Help with charging near Palo Alto CA

[user497]

Hi all, I just moved from Connecticut to Palo Alto. In CT, I was using my 240V charger but the house I moved into doesn't have the NEMA outlet I need (and the electrical system would need to be upgraded but that's a separate problem). Unfortunately it turns out that my 120V yellow charger which I haven't used in years appears to be broken. I called Tesla a couple times and left voicemails but I haven't had time to escalate with them yet as I am swamped with my new job. Can anyone on this forum that lives nearby help me out by letting me charge up (I currently only have around 50 miles left) until I have time to sort this out with Tesla?

As an aside, my current thinking is that I will order the CAN JR and mostly charge from ChargePoint facilities at work. Does that sound like a reasonable strategy if I can't get a 240V outlet at the house (I am renting).

Thanks,
Josh

 

[gregd]

I did the charge-at-work thing with the CAN JR for several years, and it worked out pretty well. Round trip work to home and back was about 60 miles, and they gave me 4 hrs of charging free per day. It took 3 hrs to replenish that, so I was good. 30 amps, 208 volts. The CAN JR is flawless, and sits in the cup holder when not in use.

That said, there were times that I needed to charge at home (weekend use, mostly), and the scheduling of when to put the car on the charger such that I wouldn't be in a meeting when it was done got to be a bit of a hassle. And, the charging stations were way oversubscribed, so getting a spot when I wanted one wasn't guaranteed. So, it kind of depends on your work and driving patterns for how well it will work for you.

Best wishes, and welcome to California!

 

[dmode]

Hi all, I just moved from Connecticut to Palo Alto. In CT, I was using my 240V charger but the house I moved into doesn't have the NEMA outlet I need (and the electrical system would need to be upgraded but that's a separate problem). Unfortunately it turns out that my 120V yellow charger which I haven't used in years appears to be broken. I called Tesla a couple times and left voicemails but I haven't had time to escalate with them yet as I am swamped with my new job. Can anyone on this forum that lives nearby help me out by letting me charge up (I currently only have around 50 miles left) until I have time to sort this out with Tesla?

As an aside, my current thinking is that I will order the CAN JR and mostly charge from ChargePoint facilities at work. Does that sound like a reasonable strategy if I can't get a 240V outlet at the house (I am renting).

Thanks,
Josh

Hi Josh - You could have charged up at my place, but it is on the other side of the Bay. You can also drive up to one of the San Mateo Superchargers and charge there as well. I think the new one in Fashion Island Boulevard is relatively less busy.

 

[ggr]

Hi Josh - You could have charged up at my place, but it is on the other side of the Bay. You can also drive up to one of the San Mateo Superchargers and charge there as well. I think the new one in Fashion Island Boulevard is relatively less busy.

Can't charge a roadster at a supercharger. Or are there also HPWCs at those stations?

 

[supersnoop]

When the yellow cord is broken, it’s tupically just the gfci plug. You can cut it off and replace it with a new one from Home Depot for about $5.

 

[bonnie]

Can't charge a roadster at a supercharger. Or are there also HPWCs at those stations?

I don't think he has the adapter for that yet. Right now he either needs to borrow a yellow 120 cord or find a Roadster HPC in the wild.

 

[bonnie]

When the yellow cord is broken, it’s tupically just the gfci plug. You can cut it off and replace it with a new one from Home Depot for about $5.

I completely removed the GFCI plug from my cord - it was throwing faults and stopping charging when plugged into an outdoor GFCI plug.

 

[bonnie]

@user497

Josh -

There are a few private Roadster-head HPC's within range of you that I found on PlugShare (using the filter 'Roadster plug' and 'Palo Alto'.) I'd recommend logging into PlugShare and contacting the owners who have been nice enough to list their plug.

PlugShare Web v2

 

[bonnie]

@user497

Also, call and check first - but I seem to remember that the Tesla Palo Alto store had a few Roadster HPCs outside. If not, they may have an adapter you can borrow to charge while you get this sorted out.

Their contact info:

Tesla
4180 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306

650-681-5800

 

[user497]

Thanks for the help everyone. Bonnie, I had looked at PlugShare before I posted this thread but I didn't realize there was a "residential filter" option that needed to be enabled so thank you for that.

I had called the Tesla number a couple times and I either spoke to someone from Sales that wasn't helpful or was directed to a service voicemail and was never called back. My wife was able to go to the Tesla location in person this afternoon and they couldn't have been more helpful. They also first suspected the GFCI plug and are recommending we replace that first before buying a new cable. However they said that they made 3 versions of the yellow cable and we still have the very oldest one (that is apparently much heavier than the other 2 versions) so they weren't 100% sure it would work. They were able to find a spare yellow charger that they loaned us to use. It recharges about 5 miles per hour so we will return it on Saturday at this rate

I haven't heard back from Henry who sells the CAN JRs but it seems like that option is strongly recommended by people on this forum so I think I'll still purchase one of those so I have more flexibility moving forward.

Thanks again,
Josh

 

[gregd]

Henry has two versions of his CAN adapter. The CAN-JR goes from the standard J1772 (the common Level 2 charger) to the Roadster, and the CAN-SR will charge from the Tesla wall charger (often found as a "destination" charger). Some hotels and such will have some of both kinds, so if you can afford it, I recommend getting both adapters. The Tesla chargers tend to be a higher power, but the J1772 chargers tend to be more common in the wild.

I've also used the SR model at a Tesla store when traveling, as they often use the wall chargers for the sales staff to charge their demo cars. Ask nicely, and they'll usually let you charge (in exchange for having your bit of history on display!).

 

[PV-EV]

Nothing special about the spare mobile connector. No pilot signal, no electronics. As suggested up thread cut the GFCI plug off the end and replace it. Expect about 4 miles per hour of charging. Then get a Can Jr and Can Sr!

 

[Chris Lockfort]

Sorry for not being very up to date at reading the forum, but you're welcome to charge at my place in Palo Alto. (I'm the guy with a roadster charger on plugshare at the corner of Greer and Oregon). Just give me a heads up with a Tesla forums or plugshare message to make sure someone is home first.

Additionally, you can borrow my yellow cable (which I've already modded to remove the GFCI, as it has a little too much ground test leakage for chargepoint chargers...), and I can even look at your yellow cable if you'd like to see what's wrong, if Tesla isn't being helpful about it.

 

[TEG]

I think those HPCs at the Palo Alto Tesla store are all Model S plugs. With Henry's CAN-Sr you could use those, but otherwise not Roadster native I think.

There used to be a bunch of Roadster HPCs up at Tesla HQ on Deer Creek Rd, but they have been replacing them with S type plugs so may be down to just 1 or 2.
You might be able to stop by there and park in their guest lot if you were desperate, but they probably wouldn't want you to keep coming back regularly.

Plug-share will show you lots of 208/240V 30 AMP J1772 charging stations around town. If you get a J1772 adapter (either Tesla Cable or Henry's CAN-Jr) then you would find plenty of public places to charge. Most of them charge a fee for use so you would need to get an account with the various services like Chargepoint, Blink, Semaconnect, etc.
Many of the Palo Alto city parking garages have some of those stations... Usually chargepoint.

 

[hcsharp]

There used to be a bunch of Roadster HPCs up at Tesla HQ on Deer Creek Rd, but they have been replacing them with S type plugs so may be down to just 1 or 2.
You might be able to stop by there and park in their guest lot if you were desperate, but they probably wouldn't want you to keep coming back regularly.

I was there about 2 mo ago and they had at least 2 Roadster HPC and there were 4 Roadsters sharing them.