put in a direct connect WC with 80A breaker ( luckily house is being constructed and we have a 400A to the house with two 200A panels). That should help with a future Y or maybe a S or X when I decide to buy a 2nd EV.