Adding a charger to my 100 amp panel

[TechnoBabble]

My opinion still stands that a load shedder or 200 amp upgrade is the smartest route. Buying a 40,000 car and skimping out on the charging infrastructure in your own home is really not smart.
Load shedders are made right here in Canada and are solidly built.

 

[EVxdream]

My advice would be to hook up a 40a breaker off your 100a service and power the car. If you're constantly blowing your main 100a breaker, go into the car's settings and lower the current it can pull. Then decide if that's good enough, or if it justifies a 200a service.

BTW, I have a 200a in my house and 200a in my garage and have never regretted it. If you can swing it, I highly recommend it. I was able to run 4ga wire off a 60a breaker for my NEMA 14-15. If I ever feel like upgrading to the wall mount, it'd take about 10min to install.

heavily contemplating the upgrade route. i know its quite the sum upfront. but i know that it is the best decision. ive got a month. not alot of time in my opinion. im just hoping that safety could somehow cooperate cost

 

[Tarpan]

I was torn on the upgrade of the panel. Ultimately I think I'll need to do that eventually but the I ultimately didn't feel like it was justified at this point. I put in a load miser on a shared circuit with my stove and it has been great. The precision on it wasn't perfect, and I had to reduce the the amps on the car down to 30 in the charging window after we got everything setup vs the 32 max that was supported. That said, now that it's setup it works really well and I don't ever need to think about it. I get about 52 km charged per hour when it's charging. If I turn on my stove/oven, it kills the charger for 30 minutes and will go back to charging if the stove/oven is off or it'll loop through another 30 minutes.

 

[CorneliusRox]

heavily contemplating the upgrade route. i know its quite the sum upfront. but i know that it is the best decision. ive got a month. not alot of time in my opinion. im just hoping that safety could somehow cooperate cost

It might be worth reaching out to local electricians and seeing if there's anything they can do to help with the costs. Possibly your skill/trade could be used by them in some regard. I have gotten drywall, electrical, and plumping help from guys in exchange for working on cars and welding (not even my profession, just a hobby).
A lot of times an electrician will have extra parts if you don't mind a box that a 2x4 bumped into, or something like that.
Good luck!

 

[EVxdream]

It might be worth reaching out to local electricians and seeing if there's anything they can do to help with the costs. Possibly your skill/trade could be used by them in some regard. I have gotten drywall, electrical, and plumping help from guys in exchange for working on cars and welding (not even my profession, just a hobby).
A lot of times an electrician will have extra parts if you don't mind a box that a 2x4 bumped into, or something like that.
Good luck!

ive reached out to two electricians. 1 said upgrade the service to 200amps. 2600 fee + hydros 600+taxes fee. routing a nema 14-50 outlet to the garage is extra.
2nd electrician, as mentioned before, was charging 850$ to install a 40amp circuit on the breaker and a nema 14-50 outlet in the garage.

im a nurse and the thing they want is something thats beyond my reach. a vaccine guaranteed spot LOL.
thanks for the input.

atm, im heavily considering neocharger and dryer buddy plus auto as they are the most budget friendly alternative to a panel upgrade.
i just want to get this out of the way as i have been scratching my head for the last 2 weeks since ordering the m3.

 

[CorneliusRox]

ive reached out to two electricians. 1 said upgrade the service to 200amps. 2600 fee + hydros 600+taxes fee. routing a nema 14-50 outlet to the garage is extra.
2nd electrician, as mentioned before, was charging 850$ to install a 40amp circuit on the breaker and a nema 14-50 outlet in the garage.

im a nurse and the thing they want is something thats beyond my reach. a vaccine guaranteed spot LOL.
thanks for the input.

atm, im heavily considering neocharger and dryer buddy plus auto as they are the most budget friendly alternative to a panel upgrade.
i just want to get this out of the way as i have been scratching my head for the last 2 weeks since ordering the m3.

For reference, the cars only come with a standard 120V plug and you need to purchase the NEMA 14-50 plug separate (didn't find that out until after the car arrived. I bring that up because I had to live with only a 120V (12A, 4-5 miles of range an hour) for two weeks. I'm way out in the country so there's no superchargers near me. It wasn't sustainable as work is a little over 70 miles round trip.
If I lived near a supercharger or my work had on-site charging (they actually unveiled that yesterday!!!), I probably could have survived without 240V charging.

 

[Vawlkus]

TBH, if you don’t have problems running the dryer, and you don’t run both the dryer & the car charger at the same time, I don’t think you should have any issues.

 

[Ecmiyake]

I have a 100A panel, everything in my townhouse runs on electricity. Consulted an electrician, to install a Nema 14-50, I will need a DCC. Whole thing including licencing and inspection it's going to be close to $2000. I know charging an EV draws a constant current, so they need something to make sure when all the appliances are running, the main breaker wouldn't trip. Like many people posted in this thread, I'm only going to start charging the car at night when nothing else is on anyways, so I decided to installed a 40A Nema 6-50 myself. I will pay the electrician to inspect my work. As long as I use the proper wiring and high quality parts, I don't think I will burn my house down.

 

[Tarpan]

I have a 100A panel, everything in my townhouse runs on electricity. Consulted an electrician, to install a Nema 14-50, I will need a DCC. Whole thing including licencing and inspection it's going to be close to $2000. I know charging an EV draws a constant current, so they need something to make sure when all the appliances are running, the main breaker wouldn't trip. Like many people posted in this thread, I'm only going to start charging the car at night when nothing else is on anyways, so I decided to installed a 40A Nema 6-50 myself. I will pay the electrician to inspect my work. As long as I use the proper wiring and high quality parts, I don't think I will burn my house down.

That seems expensive, though perhaps extenuating circumstances.

I got a tesla certified charging company to provide a load miser, install both it and my wall connector for 1500.
The wall connector cost me $711, but then applied for $700 in grants through bc hydro.

A big win here is that I don't need to think about overloading. If my primary (stove) calls for power it will simply kill the secondary (wall connector) if it is also trying to call for power (beyond it's idle state). When I stop using the stove, it'll resume it's charging of the car.

 

[Ecmiyake]

That seems expensive, though perhaps extenuating circumstances.

I got a tesla certified charging company to provide a load miser, install both it and my wall connector for 1500.
The wall connector cost me $711, but then applied for $700 in grants through bc hydro.

A big win here is that I don't need to think about overloading. If my primary (stove) calls for power it will simply kill the secondary (wall connector) if it is also trying to call for power (beyond it's idle state). When I stop using the stove, it'll resume it's charging of the car

Other than felt in love with a Tesla after a test drive, the other part of owning an EV is the benefit of fuel saving. So the up front spending on setting up the charger kinda defeat that purpose. My biggest concern is safety, so I will make it a habit to set the car to charge mode before sleep, and happily keep the 1500 in my wallet.

 

[corlaandstan]

heavily contemplating the upgrade route. i know its quite the sum upfront. but i know that it is the best decision. ive got a month. not alot of time in my opinion. im just hoping that safety could somehow cooperate cost

Wooah. Way, way overkill. We have a 100 amp panel with a Nema 14-50 plug. In the time since getting our T3 LR in late 2018, we have never had a problem or come close. Setting the car to 32amp ( max ) on a 40 amp breaker is all you need. While you source an electrician, just use the 110 v plug or get a 14-50 & plug into your dryer circuit.

 

[corlaandstan]

I have a 60 amp spa disconnect on mine. It's basically a box with a 60 amp GFCI breaker in it. Electrical/spa wholesalers stock them. Most wholesalers also stock inexpensive IEC disconnect switches,30/60 amp, 2/3pole - and they are smaller and in the 50-$75 CDN range. Leviton, Hubbell are a couple of examples....and here's an amazon example: https://www.amazon.ca/Leviton-N36NC...ocphy=9000889&hvtargid=pla-306108240165&psc=1


If you want to go really inexpensive - you can use an A/C disconnect - 60 amps, pull-out or switched. Here's one from a BC wholesaler for $19.01: CANADA HAND DRYERS U065P 60Amp 1 Phase Midwest Electric Products Non-Fusible AC Disconnect

If you upgrade the power to your 14-50 (up to 40 amps load), make sure you upgrade the wire to it. The new Tesla 14-50 UMC adapter will only allow 32 amps, though.

DMC-Orangeville has given very qualified advice. He 'is' an expert. Please follow his advice. Absolutely you will not need the 200 amp upgrade.

 

[EVxdream]

DMC-Orangeville has given very qualified advice. He 'is' an expert. Please follow his advice. Absolutely you will not need the 200 amp upgrade.

I just had a masters electrician come visit yesterday to check the place out and did some load calculations. Tldr, you are right. It's overkill. When he started talking about getting permits and inspection by esa, i knew he knew what he is doing. most electricians i know are from kijiji (Canadian "Craigslist). However, this one came as a recommendation from a fellow TMC member
Too many good people here.
I truly appreciate everyone's reply. Thank you.

 

[Stan K]

When I renovated my basement I switched everything to gas including the dryer. I put the charger on 50A and no need to upgrade the house to 200A. I bought the material install the wires and NEMA14/50 plug and paid electrician to connect to fuse box. All together around $400.

 

[cdswm3]

DMC-Orangeville has given very qualified advice. He 'is' an expert. Please follow his advice. Absolutely you will not need the 200 amp upgrade.

We have a 125A service. I installed a 60A panel setup as a sub-panel (no ground to neutral connection) (16 breaker slots) in my garage and charge my Tesla at 32A and our PHEV at 16A during the night. Gas/electric (Dual fuel) Stove, A/C and Electric dryer. once we go to two EV's I will get load balancing chargers for the cars.

 

[lowercase]

My opinion still stands that a load shedder or 200 amp upgrade is the smartest route. Buying a 40,000 car and skimping out on the charging infrastructure in your own home is really not smart.
Load shedders are made right here in Canada and are solidly built.

Where do you get a load shedder here in Canada? I'm just looking at Load Miser but it's $1300 which is just $700 shy of doing a whole breaker box upgrade PLUS a new 14-50 outlet combined, so I don't see how there are any savings at all going that route.

 

[sokhangoo]

Where do you get a load shedder here in Canada? I'm just looking at Load Miser but it's $1300 which is just $700 shy of doing a whole breaker box upgrade PLUS a new 14-50 outlet combined, so I don't see how there are any savings at all going that route.

Load-sharing devices used to be much cheaper about 1-2 years ago. If you live in a house and have no problem with upgrading your panel then I'd say do that as it will be future-proof. But in a town-house, I believe you cannot upgrade your panel most likely and have to go with the load-sharing device.

 

[richyrich]

Where do you get a load shedder here in Canada? I'm just looking at Load Miser but it's $1300 which is just $700 shy of doing a whole breaker box upgrade PLUS a new 14-50 outlet combined, so I don't see how there are any savings at all going that route.

I had a DCC-10 from this company in Quebec - DCC Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging for Condos or Full Panel Homes. Electrician got it from a regular electical trade supplier.

 

[DuncanM]

Before spending thousands on a NEMA 14-50 connection to your carpark investigate a simple upgrade to a NEMA 5-20 (16amps max at 120V) by changing the plug and breaker, or a NEMA 6-15 (12A max at 240V) or a NEMA 6-20 (16A max at 240V). It's possible that any one of these might be doable for the cost of a new breaker and plug, depending on your existing wiring.

If you have to run new wire, then a NEMA 5-20 (which is backward compatible with standard 120V devices) might be most cost effective because it's so versatile, The NEMA 6-15 and 6-20 outlets are going to be dedicated 240V outlets but the thinner wire required will reduce the cost of the installation.

 

[pb2000]

Unless you have no other choice, don't use 120V outlets, especially if they are not dedicated. It's too easy for someone to plug in something else and pop the breaker. 6-15 and 6-20 outlets are however a fantastic way to get decent charging speeds (up to 20km/h and 27km/h respectively for model 3) without breaking the bank on wire/plugs or needing to upgrade electrical service.

That being said, 32A charging on 100A service is generally fine, so long as your heating (air and water) are natural gas. Set the car to not begin charging until 11pm and you're guaranteed never to run into problems.