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110V Charging basics

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I am a new owner for Model X 100D. I only have access to a 100V plug in my apartment building and can't install better options. My town does have a Supercharger. I heard that ONLY Supercharging can be bad for the battery. I am also trying to maintain it between 30-80%. I just plugged my car into the 110 outlet for the first time. Started off at 113 miles, which would be 38% on the "295" range. I can charge it for about 15 hours before having to take it to work. It is charging at 2 miles per hour, so it should put me around 143 miles (48%). Then I have to drive and will probably lose 10 miles making it around 133 miles (45%). Then charge again and use again.

Will doing little charges like these of about 10% a day and using lets say 5% mess with the battery?? I would be fluctuating between 10-15% charge and use without actually reaching my goal of 80% charge before I have to drive again. Or are these small charges and uses a bad idea?? Thanks
 
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SSedan. My typical work is 7 days in a row 7am to 7pm. Then i have 7 days off. I should be able to have at least 10 hours a night to charge. And the off days I do like to travel. I do have a supercharger in the area if I need to go on long trips. I am just concerned that basically I keep taking the charge off and charge a little over night. I am not letting the battery get fully up to 80% and not letting it discharge to say about 30%.
 
I am a new owner for Model X 100D. I only have access to a 100V plug in my apartment building and can't install better options. My town does have a Supercharger. I heard that ONLY Supercharging can be bad for the battery. I am also trying to maintain it between 30-80%. I just plugged my car into the 110 outlet for the first time. Started off at 113 miles, which would be 38% on the "295" range. I can charge it for about 15 hours before having to take it to work. It is charging at 2 miles per hour, so it should put me around 143 miles (48%). Then I have to drive and will probably lose 10 miles making it around 133 miles (45%). Then charge again and use again.

Will doing little charges like these of about 10% a day and using lets say 5% mess with the battery?? I would be fluctuating between 10-15% charge and use without actually reaching my goal of 80% charge before I have to drive again. Or are these small charges and uses a bad idea?? Thanks

Nice to see someone from Erie, that's where I went to grad school.

However, thats false about supercharging. Plenty of people on here make supercharging their primary means of charging and they have not seen any negative battery effects, especially people that live in apartments. So I wouldn't worry at all about supercharging every other day.

That being said, leaving your car plugged in as often as you can with the 120V outlet will help prevent the "phantom drain" (batteries tend to drain a small amount of power over time). Does your apartment have a NEMA 5-20 outlet? It can charge slightly faster and will come in handy during those horrible winter days.
 
tpham...My buddy here in Erie also got a Tesla. He got Model S. We both are in a similar situation until we can move to a house maybe in a year or two.

No, unfortunately the apartment complex can only support the 120V outlet. So it is only the supercharger and the 120 V for at least the next year.
 
tpham...My buddy here in Erie also got a Tesla. He got Model S. We both are in a similar situation until we can move to a house maybe in a year or two.

No, unfortunately the apartment complex can only support the 120V outlet. So it is only the supercharger and the 120 V for at least the next year.

NEMA 5-20 is an 120V outlet. It is common on many industrial buildings. It runs at 20amps instead of the normal 15 amps for standard household outlets. It looks like this. You'd need a Tesla 5-20 adapter to get the full amperage though.
p104784d.jpg
 
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Good point winter can substantially raise energy use. On a NEMA 14-30 30amp 240volt set to 24 amps my car can actually suck down a few miles during morning warmup.

I have a short commute which makes for worst case scenario battery warming wise. 7 mile commute and if Sub-Zero I see energy use double, and do warm up from the outlet in the morning, you might not have the Green Bay cold but with only a 120volt connection basically all warmup power will be from the battery.

Any chance the outlets you can access are 20amp not just 15amp? This would help a lot
 
NEMA 5-20 is an 120V outlet. It is common on many industrial buildings. It runs at 20amps instead of the normal 15 amps for standard household outlets. It looks like this. You'd need a Tesla 5-20 adapter to get the full amperage though.
p104784d-jpg.310148

Hope I placed the quote correctly. I looked at the adapter, the outlet is a standard household outlet. I guess I'm stuck with the slower charge.
 
I am just concerned that basically I keep taking the charge off and charge a little over night. I am not letting the battery get fully up to 80% and not letting it discharge to say about 30%.
Nothing to be concerned about. New owners think they have to baby the battery. The battery will be just fine. The only issue may be the displayed range may not be as accurate if the battery charge stays within a narrow range. That’s not an affect on the battery, just the algorithm used to estimate state of charge will be off. Charging up to 90% at the supercharger once in a while should help correct that.

Chill out and just enjoy the car. Plug in when you can, and let the battery management system worry about the battery.
 
Nice to see someone from Erie, that's where I went to grad school.

However, thats false about supercharging. Plenty of people on here make supercharging their primary means of charging and they have not seen any negative battery effects, especially people that live in apartments. So I wouldn't worry at all about supercharging every other day.

That being said, leaving your car plugged in as often as you can with the 120V outlet will help prevent the "phantom drain" (batteries tend to drain a small amount of power over time). Does your apartment have a NEMA 5-20 outlet? It can charge slightly faster and will come in handy during those horrible winter days.

This is incorrect. Always or very frequent supercharging is bad for the battery and Tesla will start limiting the speed of supercharging over time, as it will try to protect the battery over the long term. Background below.

OP: Charging once a week at the SC to “top up” and then plugging in each night to add 10 or 20 miles - no problem.

Why Tesla Is Limiting Supercharging Rates On Some Frequent Users | CleanTechnica
 
Hi SSedan, I also have a Model X100D and only have access to 120v charging. It works just fine for me because I’m retired and don’t have a commute. I can generally be plugged in over 20 hrs per day.

The thing I want to tell you is my car consistently is charging 1 percent of battery capacity per hour. I keep my dash readout in percent, not miles. This makes it very easy to predict what my state of charge willl be tomorrow. I generally keep my charge level set between 60 and 70 percent, but if I’ll be doing the 120 mi round trip to my daughter’s, or a road trip, I’ll set the charge level to 90 percent. And time it so the Tesla reaches that when I’m ready to roll.

I know you have less flexibility. A periodic supercharger visit to get to 80-90 percent should work for you though. Just plug in whenever you arrive home.
 
I am a new owner for Model X 100D. I only have access to a 100V plug in my apartment building and can't install better options. My town does have a Supercharger. I heard that ONLY Supercharging can be bad for the battery. I am also trying to maintain it between 30-80%. I just plugged my car into the 110 outlet for the first time. Started off at 113 miles, which would be 38% on the "295" range. I can charge it for about 15 hours before having to take it to work. It is charging at 2 miles per hour, so it should put me around 143 miles (48%). Then I have to drive and will probably lose 10 miles making it around 133 miles (45%). Then charge again and use again.

Will doing little charges like these of about 10% a day and using lets say 5% mess with the battery?? I would be fluctuating between 10-15% charge and use without actually reaching my goal of 80% charge before I have to drive again. Or are these small charges and uses a bad idea?? Thanks
I don't think you'll have any issues with the battery with what you described.

Another way to think about charging small amounts on 110V : when you're driving the car, the battery is constantly charging in small amounts on regen over and over again with no problems.
 
Your battery will be fine on the 120V plug.

Very frequent Supercharging is where eventually the battery will dial back its max Supercharge rate. Bjorn sees the drop after approx 30,000 Supercharged miles. The drop results in a max of 95kW rather than 115kW; a handful of additional minutes per charge session.

Most cars will never even approach this state, and the effect isn't terrible anyway.

(Bjorn's video on Youtube, XzhmrHlz8Z4. I won't link it directly because the thumbnail adds nothing)
 
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Hi SSedan, I also have a Model X100D and only have access to 120v charging. It works just fine for me because I’m retired and don’t have a commute. I can generally be plugged in over 20 hrs per day.

The thing I want to tell you is my car consistently is charging 1 percent of battery capacity per hour. I keep my dash readout in percent, not miles. This makes it very easy to predict what my state of charge willl be tomorrow. I generally keep my charge level set between 60 and 70 percent, but if I’ll be doing the 120 mi round trip to my daughter’s, or a road trip, I’ll set the charge level to 90 percent. And time it so the Tesla reaches that when I’m ready to roll.

I know you have less flexibility. A periodic supercharger visit to get to 80-90 percent should work for you though. Just plug in whenever you arrive home.


I suspect Erie is colder than Fredricksburg, how warm a garage is matters as does time spent out in the cold. My work parking lot is wide open heavy wind exposure, couple hours in winter and the battery is stone cold.

I got by on a regular 120volt outlet the first few weeks I had my car, worked just fine in warm weather, cold weather is a completely different story and is often too quickly dismissed by those in milder climates.

I am not saying it wont work just saying be aware of the possibility of pretty heavy range loss in winter, especially with a 7 day on work schedule.

On a 15amp 120volt circuit something like 30% of the power is consumed by the charging process, usually quoted as 400watts just to keep the electronics and charger on.