HPWC vs. others + questions (new S60D owner)

[DarkMatter]

The two kinds of waste in charging are overhead, which wastes power at low charging speed, and heat generated in the batteries, which wastes power at high charging speed. I think the default charging is 40A because it is a very good balance between the two. Either way you still don't need to worry about the home theater setup as it can't draw enough power for long enough without deafening you. The real concern will probably be those air conditioners and hot tub. Do some calculations and you should be set at 40A. I had to do similar calculations to support getting both of my charging setups in place since there are currently two EVs in the house with a third to come.

 

[JCL123]

I got about $540 back on the installation of my two NEMA 14-50 outlets. It's pretty easy as all you have to do is fill out the amount you paid for the installation of the alternative fuel vehicle infrastructure. I probably only entered one more number in TurboTax to claim the tax credit.

Interesting. Did you do this in the same year that you bought the car? Because others have said that you might not get it if you are also claiming the $7,500 credit on the car.

JCL

 

[JCL123]

My two more cents on this...

Cent 1: One UMC is plenty. Before I got my Model S I assumed I would want to keep the UMC in the car and have a stationary EVSE mounted in my garage (or a second UMC semi-permanently installed in the garage). But now that I've been driving the car for nine months I feel very differently. I've only actually put the UMC in my car twice for long trips and didn't come close to needing to use it either time. The range of the car is really impressive, and in a real pinch I could find a charging station and use the J1772 adapter. Even in an EV-hostile state like Michigan, locating public charging is usually possible, if not convenient. And hey, you can always toss the single UMC in your car in those very rare cases where you might need it. Mine is mounted overhead in the garage but even removing it from that setup takes just a few minutes.

Cent 2: High speed charging at home isn't useful. My car is the older high-wattage charger style: dual 40-amp chargers for 80 amps max charging. I typically drive about 100 miles per day and often hit 150 miles in a day. Lately my car has been forcing my charging current draw down to 30 instead of the usual 40 amps on my UMC (not sure why -- waiting on Tesla for some assistance) so recovering that 100 miles' worth of range takes over five hours. But that has never been a problem, not even once. It's hard to imagine a scenario where 5 hours to recover 100 miles at home is a problem. It's usually nearly finished charging by the time I go to bed.

Bonus cent: DarkMatter said faster charging is less efficient, but I think that's incorrect. If you play around with Tesla's charging calculator you can see that faster charging uses less electricity and is thus more efficient. Still, it's negligible and probably not worth upgrading from 30 or 40 amps to something higher to save a percent or two in charge efficiency.

Final cent and I'll shut up: An EVSE with fancy networked features is not necessary when you're charging a Tesla. The car lets you remotely start and stop charging with the app and lets you schedule charging from inside the car. I definitely wouldn't suggest a networked EVSE for use with a Tesla.

Thank you very much Joe. I was about to drop $500+ on a second cable or charger, but you and others have convinced me just to stick with the one it comes with and the NEMA 14-50. Hell, you are driving 100 miles a day, I don't use my car to commute, I ride my bicycle or take the subway. So my car could even charge during the day when I am generating solar power.

So, if this is working fine for you, it is a no-brainer for me.

Ditto for the "fancy" chargers... I am an IT guy and a sucker for fancy gadgets, but I can still recognize this is good advice and I will stay away. I can always get one in the future if I find a reason that it is worth it, and at that point I will have my car and be familiar with what it does and does not do.

So, maybe I will save this money toward a battery upgrade, or some kind of paint protection.

Many thanks.

-JCL

 

[JCL123]

YMMV with regards to "needing" a high power charger at home. In 3 1/2 years, there have been a handful of times where I charged during the day and was glad I had high power. Things like forgot to charge the night before, had to do a lot of driving in one day and night, etc.

Yup, I am sure this will happen to me too, sooner or later. But I think I can live with it.

 

[JCL123]

One of the other factors in evaluating that at home is what other backup plans are available? If there is a Supercharger in your city, maybe that does cover the 1 or 2 times a year that fast charge at home might have been useful.

I need to check, there is a service center just one town over, about a 15-minute drive or so. I assume it is likely they have superchargers there? Maybe.

If so, then this would do that for me.

-JCL

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Interesting. Did you do this in the same year that you bought the car? Because others have said that you might not get it if you are also claiming the $7,500 credit on the car.

JCL

Nope. I claimed the infrastructure tax credit this year and will claim the $7500 tax credit next year after taking delivery later this year.

 

[JCL123]

The two kinds of waste in charging are overhead, which wastes power at low charging speed, and heat generated in the batteries, which wastes power at high charging speed. I think the default charging is 40A because it is a very good balance between the two. Either way you still don't need to worry about the home theater setup as it can't draw enough power for long enough without deafening you. The real concern will probably be those air conditioners and hot tub. Do some calculations and you should be set at 40A. I had to do similar calculations to support getting both of my charging setups in place since there are currently two EVs in the house with a third to come.

I did not think about that issue with the charging speed, but it makes sense now that you explain it. It does make me more comfortable. I am assuming it is better for battery longevity as well, yes?

On the home theater, I could see *maybe* when I initially power up the system, and there is an in-rush of current as the amplifier capacitors charge up, but other than that you are probably right. After I do my calculations, I will decide if I need to upgrade my service to 200A or not, it looks like that will cost about $2,500.

I think the subwoofers are the only thing that could really draw allot of power, because you don't hear those low frequencies, you feel them. So you can actually hit a high SPL with them, and it can take quite a bit of power to produce <80Hz material. But you are right, you could not be in the room with the amps turned up that loud, and even then I think the speakers would blow before you reached appreciable power draw.

JCL

 

[JCL123]

Nope. I claimed the infrastructure tax credit this year and will claim the $7500 tax credit next year after taking delivery later this year.

Heh, maybe I will have my electrician make me a bill in January ;-)

 

[DarkMatter]

I've filled a 700 seat room with bass on a single fifteen amp circuit using pro audio equipment. Breakers are designed to allow moments of inrush since they happen with all sorts of equipment. Sounds like a plan for 30A or 40A charging will work well.

 

[BrokerDon]

I have a fairly large home theater system who power is regulated / conditioned by a Monster Power Signature AVS 2000. This Monster has large capacitors which kick in whenever there is a current rush from our Martin Logan Depth subwoofer, Martin Logan Vantage main speakers, Denon AVR-3311Ci receiver and Panasonic 65" plasma HDTV. It kicks in during every voltage dip (and we have a lot). The Monster has worked flawlessly in 2 homes for 10+ years, and both homes had sketchy power.

I also have a Belkin 5-stage PureFilter for our low amperage devices: TiVo Premiere XL, Panasonic Smart 3D Bluray player, Cisco 8-port SD-2008 gigabit Ethernet switch, AppleTV, 802.11ac access point, etc.

Needless to say a comparable home theater grade voltage regulating device would probably be a lower cost alternative than a power panel upgrade.

YMMV

 

[Rocky_H]

I need to check, there is a service center just one town over, about a 15-minute drive or so. I assume it is likely they have superchargers there? Maybe.

No, generally not likely. The vast majority of the service centers do not have Superchargers at their locations. They're just very different things as far as where they need to be. Superchargers need to be easily highway accessible and near restaurants/shopping. That isn't a consideration at all for where their service centers are, so they usually are not in the same places. But you don't have to wonder. Just go look at the "Find Us" page on Tesla's website to see where the service centers and Superchargers are.

 

[JCL123]

I've filled a 700 seat room with bass on a single fifteen amp circuit using pro audio equipment. Breakers are designed to allow moments of inrush since they happen with all sorts of equipment. Sounds like a plan for 30A or 40A charging will work well.

Maybe I will stick my WattsUp on one of my subs and turn the logging on through a whole movie, now I am curious.

But I am betting you are right.

-JCL

 

[JCL123]

I have a fairly large home theater system who power is regulated / conditioned by a Monster Power Signature AVS 2000. This Monster has large capacitors which kick in whenever there is a current rush from our Martin Logan Depth subwoofer, Martin Logan Vantage main speakers, Denon AVR-3311Ci receiver and Panasonic 65" plasma HDTV. It kicks in during every voltage dip (and we have a lot). The Monster has worked flawlessly in 2 homes for 10+ years, and both homes had sketchy power.

OK, not looking to go too far off topic (or turn this into AVS forum), and I have nothing against Monster or their products, but note that those power conditioners they sell are just very fancy line conditioners and/or isolation transformers with a few extra features. For a fraction of the cost of one of those, you can just get a line conditioner/isolation transformer (depending on the issues you are trying to solve). Tripp Lite is an excellent example:
Power Conditioners | Tripp Lite

Just, very boring looking compared to the Monster product.

I also switched to Blue Jeans Cable (Blue Jeans Cable -- Quality Cables at Reasonable Prices), but I used to use allot of Monster cable in my setup.

Right now I am using an APC RT series double-conversion UPS. It actually out-performs some of the stuff I have tested that was "made for home theater" in so far as line noise and such. I put all the non-amplifier type stuff on it, especially the projector so that bulb doesn't explode in a power outage. The only issue with it is that it is noisy at high loads, so it is located in another room.

For the new theater I am currently building, I am going to have my electrician put in one of these:
ground1.com - Power Distribution

That will give me full isolation for the whole thing, and I will still use the UPS as well.

Needless to say a comparable home theater grade voltage regulating device would probably be a lower cost alternative than a power panel upgrade.

Note also that, in the scenario I am describing, a line conditioner type device would actually make things worse. Yes it could offer *some* dampening of the transients when you turn equipment on, but that is not specifically what they are designed to do. When you draw more load on the equipment side, they will draw more current on the mains side in order to maintain 120V on the equipment side. This protects your equipment, but it does also increase the draw on the breakers in your electric panel, not decrease.

I will only do the panel / line upgrade if the combined car+theater+central AC+everything else actually becomes a problem. I am going to buy one of these Sense power monitors (Sense - Home Energy Monitor) to actually see how close I am. It would be great if I can fit everything into 100A service. And from the information provided on this forum, I am comfortable that I probably won't ever need the 78A charging for the car.

-JCL

 

[JCL123]

No, generally not likely. The vast majority of the service centers do not have Superchargers at their locations. They're just very different things as far as where they need to be. Superchargers need to be easily highway accessible and near restaurants/shopping. That isn't a consideration at all for where their service centers are, so they usually are not in the same places. But you don't have to wonder. Just go look at the "Find Us" page on Tesla's website to see where the service centers and Superchargers are.

Yup, not shown as a supercharger on the map. And yes, it is right in the middle of a town, not near a highway.

So my nearest one is a good 30 minute drive.

-JCL

 

[lilyl_green]

Maybe this piece about power conditioners can be helpful?
How a power conditioner can increase the operational lifespan of your equipment

They can help maintain the voltage and frequency within normal tolerances and minimize interference.
-Lily

 

[DarkMatter]

They would be perfectly useless on a Tesla, or really any EV. The internal charger is switch mode and will happily run off of very dirty power with no concerns at all.