aerovironment ev charger - upgrade?

[FJHulk]

I am waiting for my M3LRAWFSD.I’m coming from Nissan Leaf and I have aerovironment ev charger installed at home (ev-rs) model.

Do I need to upgrade my charger? I will be charging at work mostly (ChargePoint) but wanted the option to charge at home too. the circuit supports 50amps. (built it to support 50amps)

If so, should I consider juice box or Tesla charger?

 

[jjrandorin]

I am not familiar with that wall connector unit. A quick google search looks like it is now owned by another company. Whether you can use it depends on what plug is on it and what adapter you would need to plug it into the tesla.

f its chademo, the tesla chademo adapter costs almost as much as the tesla wall connector I think, so at that point I would just replace the wall connector... especially since you already have the wiring in the wall and it should be just a removal of one type wall connector and installation of another one.

 

[eprosenx]

I am waiting for my M3LRAWFSD.I’m coming from Nissan Leaf and I have aerovironment ev charger installed at home (ev-rs) model.

Do I need to upgrade my charger? I will be charging at work mostly (ChargePoint) but wanted the option to charge at home too. the circuit supports 50amps. (built it to support 50amps)

If so, should I consider juice box or Tesla charger?

Is this unit hard wired or is it plugged in with a 14-50 or 6-50 receptacle?

I presume the Aerovironment EVSE is a standard J1772 plug? If so, I would just wait till I had the car and see how things go. Do you know how many amps that unit maxes out at (probably like 30 amps most likely)? You will be able to tell as soon as you plug in your new car.

You might be perfectly happy with that existing charger (using the adapter included with your new Tesla).

If you want faster charging and don’t want to mess with the adapter every day, you could buy a wall connector, or replace the Aerovironment with a receptacle (14-50 or 6-50) and use the UMC cord that comes with your car with the right $35 adapter.

But yeah, I would start by doing nothing and seeing how it works.

 

[FJHulk]

Is this unit hard wired or is it plugged in with a 14-50 or 6-50 receptacle?

I presume the Aerovironment EVSE is a standard J1772 plug? If so, I would just wait till I had the car and see how things go. Do you know how many amps that unit maxes out at (probably like 30 amps most likely)? You will be able to tell as soon as you plug in your new car.

You might be perfectly happy with that existing charger (using the adapter included with your new Tesla).

If you want faster charging and don’t want to mess with the adapter every day, you could buy a wall connector, or replace the Aerovironment with a receptacle (14-50 or 6-50) and use the UMC cord that comes with your car with the right $35 adapter.

But yeah, I would start by doing nothing and seeing how it works.

thanks !
It is hardwired and 30amps.

I will try it out and see. Will buy an extra j1772 adaptor and leave it connected at home to start with.

 

[davewill]

I see no reason to "upgrade". You could get 40a charging instead of 30a charging...big deal.

 

[srs5694]

thanks !
It is hardwired and 30amps.

I will try it out and see. Will buy an extra j1772 adaptor and leave it connected at home to start with.

That's what I did. My car before my Model 3 was a Chevy Volt, and I bought a Clipper Creek HCS-40 EVSE for it. This EVSE can deliver 32A to the car, which is less than the 48A that my LR Model 3 can take, but it's very unlikely that I'll ever need or benefit from the extra speed that a 48A EVSE could deliver. When I bought the Model 3, I also bought an extra J1772 adapter so that I wouldn't need to be constantly plugging/unplugging that adapter or driving around without one. The resulting Clipper Creek with J1772 adapter works fine; the only thing it doesn't do is to open the Tesla's charge-port door when I push its button.

If your car will be an SR or SR+, then it will max out at 32A, so if your EVSE is 30A, you'll be down a couple of amps, but that won't be a big deal -- certainly not enough to deal with the hassle and expense of an upgrade. For an LR Model 3, you could make a case that upgrading would be worthwhile, but only in extreme cases, like if you drive a lot. As I said, I didn't upgrade mine and I have no regrets about that. Keep in mind that an upgrade to get higher amps might require upgrading the wiring and circuit breaker, in addition to the EVSE itself.

If you buy a second J1772 adapter and want to plug it into the EVSE's built-in holster when it's not in use, you might want to check out this adapter that I designed:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3562353

I can't promise it'll work with the Aerovironment's built-in holster, but there's a good chance that it will. You'll need access to a 3D printer to print it; or you can pay a service to do it, or send me a private message.

 

[van_smile]

I have the Aerovironment EVSE installed at home, works fine with our M3 at 7kW with the J1722 adapter. I don’t leave the adapter attached as we charge our Kia Soul EV off it as well and it’s so simple to slip on/off the adapter I just keep it in the M3’s centre console after unplugging.

You should be fine - let us know either way!