Multiple Tesla’s and charging at home question.

[Badmonk]

Hey guys

Had my MX for over a year now and it’s amazing. We are looking at getting a M3 as well, quick question for those of you that already have a MS/MX, and use the Tesla home wall charger, do you have to buy a complete new charger or can they modify it to charge both model 3 and other Teslas?

Thanks for any info

 

[YusufT]

Depends on your use case/lifestyle. Most people share 1 charger between the two, but say both cars need to leave at the same time in the morning, (no time to charge the other) you would probably need two.

 

[Saghost]

The wall charger from the S/X will charge the 3 without modification.

You'll need to figure out if swapping between cars will be enough for you or if you need both cars plugged in every night.

If the wall connector is fairly recent, it can share a line with another wall connector (actually, up to four wall connectors I believe,) if necessary.

 

[Zaxxon]

The wall charger from the S/X will charge the 3 without modification.

You'll need to figure out if swapping between cars will be enough for you or if you need both cars plugged in every night.

If the wall connector is fairly recent, it can share a line with another wall connector (actually, up to four wall connectors I believe,) if necessary.

The UMC and HPWC will both charge any Tesla (other than the Roadster). The nice thing about the HPWC is as you mentioned, you can wire them together to share a single incoming circuit so as not to have to pay for another run. This is especially handy if your home's electrical panel is far from the garage, or is already mostly used to capacity.

The HPWCs will share the power evenly when both cars are charging simultaneously and will give the full load to either car if the other is idle.

 

[Badmonk]

Depends on your use case/lifestyle. Most people share 1 charger between the two, but say both cars need to leave at the same time in the morning, (no time to charge the other) you would probably need two.

No tbh the M3 will be mainly used by my wife. (Of course I will also ‘borrow’ it occasionally )
I normally work away during the week, and my wife will be using M3 for local driving.

I thought the Tesla charging cable I have is different to the M3 hence me asking do I need 2.
So my MX charger will work?

 

[Badmonk]

The wall charger from the S/X will charge the 3 without modification.

Thank you. I thought the M3 connector was different.

 

[Saghost]

No tbh the M3 will be mainly used by my wife. (Of course I will also ‘borrow’ it occasionally )
I normally work away during the week, and my wife will be using M3 for local driving.

I thought the Tesla charging cable I have is different to the M3 hence me asking do I need 2.
So my MX charger will work?

EU 3s adopted the CCS system for DCFC, so the Superchargers without CCS cables won't work for them. They continue to use type 2 for AC charging, just like both the older EU Teslas and any other CCS car.

 

[bickity]

I am about to run into the same issue, but I was going to use one wall connector for both. My problem is I currently have the 8.5' cable and will need the 24', can I switch out the cable or need to buy a whole new 24' cable unit? Guess I could always sell the 8'.

 

[MD-2000]

You can download the manual for the wall charger and it shows how to connect two of them to the same circuit, and the chargers have the smarts (one of them is boss) to allocate power so both vehicles get charged as much power as possible without exceeding the total rating of the supply circuit; and as mentioned above, when one is fully charged, the other will use the total power of the circuit.

 

[ChadS]

We've had two Teslas since 2012 (and two EVs since 2009). We've never tried sharing a single charger, but living at 3 different places at various times we have tried:

- one mobile charger plugged in to 120V, and one plugged in to a 14-50
- both mobile chargers plugged in to 14-50 outlets
- one hardwired Tesla EVSE and one mobile charger plugged in to a 14-50
- one hardwired Tesla EVSE and one J1772 EVSE
- two hardwired Tesla EVSEs sharing a circuit

The difference between the various scenarios has been pretty darn small, for the most part. Basically in all cases we plug them in at night, and they are full in the morning. (We do have them set to start charging at different times).

I would say my favorite is what I have now, two hardwired EVSEs sharing a circuit. Each car can draw a lot if it has too; if both need it, they will split the line automatically. Our panel at this house didn't have room for two large dedicated circuits. (We had 50A and 100A circuits at the last house; but frankly that was way overkill).

The hardwired wall EVSEs are probably a little safer than using the mobile ones; and if nothing else there is less wear on the mobile ones and we can keep them in the car if we like. Actually I sold one of the mobile EVSEs, so now we just have one that I stuff in for road trips.

We originally used mobile EVSEs, which made no practical difference day-to-day, but when going on a road trip the last thing you want to do before leaving is top up and the first thing on returning is charge up, so packing or unpacking the mobile charger was always the first and last things we had to do when taking a trip. If trips are infrequent that's not major, but the more you take the more you wish you had a wall charger so you don't have to pack up the mobile one.

 

[jamnmon66]

I have two HPWCs hard wired to a 100 amp circuit. Setting up the load sharing was pretty straightforward. If you're at least a little comfortable with low voltage wiring then you can figure it out pretty easily with the instructions. Or, if you pay an electrician to install another HPWC then it shouldn't add much, if any time to the bill to set up the load sharing. It's super convenient because I hung the cables from the ceiling right next to the charge port for each car.

A 100 amp circuit was kind of overkill now that I've lived with it for a while. I was trying to future proof because I'm pretty sure I'm never going back to an ICE. Everyone's use case is different but, IMO, for 2 Teslas a 60 amp circuit would probably be plenty unless both of them regularly need more than a 50% (i.e. 30%-80%) charge overnight at the same time. My wife and I each have a Model 3 LR RWD.

 

[Badmonk]

Thanks for all the replies guys

 

[Keith909man]

I had the same issue when I bought my 2nd Tesla.

My solution was this,
I used one NEMA 14-50 outlet and I bought a NEMA 14-50 outlet splitter from amazon. I’m able to charge both cars at once. For this to work, you have to drop the amperage to half on both cars to share the same outlet. I.e from 40amps on the model S charge rate to 20 amps. About 15 miles per hour a car this way. Works like a charm.

 

[focher]

My wife has an X and I have a 3. We have a non-Tesla EVSE with the J1772 adapter attached, and switch between the cars based on whoever needs the fastest charge. Neither of us put heavy mileage on during the day, so we don’t need to plug in every night. I also have the 110V that comes with the car that I use most nights to “trickle charge” my car. It all works fine.

 

[Badmonk]

Yeah if I do motorway driving I can use superchargers on my journey, as my wife usually only drives short distances we don’t need to charge at the same times so it will be fine if we get a M3.

 

[jelloslug]

We have two HPWC connected together and on the same circuit breaker. One is on the "correct" side of the cars and has the 8.5' cable and the other one has the 24' cable.

 

[artsci]

You can acquire a 14-50 splitter cable with two inputs and charge the two cars on an alternating schedule so charging does not overlap. I have an S and a 3 and that’s what I’ve done.