Life with model s without home charger

[Mille Pun]

I'm waiting to get the 70D on October, meanwhile, I'm planning to install the home charger or not, but my management only approve to install 13A slow charger. And the quotation is also considerable. So I hesitate to spend bulk money on slow charger.

actually, I can charge at daytime at office (13A and supercharger available), and with proper planning, is it adequate to enjoy carefree model s without home charger? Anyone without home charger would share your experience? Thanks.

 

[AppleFan]

I'm waiting to get the 70D on October, meanwhile, I'm planning to install the home charger or not, but my management only approve to install 13A slow charger. And the quotation is also considerable. So I hesitate to spend bulk money on slow charger.

actually, I can charge at daytime at office (13A and supercharger available), and with proper planning, is it adequate to enjoy carefree model s without home charger? Anyone without home charger would share your experience? Thanks.

How many kms do you drive per day/week? Can you afford to spend an hour or two at a Supercharger once every 7-10 days?

There are plenty of Model S owners who do not have home charging. They rely on Supercharging alone.
That being said, I have home charging (40A) and I never EVER have to worry about charging. My car can't even supercharge.

Without more information, all I can suggest is give it a try without home charging. If you find yourself worrying about charge excessively, then install the home charging. (How much are they quoting you for the 13A installation?)

 

[joywalker]

I'm waiting to get the 70D on October, meanwhile, I'm planning to install the home charger or not, but my management only approve to install 13A slow charger. And the quotation is also considerable. So I hesitate to spend bulk money on slow charger.

actually, I can charge at daytime at office (13A and supercharger available), and with proper planning, is it adequate to enjoy carefree model s without home charger? Anyone without home charger would share your experience? Thanks.

If you can charge at office, you are 90% certain never go empty.
13A got me 8-9km/hour, I assume you will see same speed.
Let's pretend you charge at office say 8 hours a day, you have roughly 70km, that should be sufficient.
Tesla suggests you charge frequently, in fact as often as you get a chance. So you can skip the home charging, just rely on the office power.

 

[Mille Pun]

Thanks for reply

the overall quotation is around $30k for 13A charger, which I find it quite low in performance to cost ratio. My gut feeling is, if I really need that overnight add-on power occasionally, I rather pay an overnight parking fee at my closest Carpark which also offer 13A charger.
for normal working day, I would drive for about 80km. And occasionally go airport and drive around on weekend which may run up to 150km

 

[AppleFan]

My guess is you are being overcharged for your 13A installation. Which company did you quote? Have you tried another contractor?

Given your driving pattern, you can expect to visit the Supercharger twice a week. Would that be alright with you?

 

[Mille Pun]

Shun Hing, but to be honest it is the cheapest among all quotation. The reason of the high price is due to long electric cable (100m) and the need for new electric meter, which I think I should negotiate with the management instead.

if I can get the 13A charger at office (there are 2, but sometimes full) I think I won't need to visit supercharger, but luckily enough, my office also got supercharger , so I 'guess' I can survive without home charger

 

[Khatsalano]

Hello from California! Looks like several thousand miles apart, but same problems as here for people who live in apartments/condos. We are having a lot of difficulty getting homeowner associations (strata management groups) to agree, let alone settle on price. In some areas like San Mateo and Mountain View, Tesla is experimenting by installing superchargers at local stops like the grocery store.

The other option some of our owners here have settled on is a flat fee per month to the apartment management and a standard 120V/10A outlet. And of course, as I write this, I just realized ... all of your outlets are 240V (I lived there once upon a time) so even a standard residential outlet is twice as good as ours. Maybe a flat fee per month to the apartment management will be cheaper than installing a new meter?

$30,000 HKD is a lot ... wow. My HPWC cost me $750 USD and the installation was just $500 USD with a 30 ft. cable run, but I do live in a house. Best of luck!

- K

 

[3fiftynine]

Thanks for reply

the overall quotation is around $30k for 13A charger, which I find it quite low in performance to cost ratio. My gut feeling is, if I really need that overnight add-on power occasionally, I rather pay an overnight parking fee at my closest Carpark which also offer 13A charger.
for normal working day, I would drive for about 80km. And occasionally go airport and drive around on weekend which may run up to 150km

@Mille Pun, welcome to the club of "denied home charging". My management company demanded $20k administration fee, installation on top of course at my expense, a license fee $500 for 2 years, another $20k as reinstatement deposit and the shocking item of $30 million dollars insurance cover for this little 40A electrical appliance! Management companies are good at designing something to stop you or steal your money!

My math is very simple, how many hours of causal parking (I use Lee Garden as an example which is 2.4k away from my home) I could do using this $20k? If you do the same you'll draw the same conclusion.

Like others have said 13A is useful at work if you could plug in it for 9-10 hours every day. I drive 80k+ everyday so I could fill it up the same amount if I had office charging (I don't), I only need to visit SC once every 2 weeks to compensate vampire drain and weekend driving.

Good luck!

 

[Mille Pun]

Hello from California! Looks like several thousand miles apart, but same problems as here for people who live in apartments/condos. We are having a lot of difficulty getting homeowner associations (strata management groups) to agree, let alone settle on price. In some areas like San Mateo and Mountain View, Tesla is experimenting by installing superchargers at local stops like the grocery store.

The other option some of our owners here have settled on is a flat fee per month to the apartment management and a standard 120V/10A outlet. And of course, as I write this, I just realized ... all of your outlets are 240V (I lived there once upon a time) so even a standard residential outlet is twice as good as ours. Maybe a flat fee per month to the apartment management will be cheaper than installing a new meter?

$30,000 HKD is a lot ... wow. My HPWC cost me $750 USD and the installation was just $500 USD with a 30 ft. cable run, but I do live in a house. Best of luck!

- K

thanks for your suggestion! Yes that a good idea to suggest for flat fee chargers. Actually, in this era, the installation of charger should not be a user-responsibilities, instead, it should be the management/owner to have it installed as a facilities enhancement. The charger will become as essential as a lightbulb in future, can't image the management ask me to install the lightbulb and pay by myself LOL

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@Mille Pun, welcome to the club of "denied home charging". My management company demanded $20k administration fee, installation on top of course at my expense, a license fee $500 for 2 years, another $20k as reinstatement deposit and the shocking item of $30 million dollars insurance cover for this little 40A electrical appliance! Management companies are good at designing something to stop you or steal your money!

My math is very simple, how many hours of causal parking (I use Lee Garden as an example which is 2.4k away from my home) I could do using this $20k? If you do the same you'll draw the same conclusion.

Like others have said 13A is useful at work if you could plug in it for 9-10 hours every day. I drive 80k+ everyday so I could fill it up the same amount if I had office charging (I don't), I only need to visit SC once every 2 weeks to compensate vampire drain and weekend driving.

Good luck!

thanks! With your live experience, I'm pretty confident that I can survive without home charging. The charger at office/shopping mall is nice. With the fast growth of EV, government should drive more hard to encourage those owner to install chargers (typically 0-2 slot per carpark now), happy to see it to growth steadily

 

[Khatsalano]

thanks for your suggestion! Yes that a good idea to suggest for flat fee chargers. Actually, in this era, the installation of charger should not be a user-responsibilities, instead, it should be the management/owner to have it installed as a facilities enhancement. The charger will become as essential as a lightbulb in future, can't image the management ask me to install the lightbulb and pay by myself LOL

For new construction, I agree-- this will be standard in the future as much as a light bulb receptacle. Here in California for existing buildings, the dominant practice so far, is that HOAs/apartment managers should allow charging infrastructure, but the EV owner has to pay for its installation.

- K