I live in Canada and my Tesla's onboard charger can accept at most...

[rypalmer]

Running a quick poll to validate my onboard charger max amperage assumptions for a project I am working on.

If you drive a refreshed S or X and yours can take more than 48A, I want to speak with you as to your motivation for purchasing the upgrade and how that's worked out for you. And what your parking/charging situation is like.

 

[DMC-Orangeville]

40 amp on-board charger, and I've never needed bigger. Charge overnight at home and destination chargers.....use Superchargers everywhere else.

 

[ShawnA]

Hi Rypalmer,

I bought the second charger installed in the car at delivery.
It's my wife's car 2015 S 85D Midnight Blue.
It will charge at 80 amp with the original wall connector which is installed in our garage.
We live in Southern Michigan.

I wanted her to have the capability to return from driving or a trip and have the maximum normal
range restored as quickly as possible.

It charges at 80 amps at 59 or 60 mph charge rate.
It is probably overkill. She has not complained about it.

Shawn

 

[sakimano]

mine shows 40 (2015 P90D single charger), but is capped at 32A because of a change in the included tesla charger cord from the one that previously supported 40A. This is apparently a Canadian thing..anyone else notice this?

As a result my 14-50 receptacle in the garage provides only about 34 kms/hr connected whereas on my 70D without that restriction (got the full 40A) I was able to charge at 48 kms/hr.

voted 40

 

[Lasttoy]

My dual chargers get full at a 80 amp spot at hotel.
At home I only get 40, because I only have a 50 amp breaker on 14.50.
Tesla told me dual chargers only work on 100 amp breaker. My house is too old, cannot upgrade.

 

[mknox]

Dual chargers (i.e. 80 amps) was an absolute must when I ordered my car back in 2012. There were no Superchargers yet in Canada and there seemed to be a move afoot to install higher capacity (70 and 80 amp) J1772 stations around. I installed 2-80 amp Sun Country units at my office in Cambridge at the time.

My thinking was that if I needed a charge along my route, I could cut my stop time in half with the higher capacity chargers. I did make use of these higher power stations in places like Orillia and Windsor over the years.

I never needed it at home. In fact, for the first couple of years I only had a 20 amp/240 volt circuit in the garage and charged at 16 amps. As long as I wasn't too low and had enough time, it worked okay. I now have a HPWC on a 50 amp circuit (40 amps delivered).

Today it seems that Superchargers and other DCFC stations are supplanting the need for higher capacity L2 stations. Not sure what I'd do going forward, but still think I'd prefer the security of higher capacity L2 charging.

 

[Phillip L]

I bought the dual chargers back in 2015 because I knew my long distance charging would be mainly driving to Nova Scotia where my wife and I hale from. At the time most of the charging was from J772 chargers and the amount of time saved charging at chargers greater than 40 amps was significant. When we put in our HPWC we had it installed at 100 amps; so even at home we get full advantage from the dual chargers, even if 95% of the time it is not needed.

 

[Canuck]

I couldn't do a trip to my cabin and back in a day without 80 amp charging so it's a must for me. Also, it allows me to arrive and pick up enough range to go out shortly thereafter. It's the same with hotels. People think 40 amps is fine because you stay overnight. Well, if you're anything like me, you like to arrive, unpack, shower, etc. then go out for the night. If you're at a hotel with an 80 amp HPWC (and there's more and more of those being added every day -- even the garden store up the road from me has two 80 amp HPWCs), then you can arrive with a low battery and you can avoid a trip to the supercharger and enjoy your travels instead. Of course, you don't need 80 amp charging very often but when you do it sure is nice to have.

 

[TrevTremaine]

I've not had many chances to use the full charging capability outside of the SCs, but I think it's 2 fold: 1) at 72/80 amp you've got the chance to do a short charge and actually get ahead of what you might have started out with during short trips (ie. say, 15-30 km then charge for 30 minutes), 2) higher charge rates mean more people can get through using the same charger. The latter is less of a concern currently, but now that the 3 is rolling out, I wonder how long people will be able to drive in and get onto a charger immediately. Thankfully, the Supercharger network is expanding, however, it needs to expand greatly in order to keep up with the projected EVs to be on the road soon enough.

My question about the urban chargers being rolled out: do they need the dual chargers to fully utilize (ie. get full power charges)? Anybody know what all the differences are between the 2 types of SuperChargers?

 

[jason.a]

My inventory car (late 2017 75D) came with the upgraded charger included, so it wasn't a conscious choice. I don't regret having it and normally charge at 64A at home (HPWC on a 100A circuit) to keep the charge window short. It's also supposed to be slightly more efficient that way, especially with the bitterly cold temperatures over the last few weeks. I don't do a lot of long road trips, but having the extra charging capacity is nice just in case (at least until we have complete Supercharger coverage).

 

[sauce]

I tried every which way to get the 72A charger from the factory which was no longer possible at the time I ordered the 90D back in June.

I was going to get it custom installed from the Montreal-Ferrier SC before delivery, but was talked out of it by the SC manager. He thought even though I travel a lot and at variable hours it wouldn't be worth the 3k+ to install it. I must admit, so far he's right. I still have the HPWC with a 100A breaker, dialed for a second HPWC connection. That will come to use later when the Model 3 gets delivered in Canada and has everything ironed out and fully reliable.

I guess that was in some ways a case of range anxiety for not knowing what it was to drive a Tesla with its generous range capability.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

We require a stop at a Destination charger on our 1200 mile (round trip) journey to my parents. With the high amperage charger it makes it a quick one hour stop for lunch. With kids, we wanted to reduce charging time as much as possible.

 

[anicolao]

If you drive a refreshed S or X and yours can take more than 48A, I want to speak with you as to your motivation for purchasing the upgrade and how that's worked out for you. And what your parking/charging situation is like.

Model X P90D and Model X 100D both with dual chargers. Most common source of need: drive 300km to or from Muskoka and then want to be able to do something on the other end of that drive. Especially with the P90D the drive would necessitate an hour or more of charing upon arrival before you could go out again -- to buy groceries for example.

I am willing to drive my vehicles down to about 20km of rated range left but at that point you really need to charge and sometimes even 74km/h of charge seems pretty slow. To quantify actual need for the faster charge, I'd say it's not that common -- perhaps once/month. But I didn't spend this kind of money on vehicles to find I can't do what I want every single month, when a relatively small %age cost delta means the vehicle is actually capable of the demands of my use cases.

The faster charging also makes sharing the HPWC more convenient between the two vehicles. If we had the single on board charger, we'd want two HPWC at each location. Cost wise that would be cheaper if the locations weren't 300km apart.

 

[Vawlkus]

From the getgo I always wanted to have the option of 80 amp charging if it was available. Thus, I bought the double chargers even though it’s unlikely I’ll be using them anytime soon.

I charge at my apartment building (it’s a converted house basically), and my landlord was understanding enough to let me have a NEMA 14-50 run from the main panel to my parking spot. There’s a 50 amp breaker in there, but I only have the mobile charger plugged into it, so I charge at 32 amps.

 

[wayner]

I got 80A to alleviate range anxiety when I ordered in Nov 2014. It was kind of a rounding error in the overall price, although still a significant dollar amount. It allows me to charge more quickly at home although I don't do a lot of driving so I don't need that it has ever really saved me time.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

We require a stop at a Destination charger on our 1200 mile (round trip) journey to my parents. With the high amperage charger it makes it a quick one hour stop for lunch. With kids, we wanted to reduce charging time as much as possible.

I didn't notice until this morning that this was Canada only. Well, MN is close enough, right?

 

[PatrickCH4313]

You have very hight amp installation in North America.
In Switzerland we have 16 A / 380 V max (3 phases) installation at home and I can load my Model S at a rate of 66 km/h and mostly at night during the winter.

 

[Paul Carter]

Previously I had a dual charger Model S, so had 80 amps. While visiting destinations this made a big difference for me. I've been able to find most destination wall chargers provide this capacity and made a big difference in arrival and local touring. Without it I would not be able to use the car much upon arrival and after a day of touring a long time to recharge for the evening or the next day activity. As Superchargers have expanded this is a little less impact, but for more remote areas I frequent its been great as it really cuts the time down to continue on.

With my 72 amps Model X, I've rarely use it now. And after coming back from road trips I tend to like to leave my last Supercharging site with just enough to get home, but usually don't go anywhere upon arrival until the next day, so my Wall Charger is only 32 amps and I'm fine.

Hope that helps!

 

[Hugh Mannity]

You have very hight amp installation in North America.
In Switzerland we have 16 A / 380 V max (3 phases) installation at home and I can load my Model S at a rate of 66 km/h and mostly at night during the winter.

You have 380V service at your house?! Wow! Best we can do is 240V that’s why our amperage is higher. 66km/h is excellent; my home charging is about 24 km/h.

 

[PatrickCH4313]

You have 380V service at your house?! Wow! Best we can do is 240V that’s why our amperage is higher. 66km/h is excellent; my home charging is about 24 km/h.

These are old connections for tumbler dryer and washing machine, but now this machines are connected to 240V , so we can use these connections for something else like EV-Charger.