I've ordered my first Tesla (MY) and in preparation for its delivery I'm debating on whether or not this charging solution I have in my mind is... just crazy or actually feasible?
We're lucky enough to only live 1.5 miles away from a bank of gen 3 super chargers set to go live any week now so if the idea I have for home charging is not really a great idea, I can always super charge without much change to our normal routine (the superchargers are in the same lot as our local grocery store which we visit at least 1x week, and with our current and post-pandemic driving habits, could probably be ok with just supercharging 1-2x/wk at most).
From what i've been reading, it seems like always super charging probably isn't the best thing to do for battery health, so ideally I'd like to rig up a way to charge my car while it's parked on the street.. which brings me to what i'm thinking about doing.. and I wanted to get a sense of whether or not others have done anything similar.
We generally are able to park directly in front of our house most days (and on the days we can't, can generally move our car to be in front of the house at some point) - and in between the front of our house and where we would park the car is a 12 foot wide public sidewalk which is owned by the city.
In front of our house is also a tree pit/small garden which my wife and I take care of (as is the typical expectation of residents in our neighborhood).
The city rules and regulations prohibit us from running any kind of electric service underground into the tree pit from our house, and we also cannot have any permanent wires/cables running from the house on the surface of the sidewalk to our car out front as it's a very obvious trip-hazard...
What I'm thinking about doing though, is running a 220v circuit and locating the plug to be about 14 feet up from the ground, attached to the outside front wall of our house, and then plugging in a heavy duty 220v NEMA 14-50 cord into the outlet and essentially stringing it along with our existing string lights 14 feet above the sidewalk and hanging the female end of the cord in a bundle within the branches of the tree in front of our how, which would then be accessible to us when our car is parked out front and needs to be charged (see attached pic, red drawing line would be cord running next to existing string lights above sidewalk and ending in branches or resting on a guide wire we have running up and down the block (which I installed) between our trees to allow neighbors that don't have a tree in front of their house to still attach string lights to, allowing the whole block to have a canopy of string lights like in the attached picture).
I don't think this is a violation of any codes as we're not running cable directly on the surface of or under the sidewalk (so it's not a tripping issue and it's not a land rights issue as we're not running power to land we don't technically own) but... are there any other issues anyone can think of that might pose a problem if we go this route?
Obviously there's always the risk that we can't park in front of our house on a given day/night, but we can generally do so overnight at least 3 days a week - and there may also be the risk that others notice what I've done and want to also plug into my outlet when we're not there (I say the more people that do this the merrier), and then I guess there's the liability aspect of it - where there may be the risk of someone getting electrocuted by playing with the cord while its tied up in the tree and not being used to charge (but I am considering putting a disconnect into the line to cut off power from the inside when not in use).
Has anyone done anything similar before? If so, have you ever run into issues with actually charging? Weather, rain, snow, ice concerns with keeping a cord out at all times?
Is this just crazy and not a good idea? Any other thoughts from city-dwellers in a similar situation?
We're lucky enough to only live 1.5 miles away from a bank of gen 3 super chargers set to go live any week now so if the idea I have for home charging is not really a great idea, I can always super charge without much change to our normal routine (the superchargers are in the same lot as our local grocery store which we visit at least 1x week, and with our current and post-pandemic driving habits, could probably be ok with just supercharging 1-2x/wk at most).
From what i've been reading, it seems like always super charging probably isn't the best thing to do for battery health, so ideally I'd like to rig up a way to charge my car while it's parked on the street.. which brings me to what i'm thinking about doing.. and I wanted to get a sense of whether or not others have done anything similar.
We generally are able to park directly in front of our house most days (and on the days we can't, can generally move our car to be in front of the house at some point) - and in between the front of our house and where we would park the car is a 12 foot wide public sidewalk which is owned by the city.
In front of our house is also a tree pit/small garden which my wife and I take care of (as is the typical expectation of residents in our neighborhood).
The city rules and regulations prohibit us from running any kind of electric service underground into the tree pit from our house, and we also cannot have any permanent wires/cables running from the house on the surface of the sidewalk to our car out front as it's a very obvious trip-hazard...
What I'm thinking about doing though, is running a 220v circuit and locating the plug to be about 14 feet up from the ground, attached to the outside front wall of our house, and then plugging in a heavy duty 220v NEMA 14-50 cord into the outlet and essentially stringing it along with our existing string lights 14 feet above the sidewalk and hanging the female end of the cord in a bundle within the branches of the tree in front of our how, which would then be accessible to us when our car is parked out front and needs to be charged (see attached pic, red drawing line would be cord running next to existing string lights above sidewalk and ending in branches or resting on a guide wire we have running up and down the block (which I installed) between our trees to allow neighbors that don't have a tree in front of their house to still attach string lights to, allowing the whole block to have a canopy of string lights like in the attached picture).
I don't think this is a violation of any codes as we're not running cable directly on the surface of or under the sidewalk (so it's not a tripping issue and it's not a land rights issue as we're not running power to land we don't technically own) but... are there any other issues anyone can think of that might pose a problem if we go this route?
Obviously there's always the risk that we can't park in front of our house on a given day/night, but we can generally do so overnight at least 3 days a week - and there may also be the risk that others notice what I've done and want to also plug into my outlet when we're not there (I say the more people that do this the merrier), and then I guess there's the liability aspect of it - where there may be the risk of someone getting electrocuted by playing with the cord while its tied up in the tree and not being used to charge (but I am considering putting a disconnect into the line to cut off power from the inside when not in use).
Has anyone done anything similar before? If so, have you ever run into issues with actually charging? Weather, rain, snow, ice concerns with keeping a cord out at all times?
Is this just crazy and not a good idea? Any other thoughts from city-dwellers in a similar situation?
