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installation of plug for charger, and curious about th HPC 2.0

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I installed a 120v 30amp receptacle in my garage for some ignorant reason many years ago. It was intended as an RV connection for a relative. 240v would have been much more useful. Now I'm going to have to pull all new cabling to the location so I might as well put in the HPC. Not liking the price of 100amp cabling though. :(
 
If there is a charge station somewhere that only has a HPC and I only get the single charger on my car, can I still charge on that HPC (just at a slower rate?). What about the original Tesla Charging Stations?
You should be able to. The HPC can dial back to any rate the Roadster can accept. With the Model S, the new HPCs should be able to charge at the 40A max on the single charger.
 
FWIW, I had 100 amp service (US 240V) at my former house, a NEMA 14-50 for charging (at 40A) and I purposely tried charging at 40A, running my central air conditioning, fridge, and other normal/general stuff (gas stove and dryer so I couldn't go much more than that). No issues.
 
Mycroft, why are you installing an HPC at home? (Genuine question, not sniping.) My thinking to date has been that charging at 240V 40A at home was fully sufficient for my needs.

It's mainly for convenience reasons only. It looks nice, it's neat and doesn't look like an extension cord hanging off the wall, it's handy, and I can keep the travel cord in the trunk and I won't forget it if we go somewhere. Plus, if we get home from work on a Friday, we can be charged back up before we hit the road for the weekend.

Hopefully I'll be able to hang the cable outside if I know that someone is traveling by and needs a charge.
 
I installed a 120v 30amp receptacle in my garage for some ignorant reason many years ago. It was intended as an RV connection for a relative. 240v would have been much more useful. Now I'm going to have to pull all new cabling to the location so I might as well put in the HPC. Not liking the price of 100amp cabling though. :(

You can easily and inexpensively change this to 240 volt and 30 amp. I assume you used 10/2 NM-B wire for your original 120V/30A circuit and that the outlet is a 'home run'. In the panel box, remove and replace your single pole 30 amp breaker with a 2 pole 30 amp breaker. You will need a free space in the panel box to do this. Disconnect the white wire of the 10/2 from the neutral bus and connect it to the other pole of the breaker. Remark the white wire at the breaker with some black or red tape or color with a black sharpie. Change the receptacle to a 30 amp 240 variety using the white and black wires for your hots. Remark the white wire with black or red to show that it is now a hot wire, not a neutral. This is a common practice for electricians and meets NEC code. If these instructions do not make sense you should not attempt this and should instead hire an electrician.
 
Thanks PV-EV, I agree with what you're saying and I've done similar things in the past. But at a minimum I would want a 50 amp receptacle there, so I need to pull cable regardless. I just need to decide between #6 or #2 and as I said earlier, I'll probably go with #2 and buy the HPC.
 
MichiganModels and I just found out that it will be possible to connect the HPC-2 to a lower amperage system than 100amps. It would just be programmed to draw at the lower amperage.

This is cool for a number of reasons.

1. You can install a 50-amp outlet now, and if you decide that it's too ugly and/or annoying to use the universal connector all the time, you can upgrade to the HPC for $1200.

2. If you already have a 50-amp outlet (or 30-amp dryer for that matter), then you can connect the HPC for aesthetics or convenience without having to upgrade the wiring/breaker.

3. You can install the HPC for aesthetics or convenience even if your home/garage panel can't support an added 100amp circuit.

4. If, like me you have an unused 50 amp circuit because you had a white elephant of a hot tub removed, then it can be re-purposed for an HPC until you can afford to run a new 100amp circuit. Woot! Score!
 
If you're thinking of upgrading later, probably good idea to run wire capable of 100A anyway so it only has to be done once. If it's easy to install it though, could always install 50A wiring and upgrade later as you said.
 
The cost difference between 100A and 50A wiring can be significant, depending on the distance of the run. But then re-pulling the wire and upgrading conduit, patching drywall, etc. could also be expensive.

I do want to point out that until the HPC manual is released, we don't know absolutely, for sure what cabling or amperage the HPC will be able to use.

Also, for 99.9% of us, the HPC would be a pure luxury. Even if the 85kWh pack was nearly empty, it can easily be recharged in about 10 hours overnight using a single charger and a 50A outlet.