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This information is incorrect.Romex cannot be run in a conduit. There is too much thermal insulation and the wire will get hotter and may exceed its rating. If there is a fire, don’t expect the insurance company to cover. Romex is to be used INSIDE walls without conduit. I used AWG4 XHHN-2 inside 1” EMT. You can also use flexible conduit if that is easier. Make sure you have a permit for the work before you start.
Romex cannot be run in a conduit. There is too much thermal insulation and the wire will get hotter and may exceed its rating. If there is a fire, don’t expect the insurance company to cover. Romex is to be used INSIDE walls without conduit. I used AWG4 XHHN-2 inside 1” EMT. You can also use flexible conduit if that is easier. Make sure you have a permit for the work before you start.
I'm glomming onto this thread for one specific clarification: I'm having an electrician install a 14-50 outlet tomorrow to use with the Universal Connector. I may want to upgrade to the Wall Charger at some point, but I'm pretty the Universal will work fine for me. To save money, I'm going to buy the wire and do the manual labor of crawling under the house and running it from panel to outlet. What exact wire should I buy to use with the Universal Connector - and possibly later with the Wall Charger? Thanks.
If you can use Romex in your area (aka Type NM-B cable), and you want a 50 amp breaker for your 14-50, buy 6/3 Romex.
If you want the Wall Connector to be set to use a 50 amp breaker, stick with the above.
If you want the Wall Connector to have a 60 amp breaker, which will let the M3 charge at its max 48 amps, you'll need 4/3 Romex and a 60 amp breaker. But while the 14-50 outlet is in place, you are required to use no more than a 50 amp breaker. So if you think you'd want 48 amp charging with the Wall Connector, buy 4/3 Romex and use it with your 14-50 outlet and 50 amp breaker. Then, when you get the Wall Connector, swap out the breaker for a 60 amp breaker and wire the Wall Connector in place of the 14-50 outlet.
I'm not sure it's that simple, THHN and romex can have different heat ratings, not sure how important this is to code but you wouldn't want to exceed the lower of the two ratings.. I had my electrician run 4awg THHN all the way to the panel on the far side of the house. The downside to this is that you have to pay upfront of an extra wire.I think what is normally done in these situations is to run romex to a junction box where you connect the conduit to. Then you run THHN wire in the conduit, and romex in the exposed basement, and wire nut the runs together in the junction box.
Honestly, I would go ahead and just install the Wall Connector now. It is a more robust charging set up.
But yes, you can still install a 50A breaker if you use heavier gauge wire. I think the 4 gauge should still fit in the receptacle and breaker lugs.
Never rely on the breaker tripping. It is very much a last resort kind of thing. And they don’t trip immediately on a 50% or whatever overload. They only trip immediately on a dead short circuit (if they are working properly). 10kW is an amazing amount of power. I mean, a regular 120V, 15A circuit can weld wires together on a short. Imagine what 60A/240V can do (8x more power).
So, yes, a 100 amp or whatever sub panel would be the most future proof. Two 8 gauge 40A circuits would also work.
If you have 4 gauge wire and the capacity to increase the breaker in your main panel to 80 amps, you could install a sub-panel and put two 40 amp breakers in the sub-panel wired to two 14-50 outlets. The Tesla Mobile Connector only pulls 32 amps, so this is safe and code compliant. Of course, using two Tesla Wall Connectors is a better solution, regardless of the amperage (40 or 80 amps) and is compatible with other EVs provided you either change the connector to J1772 or use a Tesla to J1772 adapter.
Not critically important but just thought I should update on my decision. May help someone. I had the electrician come out and he said that 4 AWG wire would be "a lot of money" and encouraged me to do 6 AWG wire. He wanted to install MC cable as it would require less labor cost compared to bending conduit etc. He measured about a 75 foot run and quoted me $1900 to put in a wall connector. That price doe NOT include the actual wall connector. He told me that if he would put in a 14-50 outlet it would need to be GFCI and would cost $400-$500 for just the outlet so it would make more sense to just put in the wall connector. This sounds like bull$#!& to me but I'm not certain. He was convincing. Supposedly, he put in a regular 14-50 outlet in a garage previously and it did not pass inspection. I was shocked at the price and decided to not place myself over a barrel and instead decided to do this job myself. I have a scientific background and understand electricity so it was simple to do a small amount of research online and order the supplies and do it myself. I did sacrifice my time and spent about one full Saturday installing, cleaning up etc. I actually enjoy this stuff, so it made sense for me, but if someone else is a highly paid and not interested in a project, then just let the electrician perform a wallet-ectomy and move on. So, as I said the electrician quoted $1900 for the wire and breaker and I was supposed to provide my own wall connector ($500). With the wall connector it would have cost me a total of $2400. Instead I upgraded to 4/3 MC cable and did the project for $312.50 for everything including permit except the wall connector. With Wall connector total is $812.50. I measured correctly and it was actually 50 foot run NOT 75 feet. Oh yeah, I had to pay the electrician $59 to come out and give me the quote also.
Breakdown of my DIY wall connector install:
-Tesla Wall Connector $500
-50' MC 4/3 cable $179+$26 shipping= $204.50 @Wesbell
-CH 80 Amp 2-pole circuit breaker @ Pacific Coast Breaker $45.00.
- Hubbel-Raco 3304DB double bite saddle connectors 1 in. Got 5 for $20.00 @Amazon (highly recommend not cheaping out on on these - the saddle connectors are super solid and not going to slip)
- Cable straps 1 hole $7 (Home depot)
Acoustic sealant - to seal the repair to the vapor barrier
Great stuff foam - to help repair insulation and fill holes
Permit and inspection $36.
So now I am Happy Camping with a Wall Connector set to 64 Amps and is certainly future proofed for any other Tesla I buy. It charges my car super fast and is just fantastic to have zero anxiety about charging. I am glad I didn't give all my hard earned cash to the electrician and end up with some jerry rigged set up just to save some money.
One thing I want to complain about is what an absolute bear it was to get 4 gauge wire into the wall connector. Hand to God, I spent about one freaking hour just trying to get the wires into the 240V wire terminals. It is so stupidly narrow. The wire has to be perfectly round. I even removed one wire in each connector to get it to fit (4 gauge wire is about 8 individual wires bundled together). Stupid design. To compare, the breaker terminal was incredibly easy to get the wire connected. The breaker has a capacious space to insert the wire. Took less than 2 minutes. Tesla really botched that design on the wall connector. I don't know how in the hell anybody will get 3 AWG wire in there.