We already have a current gen (assuming Gen 3) wall charger arriving tomorrow and are expecting our MY LR delivery sometime before end of March. How intelligent is the wall charger itself when charging the vehicle? What I mean is, let's say my wife drives 50 miles per day on average - and we set the charger to only charge from 11PM - 4AM every day by default. Will the charger pull only 50/4=12.5 miles of current through the charger over that four hour period? Or will it pull the maximum 48 amp current every time and charge the vehicle for a little more than an hour each night? Apologize in advance if this topic has been covered previously but I did a few searches and couldn't find an answer to these questions.
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How intelligent is the Tesla Wall Charger?
- Thread starter HitchHiker71
- Start date
The charger is in the car. The wall connector is just a connector.
The smart part of the wall connector, is its ability to share the same circuit with another wall connector and balance the circuit amperage between the two wall connectors.
It can also be set to only charge a specific vehicle, or only Tesla vehicles.
E90alex
Active Member
It always charges at maximum current possible. There is no reason for it to reduce current and increase charge time unless it detects a problem with your wiring (eg overheating) that’s preventing it from providing full current.
I don’t believe there is a setting to only allow charging between certain hours. That’s controlled by the vehicle. Best practice is to set scheduled departure with off peak charging. The car will then figure out how long it needs to charge and finish charging by the set off peak end time.
If you don’t have off peak electricity rates then it’s best to still enable off peak charging and set the off peak end time to when you need the car in the morning so the battery is still warm from charging.
I don’t believe there is a setting to only allow charging between certain hours. That’s controlled by the vehicle. Best practice is to set scheduled departure with off peak charging. The car will then figure out how long it needs to charge and finish charging by the set off peak end time.
If you don’t have off peak electricity rates then it’s best to still enable off peak charging and set the off peak end time to when you need the car in the morning so the battery is still warm from charging.
Gotcha. So do the two wall charger devices need to be wired at the same time? Or can you add another wall charger at a later date?
We do have off peak rates from 8PM-12PM where I live. Is setting the off peak charging based on scheduled departure time a calendar based setting? My wife is a nurse and works a two week scheduled rotation. Or is this just something we will need to set in the app each night?
Hmmm that’s interesting. While the vehicle might not have any reason, many people may only have 150 amp panels in their older homes, so allowing for more of a trickle charge overnight would lessen the load on the panel. Even with our 200 amp panel both electricians did warn not to run all of the major appliances that draw 240v circuits at the same time (HVAC, hot water, dryer, car charger, pool heater) or we could trip the main breaker. Fortunately we are down to only one college age child under our roof so this shouldn’t be an issue for us - but it might be for other homeowners.
Curious - why is it more efficient to charge at a faster rate/higher current?
E90alex
Active Member
You will have to change it each night if her schedule varies. If it’s the same each day, then you can set it for the week and forget about it.
Unfortunately Tesla surprisingly does not have the ability to set the schedule per day of the week.
E90alex
Active Member
There is a certain amount of overhead that is lost when charging. There’s probably an optimal range of power that the AC to DC converter is most efficient. Probably the biggest factor is the car is “awake” when charging so it’s running various electronics as well as the cooling system as necessary.
The longer the charge time, the more energy is “wasted” to keep the car awake.
You can add any time, it just needs to be on the same circuit, and you need to put the wall connectors in sharing mode.
Wall Connector Power Sharing | Tesla Support
With Power Sharing, you can allow up to six 3 Wall Connectors to share power and charge multiple vehicles at once. Learn how to set up and troubleshoot Power Sharing.
Technically, to load share among Wall Changers, they don’t actually need to be on the same circuit. You could load share even if they had their own circuit breakers.You can add any time, it just needs to be on the same circuit, and you need to put the wall connectors in sharing mode.
Wall Connector Power Sharing | Tesla Support
With Power Sharing, you can allow up to six 3 Wall Connectors to share power and charge multiple vehicles at once. Learn how to set up and troubleshoot Power Sharing.www.tesla.com
Yeah I figured as much. My wife works MTWFS week one then STWTF the second week - that's her two week rotation. Sounds like we'll just have to change it day by day.
I'll take your word for it. I was just going by Tesla's description.
"...power sharing allows a single electrical circuit to support multiple Gen 3 Wall Connectors..."
I suppose the wall connector doesn't know where the power comes from, as long as they are in WIFI range of each other.
SkyDog
Member
If you want to charge your car only during specific hours, some 3rd part apps can do that. Here's one: Charge your EV for less
davewill
Active Member
Since the install instructions specify that each WC have it's own breaker, technically, they are on separate circuits anyway.
The gen 3 wall connector installation manual actually states it wants you to have separate breakers for each wall connector, even for power sharing. Gen 2s allow you to configure it from the same breaker but gen 3s want their own. Of course, a gen 3 technically can be setup the same way as a gen 2 from a physical standpoint, but doing it that way doesnt follow the installation instructions provided by tesla.
Im not competent enough in electrical stuff to know why, but have always suspected its because the gen 2 does power sharing communication via a physical wire between the wall connector(s), and the Gen 3 relies on wireless communication. Thats pure speculation on my part though.
Separate circuit breakers does not necessarily mean a separate circuit. If they combine into one circuit after the individual breakers, it's still on the same circuit. But I understand your point.
davewill
Active Member
My supposition was that requiring a breaker means using a load center or subpanel which means all the wire connections have proper terminations. If you just allow simple junction boxes, then people might use wire nuts or or worse to splice the second WC into the circuit.
davewill
Active Member
By that logic, everything connected to a subpanel would be on one circuit.
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