New MXLR Owner: L14-30 Charging Question

[regularjoeish]

Hi all, I’ve had the car for a week and really excited to be part of the Tesla family! I’ve searched the forums but don’t quite find my exact scenario and hoping someone smarter than me can shed some light.

My house has an L14-30 30A outlet for a generator. Lots of the posts I’ve seen discuss a female outlet but mine is a male outlet with prongs. Rather than call an electrician and build out a new port, could I repurpose this to charge my Tesla? Ideally an adapter plus the Tesla wall or mobile connector. I plan on only charging overnight so only need L2 charging. Is this possible?

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated! Apologies in advance if there’s an existing thread about this I haven’t seen.

 

[henderrj]

That is for input from a generator. It would be very dangerous to make that live as the terminals sticking out there would be able to be shorted out or short out on you! As in it would electrocute you, possibly resulting in death.

What you could do is have the receptacle changed to a plug, which you could then use for the tesla. The wires for the generator would be roughly the same as that for a standard wall charger. If you aren't familiar with electrical yourself, you'll need to get somebody who is. But it's a fairly simple process. If you decide to do it yourself you'll have to find out that that's even allowed in code for your area. Most places allow you to kill yourself, but may require a permit to allow you that privilege.

 

[DCGOO]

Hi all, I’ve had the car for a week and really excited to be part of the Tesla family! I’ve searched the forums but don’t quite find my exact scenario and hoping someone smarter than me can shed some light.

My house has an L14-30 30A outlet for a generator. Lots of the posts I’ve seen discuss a female outlet but mine is a male outlet with prongs. Rather than call an electrician and build out a new port, could I repurpose this to charge my Tesla? Ideally an adapter plus the Tesla wall or mobile connector. I plan on only charging overnight so only need L2 charging. Is this possible?

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated! Apologies in advance if there’s an existing thread about this I haven’t seen.

That actually is a power INLET for the generator. If it is wired correctly, it will not provide power to something plugged in to it. It is only capable of sending power INto your house. You could probably rewire it and replace it with an 14-30 female connector, but then it would no longer be able to be used as an inlet for your generator. I am guessing there is a manual transfer switch somewhere inside, which may complicate the problem.

If you are not sure how things are hooked up, it would be money very well spent to hire an electrician to check things out for you.

 

[regularjoeish]

That is for input from a generator. It would be very dangerous to make that live as the terminals sticking out there would be able to be shorted out or short out on you! As in it would electrocute you, possibly resulting in death.

What you could do is have the receptacle changed to a plug, which you could then use for the tesla. The wires for the generator would be roughly the same as that for a standard wall charger. If you aren't familiar with electrical yourself, you'll need to get somebody who is. But it's a fairly simple process. If you decide to do it yourself you'll have to find out that that's even allowed in code for your area. Most places allow you to kill yourself, but may require a permit to allow you that privilege.

I needed this blunt response. I’m now definitely calling an electrician and no longer contemplating jerry rigging this myself. Thank you!

 

[regularjoeish]

That actually is a power INLET for the generator. If it is wired correctly, it will not provide power to something plugged in to it. It is only capable of sending power INto your house. You could probably rewire it and replace it with an 14-30 female connector, but then it would no longer be able to be used as an inlet for your generator. I am guessing there is a manual transfer switch somewhere inside, which may complicate the problem.

If you are not sure how things are hooked up, it would be money very well spent to hire an electrician to check things out for you.

Thank you! I hadn’t understood how this worked! I’m definitely calling an electrician now.