Model 3 RWD Purchased November 2023

[mknmike]

I thought I’d start a thread where I collect and document my experience with our Model 3, items we purchase, charger installation, etc. This site has been so helpful. So I thought it might be nice to “give back” by sharing my information.

While there’s previous information mostly around purchasing and pricing that I’ve focused on up to now, I have finally switched to the ownership side and will hopefully be here for years to come (like it or not to members here, LOL).

I’m a vehicle enthusiast of sorts and have threads on most of my vehicles which are primarily VERY cheap old Mercedes Benz I enjoy working on when I get the time. I’m a bit of a gearhead with a best friend that literally lives at his 6000 square foot shop with a lift, lathe, milling machine, trans Jack, two loading docks, tire machines (for 18” and smaller wheels), etc. I think we are both middle-aged children. I e got a wife and kids of my own that fortunately are nearing self-sufficiency, but have some very expensive years ahead of me, and I am incredibly cheap, but also consider myself very fortunate. You may see me pinching Pennie’s in my topics, like purchasing. But every penny I save is one more we might either have for our own enjoyment, or perhaps to give to charity to help others.

So with that, I’m switching into purchasing “accessories.” Cheapest things I’ve decided I want because I think they will save me money:


- garage 100 amp sub-panel and coming 14-50 outlet. Smart to purchase/install first. Did trench and run wires to detached garage though.

- driveway 14-50 outlet attached to the house, so my wife doesn’t need to pull all the way up the driveway. These first two items are things I’ve spent a lot of time researching and planning for. My next step is to buy a few more small items before my Home Depot coupon expires 11/30/2023.

- mobile charger (provides charge rate as fast as my M3RWD will accept). Taking over a week to arrive. Probably should have purchased before the car.

- floor mats ($60 carpet) Taking over a week to arrive. Probably should have purchased before the car.

- Spare tire(s). Since my best friend is a drift-car driver, and because I want to be able to start hammering the pedals, and because I want a full-size spare, last night I purchased two gen1 18” Tesla wheels and some 8/32 read used tires that are identical to the ones on the car. As soon as I figure out the cheapest TPMS option, I will mount them up. The tires were under $60 each. I do this with all our vehicles grabbing cheap identical tires when I am due to replace one or two. It makes it so I never have to plunk down for a brand new set of tires. I can mount and balance myself at my friend’s shop. I consider myself fortunate because I believe I will have the ability to store these extra wheels. I also don’t anticipate anyone having the M3 too far from home where the spare would need to be in the vehicle. No compact spare needed (yet). I figure this spend I’ve put ~$340 into before TPMS will be justified in tire savings and also preventing the need to buy a brand new tire. (Tow would be covered by AAA.). On this topic, I learned difference between gen1 (2020 and earlier) and gen2 (2022-2023) wheels but that the wheel covers are interchangeable. So I just bought the cheapest, gen1. The cars are supposedly more efficient with the covers. So I’m going to keep them on.

- TPMS shopping. I’ve never had a car with Bluetooth TPMS.


Then there’s other “learning curve” stuff I’m learning as a new Owner.

- purchase and pickup experience. When to buy. What to buy ahead of time (charger and floor mats).

- Automatically resetting after time “circuit breakers” instead of fuses? Wow. Circuit breakers make sense, but automatically resetting is a weird one to me. Lighter powered vacuum seems like a no-no.

- supercharging (free for 6 months), and when to use it and when not to use it. Topping off to 100% sitting at Wawa seems like a real waste of time. That really requires a home charger I think. And Does high speed charging ruin the battery?

- FSD Full Self Driving that we also get for 3 months free with our referral. Take note as a new owner that this is “calibrating” or “learning” for the first few days or something. Maybe Tesla is just looking to learn from our driving habits or something. I have yet to even try the cruise control. This seems so far like something we have no use for (yet).

- location services and other app controls. Interesting that I can see exactly where my wife has the car. It’s also interesting that I can hit the horn and pop the trunk, etc. these are some reasons that you clearly want to be careful who you allow to control your vehicle. Our latest other vehicle is a 2007. Huge difference.

I plan to continue writing here, update the above with links to the other topics I’ve created, and generally document our ownership. Today is only Sunday, and we picked up on Wednesday.

Now to get off to work on things like that 14-50 installation and hooking up the new garage subpanel.

Thanks for all the help here!

Sincerely,
Mike

 

[ucmndd]

You’ll find that a properly installed 14-50 and purchasing the mobile connector is only marginally less expensive than a Wall Connector. I would not install 14-50s in 2023. Especially not with the cheap Leviton receptacles you’re going to find at Home Depot that like to melt.

 

[mknmike]

You’ll find that a properly installed 14-50 and purchasing the mobile connector is only marginally less expensive than a Wall Connector. I would not install 14-50s in 2023. Especially not with the cheap Leviton receptacles you’re going to find at Home Depot that like to melt.

I will keep an eye on this one. I can see how if the wire warms up the screws could loosen which ordinarily would not cause arching, but on this style could allow the connections to actually move the fastening screws.

 

[mknmike]

So I've had my phone die and affect my ability to get moving with the car already. I think that maybe the constant bluetooth is also affecting the battery life of my old iPhone 7. It's both convenient and annoying. I understand that the key card thing is probably very cheap for Tesla, but think they should either provide you with a lanyard for your keychain or punch a hole in the key card, and while at it, why not make it small enough to put on a keychain. I see the Ring-keys exist, but I'm sorry, I don't want to marry this car. I have keys to get into my 105 year old house, and other properties and vehicles and would like to be able to hang a key on the key rack like every other house or car we own. I see the surfer melted down the card and created a new key made from plastic which is great. I don't want to make a big project out of this though. So, I guess I will buy a lanyard instead of drilling a hole in the card. Until then, as suggested by my daughter, I resized a zip lock bag by melting it with a hot glue gun. Now I can hang the “key” by the door. (It’s not going in my phone pouch bc that’s already full with ID, 2 CC, bank card, paper health insurance card. Maybe I need a bigger phone pouch.)

 

[jjrandorin]

So I've had my phone die and affect my ability to get moving with the car already. I think that maybe the constant bluetooth is also affecting the battery life of my old iPhone 7. It's both convenient and annoying. I understand that the key card thing is probably very cheap for Tesla, but think they should either provide you with a lanyard for your keychain or punch a hole in the key card, and while at it, why not make it small enough to put on a keychain. I see the Ring-keys exist, but I'm sorry, I don't want to marry this car. I have keys to get into my 105 year old house, and other properties and vehicles and would like to be able to hang a key on the key rack like every other house or car we own. I see the surfer melted down the card and created a new key made from plastic which is great. I don't want to make a big project out of this though. So, I guess I will buy a lanyard instead of drilling a hole in the card. Until then, as suggested by my daughter, I resized a zip lock bag by melting it with a hot glue gun. Now I can hang the “key” by the door. (It’s not going in my phone pouch bc that’s already full with ID, 2 CC, bank card, paper health insurance card. Maybe I need a bigger phone pouch.)

View attachment 994116

I know you mention you like to save money, but instead of that ziplock bag solution, there are several keycard holders on amazon for very little money. More than your ziplock but less than a fob, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tesla+key+card+holder&crid=3TAMYHXPWXJP9&sprefix=Tesla+key%2Caps%2C178&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_9

 

[mknmike]

I know you mention you like to save money, but instead of that ziplock bag solution, there are several keycard holders on amazon for very little money. More than your ziplock but less than a fob, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tesla+key+card+holder&crid=3TAMYHXPWXJP9&sprefix=Tesla+key%2Caps%2C178&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_9

Yes, I’m aware. I’ve probably even got some lanyards from trade show conferences too. There are so many key card holder options out there that I’m not sure which I’d most prefer. For now, I can at least hang the “key” on the hook where other keys are kept. That works for me for now.

 

[mknmike]

So my mobile charger arrived two days earlier than initially scheduled, which made me very happy. We burnt up another ~10-12% of the battery with errands today. So I don’t know that we would have been comfortable with another two days without any charging and would have been likely to take advantage of the free supercharging. We might still just to save a few extra bucks. Why not, right? The only downside is fast charging that MIGHT degrade the battery some. So I’m sitting here wondering if I can limit the charge rate at a supercharger. Hmm.

Anyway, our off-peak time is apparently noon-8 pm here, and our oven should be off by then. I’ve now got it scheduled to start at 8:30 pm instead of midnight so I can see how fast it’s charging at 16 amps in case I should increase it all the way to the 32 amps. I now see the mobile connector has ranges from 5-32 amps. I just wasn’t sure about the lower end because it appears my power company offers suggested miles/minute that it would add, only down to 16 amps for level 2 charging.

 

[mknmike]

I may have botched the scheduling bc it looks like I can either schedule the charging to start at a certain time OR stop at a scheduled time, not both. I don’t know. Anyway, 16 amps at 241 volts looks like it will fully charge from ~34% to 80% in ~7-8 hours. (Says 7:15 now)

 

[mknmike]

So it looks like the “miles per hour” added to the battery at this charge level (~35%) pretty closely matches the amps provided. I played around with upping it to 32 and then down to 10 amps. This clearly shows me that we can wait to start charging until a much later time of night, or start at a very low amp level. Since we are doing wash and running the dishwasher, and have lights on, I should probably not be charging at all at this time and wait.

 

[mknmike]

Ok. So I looked up some of my recent days (including thanksgiving where we were away the afternoon) to see when our lowest re usage is typically, and how amuch is safe or ideal to add during those hours. Here are a few hourly usage screenshots each starting at midnight. The spikes are probably killing me on the “PLC” (Peak Load Calculation) portion of my bill that I believe is 1/3 of the bill. If I can cut the max hourly usage for the month in half, that probably reduces my bill by about 1/6th, just for a single hour. Anyway, with these, I want to “fill in the voids” with EV charging, and never contribute to peak loads. So after midnight clearly makes sense, but at what charge rate. It looks like I want it to remain below 1 KWh/h, below 1 KW, maybe around 0.5 KW or 500 W if that would cut it, 5 100 Watt lightbulbs worth? Not very likely eh?

 

[jjrandorin]

So I’m sitting here wondering if I can limit the charge rate at a supercharger. Hmm.

No, you cant (limit the rate of charge at a supercharger). It only takes a couple of seconds to see what kind of abuse of the supercharger system that would lead to, lol. Anyway, Tesla superchargers (which bypass the charger in the car) are not able to be set by the car owner as far as charging speed goes.

 

[mknmike]

So to add only 1.1 to 1.2 KW of usage to my bill, it appears I need to use the minimum of 5 amps, adding only 5 miles per hour, but that’s 30-50 miles per day on weeknights, and then on weekends, I can let it charge whoever it appears our usage is low and probably make it through most of the week.

Then for the first 6 months while I’m learning, I can fast charge at the supercharger for free every once in a while.

 

[jjrandorin]

While charging, your car is awake, and while awake, your car is using more energy than asleep. I think the car uses about 200Whr of energy just being awake, so the slower you charge and longer you keep your car awake, the more energy it wastes by being awake.

If the battery is cold, it may also need to heat the battery. Its possible to charge on 120v and have virtually zero charge actually go to filling the battery, if you charge in a place thats cold enough, because of battery heating.

I am not necessarily into getting into the weeds on this topic, but I thought you should know that charging slower is less efficient than charging faster (home charging) because of the above fact. Car awake = car burning more energy than sleep, and the longer you keep it awake charging, the more that wastes. If thats all one has, thats all one has, but if you are trying to min max or something like it sounds like, you need to take that into account as well.

Anyway, good luck with your decisions.

 

[ucmndd]

Your car has a baseline consumption when not sleeping of about 300 watts.

So if you’re charging at 1000 watts, about 30% of the energy you’re consuming is wasted. Very inefficient.

 

[mknmike]

Thank you guys. That’s VERY helpful. Yes, the idea is to find the sweet spot for efficiency. I want to look back a few months and see those spikes from the two old pool pumps running at the same time to get a sense of the consumption. I think those might Each be about 500 watt pumps for a total of ~1 KW. As soon as I realized the extra pump only needs to run for only about 1 hour instead of 6-12 hours, the drop in the power bill was noticeable.

Hey. No gasoline or oil change costs or spark plug or timing belt services etc. lots of savings to be had, and I’m excited to learn.

THANK YOU!

 

[mknmike]

Ok. So waking the car up in the middle of a “sleep” time doesn’t make sense. So we should try to let the car sleep all day when my wife has it at work, and then any of the evening time that is during our peak electricity usage. It’s a shame the car won’t be home most mornings when I could continue to charge it while it’s “awake” burning the ~300 Watts and/or preheating for the next ride.

So the “no brainer” time to charge is the few wee morning hours before we wake up and preheat the car. How many hours per day is the thing that I guess I will need to tweak. There’s not going to be a correct answer for this. Some days we might need to start at midnight. Others maybe just an hour or two before dawn.

But what’s the ideal charge rate?

For me, it seems that most days I have a peak where we use ~4-6 KW/h in a single hour. During the wee hours of the morning, it looks like we are typically using about 500-800 Watts. So if I want to assure I don’t create the peak of the day any time I charge, I probably want to keep my watts used under 3.5-5.5 KWatt. So 16-20 amps seems about right here. That might mean only about two hours of charging every day is required (using the 16-20 MPH range being added),…

BUT….

If we are burning more than twice the miles we drive due to preheating and Sentry Mode stuff, then maybe we need 4+ hours per night. Starting at 2-4 AM should cover it with a departure time of 7:30 am.

 

[mknmike]

So I woke to find 14 amps of battery heating. If I set charge rate to 14 amps, it adds 0 MPH. 32 amps: 18 mph. I guess I learned maybe this is a BAD time to charge, not a good one, at least in winter.

So I dropped the charge limit and made sure charging is stopped. I don’t know when the battery heater turned on, but this surely is a lesson learned. At 16 amps, I may have been just heating my battery for a long time and only adding 2 MPH.

it’s about 33 F outside and the cabin temp that was 41 F when I fell asleep is now 40 F. I’m not sure if it’s heating, but we don’t have the cabin scheduled to be heated for another hour.

I see that the app is reporting that I’ve charged it with $4 and 27 KWh. ~33-79% with 27 KWh. I wonder how much went to heating.

 

[mknmike]

Fell asleep last night with it charging at 32 amps with max set to 84% and think it was around 61% when it started. 2 mile round trip to drop off my son at school had it down to 81%. It was 83% when we got into the toasty warm car. 2.1 more miles my wife drove it to work, and I see it’s at 79%. 5% of the battery for 4-4.5 miles. Looks like I can assume our winter “range” is going to be 1/4-1/3 what the car is rated for. If that’s the case, and our fuel costs are expected to be 1/4 that of gasoline, it sounds like there will be basically zero financial savings driving a Tesla in cold temps if we don’t change out habits, and that’s before getting into the heating of the battery to charge it. I’m sure EPA estimates are not including the electrical cost of warming the battery to charge it.

Feels like a Farce right now. And this is what we are investing our tax dollars into? Yeah, getting off fossil fuels is a long term goal, but the initial carbon hit looks like a massive increase in Carbon emissions to me. Problem is people are probably buying these cars with the perception that they are doing good for the environment and then just hog the electricity (generated by fossil fuels) on the creature comforts that are really creating all the CO in the first place. “Ooh. I’m cold. Turn up the heat.” “Put on a friggin hat, gloves and some thermals.” Americans create more CO than almost any other country in the world. I think UAE, Dubai has us beat, and the rest of the world wants to be like us. Doomed. $7500 should probably be for EFFICIENT cars and minimizing carbon footprints. People living in tents under the highway are living greenest probably. Maybe in the spring and fall when minimal cooling or heating is required will we see the most efficiency in the Model 3.

Question:

HOW DO I SHUT THUS THING OFF?

I feel like an old geezer sitting in the car trying to figure out how to shut everything off. LOL. But seriously, doesn’t it have some mode like that? Can I turn on “minimize consumption” somehow? If not, this whole Tesla Green thing is a Farce.

 

[ucmndd]

Short trips in the cold are basically the worst case for efficiency. Its the same in ICE cars, you’ve just never bothered to notice.

There are countless studies that all show EVs are far more sustainable and produce far fewer emissions over their lifetime, even with the dirtiest grids. That said, if you’re concerned I’d highly recommend solar.

There is no “turning it off” beyond getting out of the car, shutting the door, and leaving it alone. If you do, it goes into a very low power sleep state. There’s a “power down” option buried in the menu for some service purposes, but it’s really not worth messing with.

 

[mknmike]

The data is starting to show on Delmarva Power’s website. This was from my first night of charging, where I used 16 amps, and I can see this is definitely going to affect my bill. It looks like there may be no way at 32 amps for this to not be the entire factor in my PLC.