Best way to Overnight Charge when Visiting Family/Friends?

[Buster1]

Still Tesla shopping.

Some proposed trips and drives we would take would obviously take us to friends and family in the next state over. Super chargers are aplenty along the route, but seem to be anywhere from 40 to 60 miles away from their houses where we would stay.

What's the best way to overnight charge while visiting friends/fam? Can you run an extension cord to their 220V dryer outlet? What do you guys do?

 

[kort677]

if you have the proper adaptor plug that would be the best, at a minimum you could get a 12g 110 extension cord that you could use with your umc then you could add 4 or so miles an hour to the car. slow but better than nothing.
you could also try to locate nearby places to charge with plugshare

 

[Buster1]

What is a proper adapter plug? I am new to all this. Is that something to go from the house dryer wall plug to the car?

 

[gregd]

I would expect that a dryer plug, if they even exist within an extension cord's length of the car, would be in use by the dryer, and inconvenient to get to without leaving doors ajar and moving major appliances around. Depending on the age of the house, they can be 10-30, 14-30, or 14-50 type (presume USA locations). You'd have to ask, and they likely won't know. Bring adapters...

120v outlets are very likely available, but with the range/hr limitations. Depending on how long your stay is, that can do quite adequately. Make sure you use a beefy extension cord in either case.

 

[mblakele]

40-60 miles isn't a big deal: leave the supercharger with 80% and you ought to have plenty of margin. You can top off a little with a standard 110 outlet, if you like. That adapter comes with the car.

Sometimes I use dryer outlets or shop plugs. I'm comfortable making adapters myself, but I won't encourage anyone else to do that. You should be able to find out whether your destination will have the older 10-30 dryer receptacle, or the newer 14-30. Maybe ask them to take a picture? The car comes with a 14-50 adapter, which won't fit in either. You can get a 14-30 adapter from Tesla, and both 10-30 and 14-30 are available from various vendors.

Sometimes I also carry a 240V RV extension cord designed for 14-50 outlets. This is heavy, and only useful for dryer outlets if you have appropriate adapters on both ends.

 

[Buster1]

Awesome, thanks for explaining this to a newb!

 

[kendallpb]

I would leave the supercharger with as much as you have time to get, but yeah, 40-60 miles isn't much. Do you plan to drive a lot when visiting these friends? If not, no need to charge at all. If you plan to drive a fair amount...are there charging places in their town/city, maybe near a place to eat or someplace you expect to be anyway? Just a thought - my parents are in a retirement community and I can't charge there, but they're around 50-60 miles from the nearest Supercharger. I have some down time while I'm with them, so I'll hop over to a nearby level 2 charger and shop or eat or (depending on the hour) catch up on e-mail/etc. at Starbucks or ... etc. If there's a charger in your friends'/family's town/city, and if you usually go out to eat once, maybe there's somewhere near the charger. ;-)

Just a thought - if not at all a good fit for your situation, never mind.

 

[CalBlue 85D]

Get the PlugShare app. You will be surprised how many charging options are available in most locations. The best part is that there are many EV owners who post their home chargers as available tor travelers in need of a charge. You might find a neighbor who is willing to share a few electrons while you are in the area.

 

[iwannam3]

Be aware that there may be other loads on a 110V circuit. If you plug in to a garage outlet and pull 12 amps, it could trip the 15 amp breaker when a freezer or refrigerator starts or something else like a furnace starts. In the morning you could find your car not charged and you friend finds his freezer/fridge off. Worse case it trips the breaker an hour before you leave so you have the charge you expected and you drive away leaving the freezer dead.

 

[brkaus]

If it's family and you will visit often, consider adding a plug at their house. If they have a circuit breaker panel by the driveway or outside it might be super easy/cheap. Esp for a 6-15 (15a-240v) or a 5-20 (20a-120v).

Of course, if you can make it back to another charger or home, there is no reason to bother.

 

[iwannam3]

I plug our Prius into a garage outlet and I found it was on the same circuit as outlets sharing the wall in the living room when I plugged in a Dyson vacuum in and tripped the breaker.

 

[dsm363]

Is it a relative you visit often? If there are Superchargers along the way you might be fine with just a 120V outlet and an extension cord to top you off. If you want to offer to install a 14-50 outlet and pay for it that might work as well.

 

[ohmman]

I would expect that a dryer plug, if they even exist within an extension cord's length of the car, would be in use by the dryer, and inconvenient to get to without leaving doors ajar and moving major appliances around. Depending on the age of the house, they can be 10-30, 14-30, or 14-50 type (presume USA locations). You'd have to ask, and they likely won't know. Bring adapters...

My experience is that they are usually adjacent to parking. Obviously this isn't a rule, but often times if there's a garage, the washer/dryer are just inside the mudroom on the way in from the garage. I also find that most homes use gas for dryer heat, and so the dryer is only plugged into the 120v outlet, leaving the higher amperage outlet available. I use this (with permission) on vacation rental homes frequently, and it always works out well. I have one of the extension cords that @mblakele referenced, along with the appropriate adapters. I also always make sure to dial down my charge rate to the appropriate level.

 

[dsm363]

That's the thing about using unsupported adapters as mentioned above. Make sure you dial down amperage to appropriate number. Burning down a relative's house would be bad form.

 

[supratachophobia]

14-30, with an extension cord if necessary.

 

[bob_p]

When visiting family and friends, we've verified, before the trip where their laundry room is relative to the garage - and so far, we've been fortunate that the dryer outlet was close enough to the garage door to use the standard Tesla charging cable to reach the car (backed in) and be able to charge the car.

Though, if you're not staying at their house, then finding a hotel with a destination or 3rd party charger (using Plugshare) probably works better.

 

[Gig103]

I'd probably just add an extra 75-100 miles of range on top of what the Trip Planner recommends when you're at the closest SC. The Trip Planner will account for the 50miles there, and extra will get you back and have some around-town energy.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Don't bother overnight charging unless you really need to.
A few more minutes at the supercharger is a lot easier.

 

[Dithermaster]

The expense of a 240V "extension cord" is going to far outweigh any benefit, unless you need it a lot. Nearly everyone had a 120VAC plug in their garage and you'll get 3 to 4 miles of range per hour with than, so an overnight stay could net you 45 miles. Use the Supercharger for anything more. If you are lucky and your friend has a NEMA 14-50 in their garage, then of course use it. But personally I wouldn't bother trying to reach a farther away outlet.

 

[DiamondDave]

With a supercharger 40-60 miles away, I agree that you may not need to charge at all, even in a 60. Just charge enough for the round trip at the supercharger.

If you do drive around town a lot then PlugShare is an excellent resource to find charging. You can add 18 miles of range in an hour on many level 2 chargers.

When I stayed at the inlaws' house over 200 miles from a supercharger, I used the outlet in their garage and got about 40 miles of range every 12 hours. This helped a lot. In this extreme case, a couple of nights, especially before the trip home, I spent time at an RV park. I gave them $5 and plugged into their NEMA 14-50 outlet. Five hours gave me 150 miles and I could stream a baseball game or two in peace!