2014 S60 Charging Decisions

[Reilley]

Hello! I'm an almost owner of a pre-owned 2014 MS 60 that I've purchase and will be picking up in Orlando soon. It has 41k on it and as I have not spoken with a Delivery Advisor yet, I have no idea whether or not the UMC is in the car and will be included. So I have questions that maybe some of you could answer if you would!

First, my electrician is going to install a 60a dedicated circuit in my garage and it will have a NEMA 14-50 outlet. I chose NOT to go with the Tesla wall-mounted solution because the cost of installation would be around $2000, not counting the cost of said charger. With the hopefully-supplied UMC and proper 14-50 adapter, I understand that I will at best get 32A of charge from this device, but my electrician (who has installed dozens of Tesla chargers) says that he can I can run at 48A safely if I have the right charger. Which brings me to my question:

Have any of you used a third-party charger, such as a ChargePoint or similar, which allows you to configure max charging amperage? I know I'd have to use the adapter, but I think it would be nice to have 48A available for my S60. I see that as being a better option rather than using the slower Tesla UMC. Thoughts? Bueller?

 

[Chaserr]

The UMC is included if you're buying from Tesla. It came with every car and I've never heard of Tesla selling one without.

Tesla's wall mounted unit should cost the same to wire as an outlet. Don't trust an electrician that doesn't know that. You don't have to wire it for 100A if you don't want 100A.

Your 2014 should have a more powerful gen 1 UMC included, with both 14-50 and 120V adapters.

 

[Reilley]

The UMC is included if you're buying from Tesla. It came with every car and I've never heard of Tesla selling one without.

Tesla's wall mounted unit should cost the same to wire as an outlet. Don't trust an electrician that doesn't know that. You don't have to wire it for 100A if you don't want 100A.

Your 2014 should have a more powerful gen 1 UMC included, with both 14-50 and 120V adapters.

This is great information - thank you!

My electrician is wiring for 60A in order to provide more flexibility with my charging options, i.e. UMC, wall-mounted charger, etc. I'm not entirely sure why the cost was going to be significantly more for installing a circuit for the Tesla-branded wall charger other than a significant wiring challenge of some sort.

I am a tad worried that the pre-owned won't have the UMC in it because I've heard that there are a number of people who sell the cars w/o the UMC and then sell those on eBay. Hopefully, Tesla wouldn't accept the car without it. They told me that they don't take cars that have been smoked in so I hope that is the case as well! It would be great if I did get the Gen 1 charger if it comes with the 14-50 adapter!

 

[Chaserr]

Are you getting your car from Tesla? They won't send you home without a charger. They've cut a lot of costs, but not that many - though if they have to replce the original you get a slower gen 2 and they don't come with a 14-50 adapter any more.

 

[Reilley]

Yes, I bought it from their website this past weekend but I haven't heard from the DA just yet to ask which charger if any. I see what you mean. You wouldn't think they'd send me off without it. I just hope the service center has it and I don't have to order. I driving it from Orlando (Eatonville) up North of Atlanta, so I'll be hitting superchargers along the way.

 

[Rocky_H]

First, my electrician is going to install a 60a dedicated circuit in my garage and it will have a NEMA 14-50 outlet.

Perhaps there was some miscommunication somewhere between this person and you or expressing it here on the forum, but I want to make this completely clear. It is without question a code violation to have a 60A breaker with that 14-50 outlet. However, it is certainly allowed to use oversized wire that could support a higher application in the future (since rerunning wire is terrible to redo later), but properly use a 50A breaker with the 50A outlet type. So this could have just meant using 60A-capable wire, but with the 50A breaker.

but I think it would be nice to have 48A available for my S60.

My car is also a 2014, but it's an 85. Here is something to be aware of about the charging capabilities. Back then on the 2014 cars, the standard was a 40A onboard charger included, but it was optional to add a secondary charger that could let it accept up to 80A. You haven't mentioned it yet, so you might not have this information yet, but you would probably want to find out if your car only has the single charger or has the optional secondary charger too. I just have the single one, so my car can't take more than 40A, regardless of the external circuit or equipment. (Supercharging being a completely separate thing, though) Tesla seems to have removed the mention of after-the-fact upgrading to the dual charger, so I don't know if you could get that anymore.

 

[ucmndd]

Almost all early S60s were configured with a single 40 amp onboard charger.

If you’re buying the car from Tesla, it will absolutely come with a mobile connector, probably the gen 1 version that originally came with the car and can provide 40 amps.

The 14-50 outlet you’re having installed can provide a max 40 amps continuous on a 50 amp breaker (as mentioned earlier you absolutely can’t legally install a 14-50 outlet with a 60 amp breaker).

So you’re very likely to end up with a well-matched set of kit that will provide the max 40 amps of AC current your car can accept.

 

[Rocky_H]

If you’re buying the car from Tesla, it will absolutely come with a mobile connector, probably the gen 1 version that originally came with the car and can provide 40 amps.

I will throw in a recommendation on this. With both those mobile connectors and the wall connectors running at their maximum ratings of 40 amps and 80 amps respectively, they can get pretty noticeably hot, and I've seen several reports of them failing and things melting, etc. Also, frequent heat cycling of hot/cold/hot/cold every day is some materials stress on electronics, so if you don't really need that maximum 40A every night, I would recommend turning it down a bit to mid 30's to keep it cooler and extend the life of the charging cable.

 

[Reilley]

I will throw in a recommendation on this. With both those mobile connectors and the wall connectors running at their maximum ratings of 40 amps and 80 amps respectively, they can get pretty noticeably hot, and I've seen several reports of them failing and things melting, etc. Also, frequent heat cycling of hot/cold/hot/cold every day is some materials stress on electronics, so if you don't really need that maximum 40A every night, I would recommend turning it down a bit to mid 30's to keep it cooler and extend the life of the charging cable.

This is great information, Rocky_H - thank you! I'm actually contemplating using a ChargePoint 14-50 charger that is user-configurable (meaning I can set the amperage during initial setup via software), rather than the Tesla wall charger since it won't have a 14-50 pigtail on it. Let's say that I DO want a secondary charge on the 2014 MS60 - is that something I can still have installed?

Right now, I'm wondering if I'm even going to see this car. I've read a lot of posts on the Tesla forum where guy who ordered pre-owned (as opposed to CPO, which is no longer offered) aren't getting their deliveries for weeks and some have discovered upon delivery that the car has been smoked in - a dealbreaker for me. Sigh...

 

[Rocky_H]

This is great information, Rocky_H - thank you! I'm actually contemplating using a ChargePoint 14-50 charger that is user-configurable (meaning I can set the amperage during initial setup via software), rather than the Tesla wall charger since it won't have a 14-50 pigtail on it.

I wouldn't see a need to go buy any extra unit from Chargepoint or anyone else. The car should come with a charging cable, and that will be all you need. Also, even with that Chargepoint unit, I wouldn't try to gimp it to provide less than what it can provide. You can set the car to just draw less current.

The analogy that helps to understand this is like a restaurant buffet. Some people think that the external equipment is "forcing" energy into the car, and they have to hope the car can handle it, but it's not like that. The external equipment is like the buffet. It shows how much food is available. Then it is up to you (the car) to approach with what size plate you have and take the appropriate amount of food from that. So it is totally fine to have a unit like the Chargepoint or Tesla connector set to announce the appropriate maximum amount it can provide. And then in the car it will see that, and you can dial the amps down a little bit, and it will remember that value for that location, so you don't have to mess with it every time.

Let's say that I DO want a secondary charge on the 2014 MS60 - is that something I can still have installed?

This:

Tesla seems to have removed the mention of after-the-fact upgrading to the dual charger, so I don't know if you could get that anymore.

Originally that used to be I think a $2,000 (?) option during order configuration or $2,500 for installation after the fact. Or maybe it was $1,500 and $2,000. I don't quite remember the amounts now. But they haven't been using that 40A style of charger for a few years now, and they have removed the options from the Tesla.com store site, so it's not published as being available anymore. But there have been a lot of things that were removed from being listed but could still be done "off book" if you asked around enough to the right people. So the place I would start checking is directly with a service center. They could track it back to see if they could still get one of those older chargers to install as an add-on. I don't know if they will still do it though.

I was considering it for a while, but I decided to order a CHAdeMO adapter for $450 instead. It was cheaper and gave me more possible options and seemed a better use for the money. For something (secondary charger) I might use once or twice a year, I can rent a car a few times for less than $2,000.