Newbie Question: I'm considering buying a Tesla Model 3, but it's hard to charge at my home. My office has 2 chargers in the parking garage. I attach some photos of one of them. Can one of you tell me if I can use these chargers to charge a new Tesla Model 3 and what kind of charging speeds (if that's the correct term) I could expect? From one of the photos it seems that the chargers are wired for 208V(?). Many, many thanks in advance for your help
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Can I charge a Tesla here? What kind of charging speeds will I get?
- Thread starter warsh
- Start date
You can use the adapter that comes with your Tesla to connect that J1772 plug into your Model 3. Look on Plugshare to see if that charger is listed. If it is then you'll probably have the answers to your questions.
RTPEV
Active Member
You absolutely can charge a Tesla at those stations, although you will need to use the supplied J1772 adapter that comes with the car (it's no biggy--but you do need to remember to take it with you!)
You can't tell from those pictures exactly what charging speed you'll get (charging stations are set to limit current draw--most would be in the 30-32A range, but there may be some that are set to 16A). You would probably get about 25 miles of range added per hour if it supports 30A charging, and 12 miles per hour for 16A charging.
I was also going to suggest looking up the charging station on plugshare.com as @sewing1 said. That will probably give more insight.
Even if it only supports 16A charging, even 4 hours of charging on it will get you close to 50 miles of range added, which might be sufficient for your daily needs. Keep in mind that charging stations at workplaces might be busy and good etiquette would be that you should vacate the charging station when you have the charge you need. If it is a busy charging station, you may not be able to count on getting a full day's worth of charge. Checking the traffic on plugshare will also give you an indication as to how busy it is, as well as how reliable it is.
You can't tell from those pictures exactly what charging speed you'll get (charging stations are set to limit current draw--most would be in the 30-32A range, but there may be some that are set to 16A). You would probably get about 25 miles of range added per hour if it supports 30A charging, and 12 miles per hour for 16A charging.
I was also going to suggest looking up the charging station on plugshare.com as @sewing1 said. That will probably give more insight.
Even if it only supports 16A charging, even 4 hours of charging on it will get you close to 50 miles of range added, which might be sufficient for your daily needs. Keep in mind that charging stations at workplaces might be busy and good etiquette would be that you should vacate the charging station when you have the charge you need. If it is a busy charging station, you may not be able to count on getting a full day's worth of charge. Checking the traffic on plugshare will also give you an indication as to how busy it is, as well as how reliable it is.
Thanks to you and sewing1 for your replies. I appreciate your helping a newbie. Unfortunately, this charger doesn't appear on plugshare.com, so no info there. So it sounds like a best guess would be between 30A and 16A charging with the worst cast being +50 miles of range with four hours of charging.
RTPEV
Active Member
It may be listed as a restricted charging station on plugshare (if it's in an office park that doesn't allow public parking). You may have to adjust the filters in plugshare to show you restricted stations.
Thank you again for your assistance. I did enable the search to show restricted stations, but it did not come up. Plugshare did show me many other parking garages nearby with charging in them, but since I have a monthly contract with the parking garage in my office building, that will be my first choice. Not sure why all the other garages got included and mine didn't, but anyway.....
I'm so interested in the Tesla, and hoping it's not too stupid to buy without a solid charging plan. My commute is short and I would buy the long range model, so even though I know conventional wisdom is to charge every night, I do think I could get away with one charge per week or so for the most part.....
I'm so interested in the Tesla, and hoping it's not too stupid to buy without a solid charging plan. My commute is short and I would buy the long range model, so even though I know conventional wisdom is to charge every night, I do think I could get away with one charge per week or so for the most part.....
bobby g
Member
RTPEV
Active Member
I would certainly advise anyone interested in an EV to work out some kind of charging plan before purchasing one. That said, you can be creative and think outside the box and work out a plan. With a short commute, even charging from a standard 120V outlet would be an option if you can find one (many parking garages have these near stairwells, elevators, or just scattered throughout the garage).
Personally I would forget about the conventional wisdom of plugging in every night. In fact, with a long range EV I actually advise against it. The battery is happiest at 50% state of charge, so if you are constantly running it between 70-80% (or higher), that does add stress to the battery (probably not enough to worry about, but still). I basically charge my car once a week during the pandemic, and when I was going into the office it was once every 4 days or so.
RTPEV
Active Member
Except the OP doesn't have a Tesla yet--they are considering getting one and trying to work out whether this charging station will suffice for their needs.
srs5694
Active Member
PlugShare uses crowd-sourced data, so if no PlugShare user has added the station, it wouldn't appear. You might consider doing so. You can add it even before getting your Tesla, if you like. If it is restricted access, be sure to flag it as such in the app; but if it's open to the general public, be sure to not list it as restricted-access. (Noting the parking rates is appropriate if it's a for-pay parking garage, of course.)
If your commute is short enough, you might be able to get away with charging there just once a week or so. That might be preferable to doing so daily, since if you do it daily, the charging might be finished in an hour or so, and to be considerate, you'd need to go move your car, which would be a hassle. If you leave the charging until it'll take most of your work day, then you can just leave the car plugged in all day and be justified in doing so. (This assumes there's no enforced time limit; sometimes there may be a limit to how long you're supposed to stay plugged in. Look for signage relaying such information.)
One more point: The photos clearly show that this is a SemaConnect station. It looks like it may require an RFID card or app to activate it, so you may want to look into that before you need to charge. (I've got a SemaConnect app on my own phone, but I don't think I've ever had to use it, myself.) It's usually pretty easy to set up an account, but you don't want to be fumbling around with that at 8:58 AM when you should be at your desk at 9:00.
Thank you. Yes, i can add it on PlugShare, although I don't even know if it works or not, but I guess others can add info once it's up. And thanks for the advice on charging and on SemaConnect. It's all a bit confusing for the newbie, so I appreciate it.
dedicatedtek
Member
From page 158 of the Owner's Manual for a Model Y:
About the Battery
Model Y has one of the most sophisticated battery
systems in the world. The most important way to
preserve the Battery is to LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE PLUGGED IN when you are not using it. This is
particularly important if you are not planning to drive Model Y for several weeks.
NOTE: When left idle and unplugged, your vehicle
periodically uses energy from the Battery for system
tests and recharging the 12V battery when necessary.There is no advantage to waiting until the Battery’s
level is low before charging. In fact, the Battery
performs best when charged regularly
About the Battery
Model Y has one of the most sophisticated battery
systems in the world. The most important way to
preserve the Battery is to LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE PLUGGED IN when you are not using it. This is
particularly important if you are not planning to drive Model Y for several weeks.
NOTE: When left idle and unplugged, your vehicle
periodically uses energy from the Battery for system
tests and recharging the 12V battery when necessary.There is no advantage to waiting until the Battery’s
level is low before charging. In fact, the Battery
performs best when charged regularly
Watts_Up
Well-Known Member
I noticed that I also already had a SemConnect account, I believe before getting an EV, to be ready and familiar with using public L2 chargers.
When looking at the App, I noticed that, in my area, several groceries stores provide such public L2 chargers
So I guess, best would be, using a smartphone NFC reader and App, to check
if this particular SemaConnect charger is still active (energized and connected to the Internet).
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SpaceShipDrvr
Member
RPTEV, your advice goes directly against Tesla recommendations. Do you have data to back up your assertion?
It is my observation that a lot of recommendations for how to treat a Tesla vehicle batteries are based on ”old wife tale“ experiences based on other/older battery technologies. But if there actual data to back it up, it cannot be ignored.
RTPEV
Active Member
Yes: my TeslaFi battery report:
And here is my July Recurrent battery report:
other than a few brief forays under 30%, I keep my battery well within the recommended 30-80% range, and at an ideal 50% average state of charge.
I honestly think that the "always plug it in" is more geared towards newbies that forget to plug their cars in and Tesla doesn't want to have them have a bad experience with running out of charge one day because they forgot to plug in the night before. Also for those in extreme hot or cold climates, it probably helps to use shore power instead of the battery for thermal management.
The one thing I will agree with on the Tesla recommendation is to have it plugged in to avoid the battery from being bricked due to vampire drain if you don't use it for 3-4 weeks, but even during the height of the pandemic, my car only sat unused for a week at the longest, and the vampire drain was not sufficient to put my car in the danger zone. If your car is sitting long enough to drop from 80% to 2% from vampire drain, well that's a completely different story!
RTPEV
Active Member
Here is another source: a very good Jack Rickard archive video I just came across. I've set the start time of this share to the "punch line", but I would recommend taking a look at the entire Jack Rickard segment where he goes into the theory of operation of Li-ion batteries as that material is helpful background information that will provide the foundation for the claims the paper he references makes. Jack's segment starts at 21:08.
Here is a link to the paper he references: http://komar.in/files/JensGroot.pdf
A few notes:
Here is a link to the paper he references: http://komar.in/files/JensGroot.pdf
A few notes:
- First note that Jack is (was) a slow speaker...you will probably want to watch this at higher than 1X speed!
- Even though he doesn't look the part, Jack knew a LOT about battery technology. IMO his credentials as a battery expert are well-established, so I do take what he says seriously.
- That said, this is an old video, and the cited paper is a graduate student thesis paper from 2012, so certainly there could be new research and technology these days that renders this research obsolete, but with my own experience, backed up by the other material that Jack introduced earlier in the video (specifically causes of degradation), lead me to believe that the recommendation to avoid the extreme ends of SOC is still relevant.
TomServo
Active Member
I would find the entity that manages this charger and get more info. Some folks use EV charging spots as their own personal parking spot regardless of charging status.
bobby g
Member
See that a lot. The most annoying is the high end compliance plugins with 10-20 electric range that hog spaces and never move them
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