Model 3 Owners: Who Here Has Trickle-Charging Only/No Home Charging?

[CaptainKirk]

Reviving this thread for future readers. It’s been 3 months of ownership with our Model 3, and my wife and I have decided to keep on trickle charging on 120V, 15A.

We received a quote from an electrician, but due to the need for a panel upgrade, and service upgrade, the cost involved negates any savings of us getting this car in the first place. We are not too far from a supercharger (5 minutes), and will top up there if we need to during the winter. Otherwise trickle charging is enough to satisfy our daily work commute. Our work is also looking into adding chargers, and in the mean time they have also granted us permission to trickle charge at work if needed. As a result, we bought the UMC holder and cable organizer for the garage.

 

[Massive Attack]

I did trickle charge for the first 2 months of ownership.

Since the pandemic work from home thing started the day after I got my 3, didn't have much of a commute. However I would joy-ride 10-15% of the battery each non-rainy day. It often took 9-12 hours to recoup, which gave me a lot of range anxiety. Which was odd. My daily commute "would be" just under 30 miles round trip, so I'm sure I could get by on the trickle charge. Also I live 3 miles from a SuperCharger, and did use it when Tesla changed the app/website to show free SC miles expiration (I didn't know they did).

Having said all that, it was always my plan to get high speed charging at home. I got just a NEMA 14-50 outlet installed, and am using my Tesla supplied UMC plus the 14-50 adapter. Now that 10-15% comes back in like 90 minutes, and I no longer have any range anxiety.

 

[XLR82XS]

I did trickle charge for the first 2 months of ownership.

Having said all that, it was always my plan to get high speed charging at home. I got just a NEMA 14-50 outlet installed, and am using my Tesla supplied UMC plus the 14-50 adapter. Now that 10-15% comes back in like 90 minutes, and I no longer have any range anxiety.

That's the best way or wall charger. I utilize UMC & 14-50 at home on a 60-amp circuit.

 

[Rocky_H]

That's the best way or wall charger. I utilize UMC & 14-50 at home on a 60-amp circuit.

I dearly, dearly hope you have something wrong in the wording of how you typed this comment and are not actually doing that.

It is an obvious blatant violation of electric code to have a 14-50 outlet on a 60A circuit.

 

[Kevy Baby]

I dearly, dearly hope you have something wrong in the wording of how you typed this comment and are not actually doing that.

It is an obvious blatant violation of electric code to have a 14-50 outlet on a 60A circuit.

Does this mean I should be using a 5-15 outlet on my 500A 440V circuit?

 

[birdsquared]

I live in an apartment, so no charging at home. Thankfully, my office has level 2 charging, and with a 25 km one way commute (when I commute, recently no more than 1-2 x/week) I find I can charge up to 90% once per week and never go below 30%. When I did commute 5 days a week, I charged twice a week. I have had it almost 3 months, and have never used a Supercharger after delivery day (plugged in for a minute at delivery center as part of the delivery checking process).

 

[robl45]

Doesn't Tesla install destination chargers for free? Couldn't that be an option?

 

[Rocky_H]

Does this mean I should be using a 5-15 outlet on my 500A 440V circuit?

I just informed someone else they are violating electric code. Why would you suggest doing something else that violates electric code?

 

[Kevy Baby]

I just informed someone else they are violating electric code. Why would you suggest doing something else that violates electric code?

Someone needs a sense of humor implant. I thought the absurdity of the setup I posted was obvious enough, but perhaps not.

 

[Rocky_H]

Someone needs a sense of humor implant. I thought the absurdity of the setup I posted was obvious enough, but perhaps not.

Sure, your setup was absurd, but you're doing the opposite of helping. If someone is already willing to not pay any attention to electrical code standards, they might not even have any idea what the limitations might be...or care.

What he was doing is dangerous, and he needs to know that's serious, not a time for joking around.

 

[kratos80]

A bit late but we have trickle charging only. We got our car in the midst of moving. We live in Vancouver Canada and for two months we had no charging at all as our home was undergoing renovations and we lived out of an Airbnb. In the winter without a home charger was difficult. We had to charge every 2-3 days at the mall (when range got down to about 200 km). Just in the morning heating up the car in freezing temps would take 10 km off the range. A 20 km round trip to and from work would use 40 Km of range or more.

Since moving in we have only used 120 v charging as to install a 240v outlet in our detached garage would cost 4K. My commute is only about 15 km round trip so even in the winter I would use at most 50 km of range which is fine to recharge overnight. So far in the summer, trickle charging has been more than enough. Even today when I used 50 km of range, it will take me just under 6 hours to recharge fully. Not a problem at all.

 

[Danny Brown]

I'm at 12 months of ownership and 12k miles on my P3D. My usual work week (M-F) is 190 miles in a fairly stable pattern (50-20-50-20-50). This gets me about 750 miles a month commuting. The remaining miles are either small weekend in-town trips, or are from road trips (supercharging).

So again, over a year driving almost 200 miles/week, getting by just fine on L1 (NEMA 5-15). I only had ONE time where I needed to pull out the 14-30 extension cord and take a 4-hour hit off my dryer plug.

While I have gotten by just fine on L1 charging the only reason I didn't have something different is because I was renting a house. Now in my own house, I had the builder install dedicated 5-20s in the garage and am about to put in a HPWC on a 240V/50a circuit.

I don't NEED the HPWC, but I do look forward to having it. If nothing else, it should cut my electric bills due to cost of charging overhead on the 5-15. Assuming 300w of overhead, the 12-hour overnight charges to recover my 50 mile days were costing me ~3 kwHrs or 30-cents just in overhead.

 

[AdamMacDon]

I only charge at free EV stations around town, I do have a home charger at my condo but it costs an insane amount ($1.30 per hour). Also I just hate being billed hourly. It's probably the dumbest way to bill, IMO. I go for walks and runs a lot so really it's not a big deal for me to take 2 days a week to go park at an unrestricted EV charger in order to have zero fuel costs. After driving a massive V8 vehicle for years, the difference is staggering to say the least. I very rarely charge at home, only on the most miserable days when it snows.

Today is actually my one year anniversary of having my SR+, and I will say this method works well for me, I plan to keep doing it until I can afford a house or I relocate somewhere with less free EV charging nearby.

 

[lUtriaNt]

i came from a massive V8 car as well. would spend ~85 dollars a week on high test (im old school ) petrol.

I have owned this car since march (brand new). I was totally happy with SC'ing once a week, and I was doing that for the first 8 charges.

finally, I was able to get management to install me a 5-20 plug at my parking spot. i paid the in-house electrician to install the 20 Amp outlet for me for 230 dollars. the charge is free as its coming off an unused circuit in the garage. i do about 25 miles a day from work <->home, and sometimes some extra trips for the occasional meetup with a dame I meet on a dating app. this 16amp 2kw charge (for free !) is more than I had hoped for!

For a more permanent setup, I opted for this amazon china special for the UMC.

 

[AdamMacDon]

i came from a massive V8 car as well. would spend ~85 dollars a week on high test (im old school ) petrol.

I have owned this car since march (brand new). I was totally happy with SC'ing once a week, and I was doing that for the first 8 charges.

finally, I was able to get management to install me a 5-20 plug at my parking spot. i paid the in-house electrician to install the 20 Amp outlet for me for 230 dollars. the charge is free as its coming off an unused circuit in the garage. i do about 25 miles a day from work <->home, and sometimes some extra trips for the occasional meetup with a dame I meet on a dating app. this 16amp 2kw charge (for free !) is more than I had hoped for!

For a more permanent setup, I opted for this amazon china special for the UMC.

View attachment 551461 View attachment 551462

That is a ton of gas, especially in California, your gas is so cheap there. My spend was similar, about $100 CAD per month (gas is around 5-7 bucks a gallon here). I always loved driving in California with my gas cars, but now I honestly hate driving in Cali because my fellow Model 3's are everywhere and I experienced my first times WAITING IN LINE to charge, haha. No other place I've been to have I ever seen that. The bay area was probably the worst.

Very slick setup though, that would have been my ideal setup (love the hook for the cables too, nice touch). However, my council didn't want other owners to be mad about me getting free juice (it'd also look bad since I'm on council), so they opted to go full hog and install Chargepoint Level 2 chargers for 3 stalls. I seriously wonder about people who claim level 1 isn't enough. I feel like for most average commutes it's plenty if you have an SR+. 1.2kW of juice can take you 0-100% in about 40 hours and who really uses more than 25% in a day. Only problem I could see is if you wanted to charge something with a pack bigger than 50kWh it might not cover it, the SR+ has crazy efficiency (more than the electric smart car!).

 

[hcdavis3]

That's the best way or wall charger. I utilize UMC & 14-50 at home on a 60-amp circuit.

I do too. Bought a spare charger with all the adapters. Works great.

 

[lUtriaNt]

@AdamMacDon ,

ive a performance model 3 with pup and with this setup even if I did a long drive somewhere , i would eventually get back to my 90% within a day or so.

im the only tenant with an electric car here, so i dont see anyone getting upset or jealous. i was totally going to spend 2500-3K US to get a dedicated charger, but i was able to get this done for pennies and for free--cant argue with that.

yes petrol here in LA was (before covid) close to 4 dollars a gallon (chevron). my old car was a 5.6L V8 and it was a 6200 pound suv. i got about 14MPG and kept my foot in the tank and drove it like a rental, hence my petrol use .

@hcdavis3 (beautiful pup!!) , do you have a house? if so, thats encouraging to see a homeowner using a umc!

 

[AdamMacDon]

@AdamMacDon ,

ive a performance model 3 with pup and with this setup even if I did a long drive somewhere , i would eventually get back to my 90% within a day or so.

im the only tenant with an electric car here, so i dont see anyone getting upset or jealous. i was totally going to spend 2500-3K US to get a dedicated charger, but i was able to get this done for pennies and for free--cant argue with that.

yes petrol here in LA was (before covid) close to 4 dollars a gallon (chevron). my old car was a 5.6L V8 and it was a 6200 pound suv. i got about 14MPG and kept my foot in the tank and drove it like a rental, hence my petrol use .

@hcdavis3 (beautiful pup!!) , do you have a house? if so, thats encouraging to see a homeowner using a umc!

I suppose the Performance battery is only 75kWh and not that much worse efficiency, certainly better than the Model S/X!

I'm the only tenant with an EV as well, which is why they were so worried about jealousy, haha. My old 5.7L hemi charger was driven like a rental too. Not that my SR+ is much different, I just wish the traction control wasn't so much of a nanny! I think a good week with the Charger I'd get 16mpg.

Using the UMC just makes sense to me, I have a 14-50 adapter (I have yet to use it) but when I manage to save up the million or so for a house I plan to install a 14-50 outlet myself for charging.

 

[Kevy Baby]

i came from a massive V8 car as well. would spend ~85 dollars a week on high test (im old school ) petrol.

That is a ton of gas, especially in California, your gas is so cheap there. My spend was similar, about $100 CAD per month (gas is around 5-7 bucks a gallon here).

Gasoline prices in California are second only to Hawaii, though apparently lower than Canada ($5-7 CAD is about $3.67-$5.14 US). @lUtriaNt was spending about $85 US ($116 CAD) per WEEK compared to your $73 US ($100 CAD) per MONTH.

Not trying to be argumentative, just clarifying the details.

 

[AdamMacDon]

Gasoline prices in California are second only to Hawaii, though apparently lower than Canada ($5-7 CAD is about $3.67-$5.14 US). @lUtriaNt was spending about $85 US ($116 CAD) per WEEK compared to your $73 US ($100 CAD) per MONTH.

Not trying to be argumentative, just clarifying the details.

I made a typo there, I dropped about $100 a WEEK on gas, or $400 a month. Also the last time I took a gas car to Cali the CAD was in around $0.80-0.85 USD, it's significantly worse now since our PM is busy trying to bankrupt our country and scare away all energy investments.

Obviously Oregon and Washington were cheaper than Cali (especially OR, I've seen it under 2 bucks). But the biggest thing you're missing is Canadians don't get paid in USD, we get paid in CAD. If you get an average salary of around $50,000k CAD a year and gas is costing you almost $5k a year, you get the shaft harder than you would in any state, even one out in the middle of the Pacific ocean.