Charging with standard 15amp?

[Koolio46]

This. I swapped my mother's 5-15 outlet with a 5-20 when delivering her Model 3 last year, and it's been fine for her. (Garaged, 20-75 miles/day on average.) It doesn't seem like a big jump going from 12A (1.4 kW) to 16A (1.9 kW), but it's a 33% boost, and more like a 50% jump in actual energy delivered to the battery since the ancillary energy costs (fans, computers, etc) are fixed. 100% of the additional power goes to the battery. If your home has a 20A breaker and 12ga wiring, it's a 5-minute job to swap the outlet.

Caveat: know what you're doing, use a $10 outlet tester to check your work, and ensure that if this is a circuit with multiple outlets on it, you don't actually use the other outlets while the car is charging. If you're unsure but you think it'll work (you have a 20A breaker), hire an electrician for one hour to verify and swap the outlet.

This is exactly what I did. Had an existing 20amp circuit in my garage (was used only for the garage door opener), had an electrician change it to a 240v / 20amp circuit with the 6-20 outlet, and moved the garage door to the 15amp circuit (used for the lights and 2 other outlets in the garage).

Prior to this, I was using the 5-15 outlet (110v) for about a week and the increased charging speed is def noticeable. The speed is just right for me since I don’t drive every day.

I only went this route because my panel is in my condo two floors up from my garage so it would’ve been super expensive to add a 40 or 50amp circuit...plus, the fact that’d I’d have to ask my downstairs neighbors if they’d let the electrician punch some holes in their wall to run some wiring. Lol

 

[jeremymc7]

Here in California I think current code requires the garage to be installed on a dedicated circuit and the opener even has to have a dedicated battery backup.

The last time I did a garage door and opener neither was required. When I put the new one in they said they either had to remove the lights that wired in on the same circuit or not wire not “plug in” the opener. Needless to say it was plugged in after they walked out.

 

[FrunkLover]

For those of you in condos, how do you/do you deal with reimbursing for electricity cost if it’s an outlet available to all those who access the garage?

 

[jeremymc7]

In many cases you have to pay for a separate metered outlet. Often times with you billed direct by utility. Charging a car off a condo garage outlet is likely to be problematic for various reasons.