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Charge Point Etiquette ?
- Thread starter jsollender
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- Model X
d21mike
Active Member
Ah... That does make sense. But in my case they could put on the other side of the building near the drive thru and still have power pretty close but far from the walkup entrance. But not to the furthest part of the parking lot.
Peteybabes
redneck drivin' a tesla...
wow, glad to be in ohio where the "average" cost is $0.116/kwh statewide and i've so far not even paid for any public charging DC Fast Included....
my average increase to monthly power bill is like maybe $10/month.
You and @kort677 make good points here. The issue is cost, believe it or not.+1 re: airports installations.....c'mon, not that expensive & minimal electric cost.
FWIW: SW Florida is onboard with EV--both SRQ (Sarasota) & RSW (Ft. Myers...albeit not covered) have chargers and given the concentration of EV vehicles in SE FL I don't understand why FLL & MIA don't install as well (FLL does have significant parking challenges though).
More specifically, the issue is funding. Most EV installations at airports are funded by grants and there are very few grants for L1 installations. From an airport's perspective, four L2 stations are usually cheaper than ten L1 stations and they might even be cheaper than four L1 stations.
No, actually, they are not wired differently. A typical 15amp, 120v outlet (what you are calling a 110v) is wired with 12 gauge wire. Both at home and in commercial locations. Code allows for multiple 15amp outlets to be installed using one set of 12 gauge wires, commercial and residential. Those outlets are connected to a 20 amp breaker. Maximum safe sustained load on a breaker is 80% of it's rating, or 16 amps. Now here's where it gets interesting. Even though you may see 4 -8 outlets in your living room, or on a garage wall, they are all most likely connected to a single 20 amp breaker, capable of supplying 16 amps. Yes, you can attach 8 devices all drawing 15 amps at once (one to each outlet) since the outlets are there, but you will simply trip the breaker when you try to use them.
Tesla's and I assume other EV's can pull 15amps of power from a 120v outlet, thus making one car essentially the limit of what the breaker is capable of supplying. So a bank of 20 L1 connections would require 20 separate circuits to be ran to it, and yes, that would get to be quite expensive.
To sum it up, just because you may see a dozen outlets, that doesn't mean a dozen cars can all be hooked to them charging at once.
You don't have to be an electrician to understand why only one car can charge at a time, even if it's a commercial 20A circuit rather than household 15A. Every outlet needs to be able to supply the 15 or 20A. Simultaneously. That means separate circuits.
Actually Teslas pull 12A from a 15A circuit, and 16A from a 20A circuit (80%) but your point is correct that one car uses the max capacity of one circuit.
Actually, there really isn’t a “commercial” 20amp circuit and a “household” 15amp. Both can be found in commercial settings and household settings. In newer houses you will find 20 amp sockets usually in the kitchen and garage. You can tell because one side of the socket will allow one sideways blade as well as the typical two vertical blades. An actual 20 amp plug will have one sideways and one vertical blade so it can’t be inserted into a 15 amp socket.
Both types of sockets are generally fed with a 20 amp breaker. Some older houses may be using 15 amp breakers, but that is very rare.
And yes, I’m well aware of the amp capacity of the Tesla, my reference to a general amperage if 15 was merely to make the point that just because the socket is there, doesn’t mean you can hook your up to it. (Although technically, 8 Tesla’s could all plug in to one circuit and set their charge limit to 2 amps). Lol.
