Charging Questions for Possible M3SR[+] Owner.

[TexasIronMan]

Hello,

I have been wanting a Tesla for ever! I am getting to the point where I want to possible purchase one however, like most, I am nervous regarding charging. I looking at a possible 2019 Tesla Model 3 with ~24,000 miles. I have standard plugs in my garage and a dryer plug in my laundry room which is next to the garage separated by a door. What would the charging times be for trickle charging and the dryer charging? Say from near empty to "full". Also, my current energy rate is at 8.5 cents and I am thinking correctly, it takes 50 Kw to "fully" charge a Tesla. So would this equal up to $4.25 to "fully" charge up my Tesla? I currently drive ~30 minutes to work and ~30 minutes back for a total time of ~1 hour on the road 5-6 days out of the week which also comes out to about ~20 miles there and ~ 20 miles back for ~40 miles 5-6 days out of the week. So how often would I need to charge (and even given some leisure driving, haha) Thanks in advanced for the help!

 

[BeeGood]

With a standard 110V wall outlet, you’ll be charging at about 5mph, so at a minimum you’ll need to be charging 8 hours per night if you’re just driving to work and back.

And that’s if you drive at the EPA-rated energy consumption level. Most don’t, so you’ll probably need more than 8 hours of plug time.

You’ll basically want to be plugged in and charging all the time whenever you’re home and make sure you are close enough to a supercharger for the days when you use more power than you can return to the battery overnight. I did this for about 2 months after I got my M3. It’s doable, but you need to always be thinking about charging.

If at all possible, I’d recommend having an electrician come to put a 240V plug in your garage. It just makes owning the car more enjoyable.

 

[strykeroz]

I currently drive ~30 minutes to work and ~30 minutes back for a total time of ~1 hour on the road 5-6 days out of the week which also comes out to about ~20 miles there and ~ 20 miles back for ~40 miles 5-6 days out of the week. So how often would I need to charge (and even given some leisure driving, haha) Thanks in advanced for the help!

Hi TIM, and congrats on the next purchase

Your usual way of dealing with this charging would be to plug the car in whenever you're home, and have it charge to a preset limit. For a similar commute I have mine scheduled to charge to 60% every night, recovering the range used during the day and allowing plenty of headroom in the pack so regenerative braking isn't negatively impacted.

In the book it says "a plugged-in Tesla is a happy Tesla" so having the car plugged in when you're home will allow it to take care of whatever battery maintenance it determines are necessary. With 60% charge at the start of the day I get home on around 40% after an hour in traffic - YMMV of course if you have any high speed sections, mine are all suburban streets with stop-start, so low speed with lots of regen.

If you're planning a bigger drive on the weekend or on one workday and you'd like more range, you can easy tell it to charge to 80% or 90% for that night either from the car or the app. It's not usual you'd want to charge to 100% as you'll find in other threads that cover the topic. Your regenerative braking is reduced/removed and it's better for the pack if you don't expect to use that all in one drive to just never do that.

I'm in a 240V country so the speed of charging might not be indicative of yours.

Cheers! Geoff

 

[TexasIronMan]

With a standard 110V wall outlet, you’ll be charging at about 5mph, so at a minimum you’ll need to be charging 8 hours per night if you’re just driving to work and back.

And that’s if you drive at the EPA-rated energy consumption level. Most don’t, so you’ll probably need more than 8 hours of plug time.

You’ll basically want to be plugged in and charging all the time whenever you’re home and make sure you are close enough to a supercharger for the days when you use more power than you can return to the battery overnight. I did this for about 2 months after I got my M3. It’s doable, but you need to always be thinking about charging.

If at all possible, I’d recommend having an electrician come to put a 240V plug in your garage. It just makes owning the car more enjoyable.

So if I am thinking correctly, a standard dryer plug here in the US is a 240V, correct? If I am able to reach the dryer plug in the laundry room how long would it need to charge for roughly? Thanks for your help! I wouldn't be able to install anything as I am currently renting the house I am in.

 

[TexasIronMan]

Hi TIM, and congrats on the next purchase

Your usual way of dealing with this charging would be to plug the car in whenever you're home, and have it charge to a preset limit. For a similar commute I have mine scheduled to charge to 60% every night, recovering the range used during the day and allowing plenty of headroom in the pack so regenerative braking isn't negatively impacted.

In the book it says "a plugged-in Tesla is a happy Tesla" so having the car plugged in when you're home will allow it to take care of whatever battery maintenance it determines are necessary. With 60% charge at the start of the day I get home on around 40% after an hour in traffic - YMMV of course if you have any high speed sections, mine are all suburban streets with stop-start, so low speed with lots of regen.

If you're planning a bigger drive on the weekend or on one workday and you'd like more range, you can easy tell it to charge to 80% or 90% for that night either from the car or the app. It's not usual you'd want to charge to 100% as you'll find in other threads that cover the topic. Your regenerative braking is reduced/removed and it's better for the pack if you don't expect to use that all in one drive to just never do that.

I'm in a 240V country so the speed of charging might not be indicative of yours.

Cheers! Geoff

Awesome! I didn't know that you could set a limit of how much to charge that is actually very helpful in knowing! I am hopefully going to purchase one, just very nervous and hoping to get monthly payments down where I need it to be. I am a 1st year teacher/coach with a fine taste in vehicles and so this may not work out to well, hahaha!

 

[jjrandorin]

So if I am thinking correctly, a standard dryer plug here in the US is a 240V, correct? If I am able to reach the dryer plug in the laundry room how long would it need to charge for roughly? Thanks for your help! I wouldn't be able to install anything as I am currently renting the house I am in.

is that dryer plug being used for anything (like the dryer)? You are not going to want to be plugging and unplugging either the dryer or the car plug repeatedly.

 

[TexasIronMan]

is that dryer plug being used for anything (like the dryer)? You are not going to want to be plugging and unplugging either the dryer or the car plug repeatedly.

Yes, it is, haha. And I really wouldn't mind doing that, it's just a small inconvenience, haha.

 

[strykeroz]

I am a 1st year teacher/coach with a fine taste in vehicles and so this may not work out to well, hahaha!

FWIW I'm finding our SR+ is saving us money over the old ICE we traded for it (and got $500 AUD). The running costs are very low and the lack of servicing (especially eliminating the unscheduled ones from an older car) make the predictable monthly payments easier to deal with
We're currently looking to a (non-Tesla, sadly) 2nd EV to replace our other ICE vehicle
There really is no going back

 

[danarcha]

So if I am thinking correctly, a standard dryer plug here in the US is a 240V, correct? If I am able to reach the dryer plug in the laundry room how long would it need to charge for roughly? Thanks for your help! I wouldn't be able to install anything as I am currently renting the house I am in.

The 240V dryer plug is probably a 30 amp plug that would add 22 miles of range per hour. If you could use that plug or have a similar plug installed in your garage, your car will charge much faster than with the basic wall outlet and your experience will be much better. Here is a document that shows the charging speed for various outlets...

Mobile Connector | Tesla Support

Mobile Connector is useful when you’re away from home and on extended trips. View the charging speed based on your model and adapter.

www.tesla.com

 

[jjrandorin]

Yes, it is, haha. And I really wouldn't mind doing that, it's just a small inconvenience, haha.

Its not just a small inconvenience, those plugs are not made to be plugged and unplugged repeatedly like that. The outlet (dryer outlet) that is used for most dryer plugs is made to be plugged in and left there for a few years until you get a new dryer. The springs in the outlet will quickly wear out.

At a minimum, you would want to replace the outlet with a high quality outlet (thats at the very minimum). You are also likely going to be looking at some sort of extension cord, but you dont want to just go pick one of those up from home depot.

EV charging is (usually) the highest continuous load someone plugs in, and many times people normalize electricity because "we just plug it in and it works". You can certainly use the dryer plug, but not at the same time you use the dryer (fairly obviously). You could get something like a dryer buddy which lets you share that outlet, but I get the impression that the dryer is inside home (thus the questions about "how long will I need to charge" because you are planning on simply draping the cord through a door or something.

It feels like you are trying to see "how long will I need to drape this cord through the door", and my comment was to let you know that that isnt a good plan. You likely want to ask whoever you are renting from can you put an outlet for charging in the garage. If you pay for it, they will likely let you do it, since you cant take it with you and it improves their property.

 

[danarcha]

Hello,

I have been wanting a Tesla for ever! I am getting to the point where I want to possible purchase one however, like most, I am nervous regarding charging. I looking at a possible 2019 Tesla Model 3 with ~24,000 miles. I have standard plugs in my garage and a dryer plug in my laundry room which is next to the garage separated by a door. What would the charging times be for trickle charging and the dryer charging? Say from near empty to "full". Also, my current energy rate is at 8.5 cents and I am thinking correctly, it takes 50 Kw to "fully" charge a Tesla. So would this equal up to $4.25 to "fully" charge up my Tesla? I currently drive ~30 minutes to work and ~30 minutes back for a total time of ~1 hour on the road 5-6 days out of the week which also comes out to about ~20 miles there and ~ 20 miles back for ~40 miles 5-6 days out of the week. So how often would I need to charge (and even given some leisure driving, haha) Thanks in advanced for the help!

I'll mention one other thing since no one has said it yet... If you drive in a cold climate in the winter, you will use up much more range than the actual physical miles you are driving. I see you are in Texas, so maybe you are in a place that doesn't get very cold, but if you are in northern Texas, you might have some cold nights and days during winter. On those days, your 40 miles of driving might deplete 60 or 70 miles of range. In that situation, you might not get enough range added by a basic wall outlet overnight to make up for what you used during the day.

 

[XPsionic]

Meh, it's no worries using a normal 120v outlet in your situation. Say you come home from work at like 7pm and leave at 6am. That's 11 hours @ 5mph charge. So that's potentially 55 miles of charge for a 40 mile commute.

Even if you lose 10 miles of net range a day for whatever reason cuz you can't charge fast enough, after a week your 260 mile range at max charge is now 210 by Friday evening (so say, 170 miles range left after your 40 mile commute). If you're not commuting on Saturday or Sunday, then your car will be topped up. And say if you are going somewhere, no big deal, go hit up a Supercharger on the way to shops or whatever and top it up for 20-30 minutes.

Let's say you don't even supercharge at all. So you start the 2nd week at 180 mile range left for example, you lose another 50 miles of range during the week cuz you only charge like 6 hours a night, you're still at 130 mile range left. You probably have time to hit up a supercharger by then right? If not, hell, leave it for the 3rd week.

Anyway as you can see, it's not really a problem at all.

 

[charlieaf92]

You'll be surprised how little of your battery you use on a normal day. I keep my car plugged in whenever it is in the garage, and it rarely needs more than an hour or two to get back to the 70% level that I set it at. That being said, I have the Tesla wall charger. It was $500 + installation costs (and both are eligible for a partial tax credit). My install costs were about $300-400 but I can't remember the exact figure. I installed it myself, but had to buy a ton of heavy gauge wire to run 40 feet up and over the garage from the breaker box to where I wanted the charger. Wire can be really expensive. The Tesla wall charger is definitely the route I would recommend - trust me, you don't want to go through the hassle of plugging into your dryer outlet and running the cable every single day (and charging daily is recommended). Using the 30amp dryer plug won't be an issue from a time standpoint, you'll easily be able to re-charge each night without issue, it will just be inconvenient. You could get an extra 30amp dryer plug installed fairly inexpensively though. I view plugging into 120v as an emergency feature (you get like 2-4 miles for each hour depending on temperature), as it is very slow and really only useful for overnight charging at best.

Best of luck with your purchase.

 

[frankusb]

Yes, it is, haha. And I really wouldn't mind doing that, it's just a small inconvenience, haha.

You could consider something like a Dryer Buddy.

 

[BeeGood]

So if I am thinking correctly, a standard dryer plug here in the US is a 240V, correct? If I am able to reach the dryer plug in the laundry room how long would it need to charge for roughly? Thanks for your help! I wouldn't be able to install anything as I am currently renting the house I am in.

Yup the dryer plug is 240V. That also falls in the category of “Level 2 Charging” (most public/destination chargers are Level 2). Level 3 is something like a supercharging station.

I agree with @jjrandorin, you probably don’t want to be plugging in and out of the 240V plug in the laundry room everyday, it’s not good for the plug. But, as @danarcha said, I can’t imagine that the landlord would object to you paying a licensed electrician to put another plug on the garage-side of that wall. It shouldn’t cost you more than a few hundred bucks and your utility company might offer rebates for installing an “EV charger” at home (Georgia Power gave me a $250 rebate when I had a 240V outlet installed after they were satisfied with my explanation that I was using it to charge my M3).

But, if you don’t want to do that, then you can make it work with the standard wall outlet. You just need to be mindful of your SOC and take advantage of all of your opportunities to plug in. It’s an extra chore IMO and I wouldn’t want to go back to doing it that way but, again, it’s doable.

Oh, and you’re mostly correct about calculated energy costs. It’s basically your cost per kWh times your consumption but there is a small amount of waste from your wall to the wheels. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I think you only get (on average) like 90% of the kWh you pay for due to heat loss (I think?). But yeah, your calculation is a good ball park figure (excluding taxes/fees).

Lastly, congrats! I’ve learned over the past year that owning a Tesla is just as much an adventure as it is owning a shiny pretty car. So enjoy it!

 

[Nichigo]

Congrats on the upcoming purchase

I have almost the exact same commute as you, and I can say with full confidence that you do not want to use the expected range calculations to project whether you'll have enough charge or not. Using the standard wall outlet will leave you a very slim margin for charging enough for your commute...and any given day can set you back depending on the conditions. Cold, wind, road conditions, traffic, etc will give you a huge swing in the range you get. Someone earlier mentioned charging 11 hours to get 55 miles for a 40 mile commute...that means half the day you would not be able to drive the car at all, and you are banking the 55 mile range estimation to really get you 40 miles. That's a big gamble. As great as these cars are, the reality is that you will get far less than the rated mileage on a regular basis...so you want as much buffer as possible. For the same commute, I charge every night to 80% to ensure I can stay within the 20%-80% recommended charge and also give me buffer to drive to other destinations if needed. I have the 240/32A wall connector.

I would recommend the same as @jjrandorin - ask the owner if you can pay to have a wall connector installed and agree that you'll also pay to have it removed if/when you move out (you'll want to keep it anyway). This is the best solution. If this isn't viable, then you should plan to do a combination of wall charging and Supercharging to meet your goals. Even if you exclusively supercharge, you're still going to be paying less than gas

Good luck!

 

[XPsionic]

I don't understand the fear of not having a full battery. Even if you continuously drain the battery 10% a day because you can't charge fast enough, the by the of the week you'll have 30-40%. Is it that difficult or impractical to visit a supercharger once a week?

If you have a L2 charger and you plug it in every time you park at home, how much more convenient is it really vs using L1 that you also plug in everyday?

The thing is, if you even have 1 day a week where you can plug the car in for 16 hours, you're gonna keep the battery topped up anyway and you won't even need to make a supercharger stop at all.

 

[jjrandorin]

I don't understand the fear of not having a full battery. Even if you continuously drain the battery 10% a day because you can't charge fast enough, the by the of the week you'll have 30-40%. Is it that difficult or impractical to visit a supercharger once a week?

If you have a L2 charger and you plug it in every time you park at home, how much more convenient is it really vs using L1 that you also plug in everyday?

The thing is, if you even have 1 day a week where you can plug the car in for 16 hours, you're gonna keep the battery topped up anyway and you won't even need to make a supercharger stop at all.

Do you have L2 charging? Are you on time of use electricity rates that dictate that to get the cheapest price you need to charge between midnight and 6am?

 

[webwarmiller]

My advice is to install a NEMA 14-50 outlet in your garage. Call around and get some quotes; don't mention it's for Tesla as that doesn't matter and many electricians like to gouge for EV related installs. Depending on your panel's location the cost might not be much at all. It's well worth it to have a dedicated breaker for charging at L2 speeds.

 

[Dmagyar]

Yes, it is, haha. And I really wouldn't mind doing that, it's just a small inconvenience, haha.

I’d be curious enough to check what type of existing wring is installed for your dryer plug, (possibly aluminum which isn’t optimum), but think a new run done in the appropriate copper conductors, complete with plug in the garage should be what you eventually chose. That 240/30 amp circuit will charge at 22/miles per hour of charging... good luck, you’ll love the car.