120V charging 24 hours or more…

[coolkid]

Thank you both for the responses. The reason I was asking is because I am moving in 10 months and didn't want to spend the 1000-1200$ for it if i didnt need to. I do not want to have any increased risk of fires. I will see if i have the NEMA 5-20 but i doubt it as the house is 60 years old. I appreciate both of your responses very much.

 

[davewill]

Thank you both for the responses. The reason I was asking is because I am moving in 10 months and didn't want to spend the 1000-1200$ for it if i didnt need to. I do not want to have any increased risk of fires. I will see if i have the NEMA 5-20 but i doubt it as the house is 60 years old. I appreciate both of your responses very much.

That's tough.

Using a 5-15 or 5-20 isn't a problem, you just want to make sure the wiring is done right and you're not overloading a circuit. That's an either an hour of an electrician's time, or a DIY project depending. If it were a few weeks, relying on an extension cord would be a more reasonable idea. Personally, I think 10 months is too long for that kind of makeshift.

Have you actually gotten a quote for running a dedicated circuit? It might not be as expensive as you think, especially if you just put in a 6-20/30

 

[Tronguy]

Thank you both for the responses. The reason I was asking is because I am moving in 10 months and didn't want to spend the 1000-1200$ for it if i didnt need to. I do not want to have any increased risk of fires. I will see if i have the NEMA 5-20 but i doubt it as the house is 60 years old. I appreciate both of your responses very much.

As regards extension cords:

First off, the Official Line from Tesla is, "Don't use extension cords."

And they've got good reasons to say this. Beyond reducing the actual power delivered to the car, possible safety issues regarding GFCI, and all that, there are Real Problems with run-of-the-mill extension cords bought from the likes of Home Depot and Lowes. Home Depot, for sure, has these nifty-looking orange colored 50-foot or somewhat extension cords that are labelled, "Heavy Duty."

Speaking officially as an Electrical Engineer, I say to this, "Ha!" and "Double-Ha!". The only thing "heavy duty" about those cords is that they have Really Thick Layers of Plastic. Plastic is cheap. Copper is not. If one tries to run 15A through one of those things, it'll be Monster Voltage Drops R Us, and that's because these kinds of retailers buy the cheapest possible cords with a gauge copper in there that would be hard-pressed to light up a 100W light bulb.

How do I know this? Because I put a Tesla at the other end of one of these things that I happened to have in the garage and threw in the trunk a few years back.

As it happens, Tesla, in their never-ending search of ways to Save The Day, have one for failing wall sockets. Say a wall socket is Going Bad with High Resistance and LOTS OF HEAT! OH NO!. Thing is, when one first starts charging and there's no current flowing, the voltage will be whatever the voltage is without current and will be highish. Then, as the current zips up to the requested 12A and things start to Go Bad, the voltage at the socket will have a drop, along the lines of V(drop) = (V(supply) - Resistance_Socket*Current_in_socket). When the Tesla software sees that, it'll reduce the current to some minimum, if not shut it off entirely, in the interests of not having the socket burst into flames. All well and good.

But, suppose that the socket is Just Fine, but one has a Home Depot Special extension cord plugged in? There's a voltage drop and the Tesla will go into save-the-day mode. And you'll be lucky to get 2 miles of charge per hour, rather than the 4.5 to 5 you were expecting.

There's a solution to this problem and it has to do with home contractors. Home contractors, when building a house, will want to run portable saber saws and other heavy gear at the end of very long extension cords. These people are Very Aware of the quality (not) of Home Depot cords and know that if they use the Home Depot gear, their saber and circular saws won't work right.

So, they show up at places like Harbor Freight where, if Harbor Freight says their extension cord is good for 15A at 50 feet, it is. These extension cords are lots more expensive than the Home Depot variety because (no surprise, here) there's Lots More Copper in the Harbor Freight cords. And if the Harbor Freight (or similar) guys sell you a 100' cord, it's more than double the cost of a 50' cord because they have to use a heavier gauge of wire to keep the voltage droop under control.

You can even get 20A 120VAC extension cords that also keep the voltage droop under control, and the cost will give you even more white hairs, if any, than you have already. But these cords do what's on the label.

And, really, I have an 15A Harbor Freight cords in the trunk of each of the Teslas over here. I've tried them out, compared to the Home Depot specials, and, unlike the Home Depot specials, the hefty ones actually work.

We don't use them unless we have to, but that's what it's all about: Emergencies.

 

[ucmndd]

I’m just here to say I’m very appreciative of @Tronguy ’s almost magical ability to use 10,000 word to explain things when others get by with 50.

Not being facetious, but maybe a tiny bit tongue in cheek - I genuinely enjoy the literary journey.