Tesla Motors Club
We got our new Model S last week and have had daily problems charging it at home. (No problems charging with a supercharger or ChargePoint.) We had an electrician install a Nema 14-50 with a 50amp breaker using 125ft of 6ga copper. It absolutely refuses to charge at 40A and it automatically selects 32A instead. It will charge for 15 minutes to an hour before shutting down with a "Charge cable fault, check the power" message on the dash. We have a little better luck by manually setting it to 24A but it is still unreliable.
Last night, the charge cable went completely dead. There are neither green nor red lights and it won't even open the charge port.
I verified that there is power at the outlet and I also tried plugging into a 120v outlet with the same result; the cable seems dead. Then I checked the wiring in our service panel and noticed that the electrician had connected the neutral white wire to the ground bar instead of the neutral bar. Those two bars are connected together but only with a 12ga copper wire.
So finally, the question: Does the charger actually run a significant amount of current on the white wire? Is there any chance this minor wiring error could be the root of our problem? Is it common for charge cables to die?
Last night, the charge cable went completely dead. There are neither green nor red lights and it won't even open the charge port.
I verified that there is power at the outlet and I also tried plugging into a 120v outlet with the same result; the cable seems dead. Then I checked the wiring in our service panel and noticed that the electrician had connected the neutral white wire to the ground bar instead of the neutral bar. Those two bars are connected together but only with a 12ga copper wire.
So finally, the question: Does the charger actually run a significant amount of current on the white wire? Is there any chance this minor wiring error could be the root of our problem? Is it common for charge cables to die?