Apartment dweller - is electric car a practical choice?

[RedModel3]

Is there any way you can park close enough to your apartment to run a heavy duty extension cord to your car? You could trickle charge your car at 110 v and be fine with as few miles as you drive.

 

[jjrandorin]

Hi All,

I am planning to buy Modle 3, i live in apartment (Community) and we dont have any charging facility here
totally rely on rent a garage or Reply on Public EV chargers/Super Charger, i am not OK with taking a garage rent as community is charging 125$/month which is insane
Mostly i will drive less than 200-300 Miles a Month as i work remotely
What is the impact if i do super charge once in a month as its meeting my commute miles, what i can do better if i can charge in home itself.
Please share your insights on what kind of hassles i will be having and what are your thoughts

(moderator note)

merged newly created thread into an existing thread on this topic.

============================

(non moderation, regular content post)

You will not be charging 1 time a month, this is one of the biggest mistakes people make when buying an EV. they think "Oh this car has 300 mile range, I only Drive XXX (in your case 200) miles a month, so I can just charge once a month and that wont be so bad." It doesnt work like that, at all.

I have said this every time this topic comes up, but if you cant charge at home, or at work, then I dont believe any pure EV is a good choice unless you are doing it for something that has nothing to do with convenience.

The reason "it wont work that way" is because (summary):

1. If you only drive 200-300 miles a month, it means those are likely much shorter trips. Short trips take a lot of extra power, warming the cabin, battery, etc. Even if you buy a RWD model 3 that can be charged to 100% all the time, from 100 - 0 on a RWD model 3 using short trips would likely be no more than 175 miles of range.

2. You wont be driving it to 0 (no one in an EV does). You would probably drive it down to 20% or so (another 30 ish miles not used basically).

3. People who live in apartments are usually people who picture using sentry mode all the time (no enclosed garage). If you use sentry mode all the time, the car wont sleep, and will lost about 15-20 miles daily just siting there doing nothing (except having sentry mode on.

For more, you can read through this thread I moved your thread into, but you need to examine why you actually want this car, and weight that against the realities above. Plenty of people in apartments own these cars, but you need to be doing it for something other than convenience, if you dont have charging available at work either.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Hi All,

I am planning to buy Modle 3, i live in apartment (Community) and we dont have any charging facility here
totally rely on rent a garage or Reply on Public EV chargers/Super Charger, i am not OK with taking a garage rent as community is charging 125$/month which is insane
Mostly i will drive less than 200-300 Miles a Month as i work remotely
What is the impact if i do super charge once in a month as its meeting my commute miles, what i can do better if i can charge in home itself.
Please share your insights on what kind of hassles i will be having and what are your thoughts

As long as there are a few superchargers along your commonly travelled routes (meaning you don't have to go out of your way to charge), you can probably make it work out. I had free supercharging for a year previously and used supercharging exclusively and it wasn't too much of a challenge, given I did it at a station that was where I commonly shop anyways (so occasionally I just let the car charge while I shop). Note there are idle fees if station is busy, so make sure you can get back to your car in time to move it when you are done charging.

You should also research other free charging options in your area, especially where you commonly travel (so you can stop along the way).

You can look on Plugshare to find general stations (including slower J1772 AC charging with included adapter, and CCS fast charging, which you can use with an adapter you buy from Tesla):
https://shop.tesla.com/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter
PlugShare - EV Charging Station Map - Find a place to charge

To research supercharger stations:
Find Us | Tesla

Note superchargers can get quite pricey if you charge during peak hours though. Home charging is practically always better.

 

[stopcrazypp]

(moderator note)

merged newly created thread into an existing thread on this topic.

It was a bit tough to find this thread again with the move, while in the middle of composing. You probably would need to change the title too, because the person from the thread that was moved is in Florida and that is a completely different case than in California, where SC and third party charging infrastructure is a lot more common.

 

[jjrandorin]

It was a bit tough to find this thread again with the move, while in the middle of composing. You probably would need to change the title too, because the person from the thread that was moved is in Florida and that is a completely different case than in California, where SC and third party charging infrastructure is a lot more common.

I removed "CA" from the thread title just now.

 

[Big Earl]

Teslas will regen at full power all the way down a mountain, or as WarpedPerformance demonstrated, while being towed for 25 miles. The charging doesn't generate very much heat either way. Monitoring with SMT shows in 85 degrees (typical summers in NE), my battery temp remained at 92 degrees and didn't rise at all while supercharging from 50-90% (and air conditioning was off, ThermalController was at 0.05kw). Perhaps it's worse in the south, do you live down there? So I modify my statement for accuracy: "In the northern half of USA, I expect Teslas to handle 75kw regen/supercharging forever."

@Big Earl, you're constantly hitting that Disagree button on me in every thread I post, why don't you chime in and share your thoughts?

Certainly.

I disagreed with your assertion that charging at 75 kW is better for the battery because the car can regen indefinitely at 75 kW. The car cannot regen indefinitely at 75 kW. Regen depends on a combination of battery temperature and state of charge. This same SOC/temp combination applies to charging.

You also suggest that charging from 50-90% is better than charging from 10-50% because the charging speed/power is less. While it’s true that the charging speed/power is less, you aren’t any farther from the taper point than you would be at a lower state of charge. I’d argue that the best way to achieve your goal of minimizing charging impact on the battery would be to seek out V2 chargers and stop at 50% rather than riding the throttle point the entire time.

That said, my car has supercharged thousands of times, and my battery’s degradation is similar to or less than the fleet’s average. My typical supercharging sessions are from 12% to 60% although I don’t hesitate to charge as high as necessary to make it where I need to go.

 

[cleverscreenam]

Great to hear that plentiful supercharging doesn't correlate to battery damage. I'll keep that in mind when I retire and not worry about the number of road trips I might want to take.

I don't think we'll ever find out just how long the car can or can't regen, since no one has a reason to try for longer than this 25 mile record. Personally I have never seen my regen taper off even when descending a large valley, but maybe other owners have seen in other climates?

 

[Soul Surfer]

I am living in an apartment in Irvine,CA.

When I bought by Tesla model 3 awd, 3 months back I was kind of anxious about charging. But since apartment had a total of 10 6KW chargepoint stations (2 per floor in the parking garage), I was thinking this might work out somehow - but I had my doubts.

- Charging infrastructure: A while back 2 of the chargepoint stations stopped working - and have not been fixed for months. The apartment people responded that they cannot get a hold of chargepoint/ they are not responsive. They are thinking of changing providers. Since then 2 more of the stations stopped working - and I am not feeling like these are going to get fixed any time soon (i.e., months/years). Also I have looked for a 6kW public station - but have not been able to locate one at a convenient location yet.

- Number of EVs: Also, I am seeing a lot more Teslas in this apartment and the count seems to be growing (must be in the 60s for a 5 floor apartment complex).

- Behavior pattern of folks who charge EVs: So, in recent days I am not finding available stations. Some folks put in their cars and do not remove them promptly - i.e., cars occupy the slots for hours (> 5 hrs) after being fully charged.

- Battery care: I have learnt that using the Supercharger too frequently will reduce capacity of the battery - so I don't want to do that also. There are multiple superchargers in this area.

- EV Range: I charge from 15-20% to 80% on most occasions. The range I am seeing for the car is not what I expected. The wh/mi is close to 300 on most city driving situations. I have to charge 2 times a week - I must be driving less than 40 miles per day. Tesla has the miles driven per day in the Safety Score app feature - but looks like that has been removed now. I am thinking of keeping track of the miles per charge to get a better understanding of this - just wished Tesla has some built in statistics. I wish there was more trasparency from Tesla on what kind of range to expect. They keep saying that range depends on multiple factors - but I am thinking there should be a band between best case scenario and worst case scenario - and this should communicated directly by Tesla (not via YouTube channels). The overtly optimistic range values are not useful. I even tried the chill mode - but it was not practical and did not improve the range much.

Given that above issues - I think Tesla owners need to have access to a daily 6kW charger every day - otherwise this ownership is not really practical.

What does the community think?

Also, do apartment folks use public 6kW stations and if so how does that work out? Does any one know of options in Irvine area?

This is my apartment setup. We rent, by choice. At our age, it made no sense to buy after we sold our last house, as our intention is to do lots of traveling. My Wall Connector is VIN locked to my car.

 

[perichetla]

(moderator note)

merged newly created thread into an existing thread on this topic.

============================

(non moderation, regular content post)

You will not be charging 1 time a month, this is one of the biggest mistakes people make when buying an EV. they think "Oh this car has 300 mile range, I only Drive XXX (in your case 200) miles a month, so I can just charge once a month and that wont be so bad." It doesnt work like that, at all.

I have said this every time this topic comes up, but if you cant charge at home, or at work, then I dont believe any pure EV is a good choice unless you are doing it for something that has nothing to do with convenience.

The reason "it wont work that way" is because (summary):

1. If you only drive 200-300 miles a month, it means those are likely much shorter trips. Short trips take a lot of extra power, warming the cabin, battery, etc. Even if you buy a RWD model 3 that can be charged to 100% all the time, from 100 - 0 on a RWD model 3 using short trips would likely be no more than 175 miles of range.

2. You wont be driving it to 0 (no one in an EV does). You would probably drive it down to 20% or so (another 30 ish miles not used basically).

3. People who live in apartments are usually people who picture using sentry mode all the time (no enclosed garage). If you use sentry mode all the time, the car wont sleep, and will lost about 15-20 miles daily just siting there doing nothing (except having sentry mode on.

For more, you can read through this thread I moved your thread into, but you need to examine why you actually want this car, and weight that against the realities above. Plenty of people in apartments own these cars, but you need to be doing it for something other than convenience, if you dont have charging available at work either.

@jjrandorin Appreciate your help on answering my query, i know this is a harsh reality for people buying Tesla who don't have garage
I know will be having a tough time without garage, i have charging possibility at my workplace, but there is also a tough competition for Charging slots
I am completely rely on supercharger for now

 

[STS-134]

Keep in mind that your Tesla regen-brakes at 75kw, so I expect Teslas to handle that same 75kw supercharging forever.

That's definitely not the case. On a warm day, I took my Tesla up into the hills east of San Jose. Then I started descending. At first, the battery was capable of doing full regen, but as time went on, the maximum regen got throttled back. If I went on a more level section and stopped pushing so much energy into the battery, the maximum regen increased again, before decreasing again when I started on the next long descent. So the algorithm takes into account not only battery temperature and battery SoC, but how much energy you've pushed into the battery in the recent past. And keep in mind that Tesla is trying to balance some sort of efficiency (whether it's being able to capture braking energy, or time efficiency when supercharging, etc.) with battery lifespan. It's a tradeoff, and increasing one decreases the other. Just because the car is capable of doing 75kW regen for 3 minutes straight doesn't mean it's good for battery life.

 

[E90alex]

@jjrandorin Appreciate your help on answering my query, i know this is a harsh reality for people buying Tesla who don't have garage
I know will be having a tough time without garage, i have charging possibility at my workplace, but there is also a tough competition for Charging slots
I am completely rely on supercharger for now

@jjrandorin already covered most of it but just to reiterate you’ll realistically have to supercharge at least 2-3x a month even with driving 200-300 miles. Have to consider vampire drain even if no sentry mode use, heating/cooling the cabin for short trips as mentioned, and keeping the battery between 20-80% for optimal health (or 10-90% if you must). Also keep in mind the range figures posted by Tesla are highly optimistic. Figure 10-15% less than published figures in the real world.

For a Model 3 RWD (with LFP battery that can be charged to 100%) that would realistically put you at about 180 miles for 100% to 20% use without considering temperature and climate usage plus vampire drain.

For a Model 3 Performance thats about 160 miles from 80% to 20%, again without factoring in temperature and climate and vampire drain.

If you have superchargers along your commute then you could make it work, but honestly it’s going to be much more of a hassle without reliable home or work charging or just staying with an ICE car and getting gas. And peak supercharging rates can be quite expensive depending on area and be just as if not more expensive than the equivalent amount of gas.