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Question about 110 charging

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View attachment 65017View attachment 65018Another MUCH CHEAPER option that no one else has mentioned yet. Convert existing outlet to 240v. So you'd be charging at 12 amps at 240v. The UMC will work on 120 or 240v. It doesnt care. As long as you use the proper amp rated adapter, your all set.
I personally made a adapter for when I travel, to convert 15 and 20 amp 240v outlets to work with the 120v 15 and 20 amp UMC adapters. This allows me to plug into hotel/motel air-conditioner and heater outlets. This came in very handy on a few occasions. It will double your charging speed without needing to really do much. Only problem would be is if the outlet is not a dedicated outlet and shares a circuit.
Otherwise, if cost is still a factor, you can have a 20 amp 240v outlet run for a considerably lower amount of money then a 50 amp. A 20 amp 240v outlet would let you charge at 16 amps. I drain my pack almost daily, and I can full charge my almost dead pack back to 90% at 20 amps, your not far off especially if your not going far on a daily basis.
While it's not "against the rules" to use a Supercharger for your regular charging, it is frowned upon. The accepted "intent" of superchargers is to allow distance trips with minimal down time for charging. Please reserve those stations for people who really need them. If you must use for regular charging, consider going during hours when demand is lowest.
I will also guarantee that using a SC like that is going to get real old real fast. It will turn into a Chore. But by all means, I am not discouraging all use. Just daily type use. If you need it, use it. If it can be done at home, please do it at home.

I second those words. At work I also converted a regular 16amp 120volt outlet to a 16amp 240volt outlet with a simple breaker change at the breaker box and a new receptacle (Nema 6-20R). This keeps everything to code. That outlet was already dedicated to one breaker, but if yours is not you could still do this but you would have to blank out the rest of the outlets on that circuit. It more than doubles the charge rate, due to better efficiency. I made an adapter for the UMC to use the 6-20outlet. Total cost for everything was under $100. Frankly, if you can't charge at home with at least 240volts I wouldn't recommend buying a Model S or any electric car for that matter. 120volt works in a pinch, but is not good enough for everyday charging.
 
120V can work. While not for me if you average less than 40 miles a day it can work. My neighbor has a Leaf and in a year has successfully charged with 120V with little issues. I think there have been 3 days where he had to swap with the wife. One time a blown breaker, once he forgot to plug in and once too much driving.

I am likely to get a Volt for the wife and plan to use 120V. So it can work.

If the EV were my primary car 220V gives more flexibility. But if daily average is low it can work.
 
We just bout a 2014 85 with duel chargers. We are retired and don't drive the Telsa every day. We were going to have an electrician run a 50 amp 220 line close to the car. We do have a 110 receptacle within 10 feet already. We also have a super charing Tesla station within 6 miles.

Sooooo the question is, Is it really worth it to bother with the 220? I know it is much faster, but again we don't drive it every day and we have 2 other vehicles (F type and RX 350).

Now if the 220 is cheaper to use it might be worth it in the long run.

Does anyone know if using the 110 is like turning on a 60 watt bulb constantly? Or?

Thanks for any thoughts and help :)

Scott

Personally in your situation, I would go ahead and install the 50 amp 220 line for convenience--it doesn't cost that much.

I'm curious if you are retired and don't drive very much why did you purchase the vehicle with duel chargers?
 
We bought a "showroom model" directly from Tesla. Silver paint, 85, pano roof, 21" grey wheels, grey leather, duel chargers, fog lights, parking sensors, parcel shelf, carbon fiber dash trim, yacht floor, armor protection, ted package, new tires. The car had 7K driven and the invoice was $99,200. They gave us over $22,000 off the car so 77K. Warrantee to 57,000 and a full 4 years. AND we were the 1st owners so we qualify for the up to $10,000 mile rebate.

So as you can see we had no choice in equipment. It was one of the color combinations we would have chosen anyway. We probably wouldn't of ordered the 21" grey wheels (although it sets off the roof and silver paint very nicely) or the duel chargers but they were there.

We just couldn't turn it down. The car did not have a scratch.

Ver are very happy.
 
This example of owner rationalising 120v charging is not weakened by cold temperatures, due to his mild climate. But if he lived in cold temps during a good part of the year then use of 120v for charging would simply NOT work. So much power would be required to warm the battery sufficiently to allow charging that very little would be added to the battery. So that 20% efficiency hit (I thought it was a lot more?) would be multiplied. Remember that the battery has NO insulation around it (so it can radiate excess heat in the summer).

How far below 20*F is the point of zero net charging with 120v? Charts anyone? My guess is around 17*F but just a guess.
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Just for your edification - we started out using 110V for about a month before doing what you are thinking of and getting a 220V.
The 110V gave enough charge for our usage about 80% of the time, but we don't live that close to any fast chargers, so opted for 220V security blanket :)
The only thing I would have done differently is to have installed enough capacity for a second charger.
Our plan is to be a two EV family next year.
 
120V can work. While not for me if you average less than 40 miles a day it can work. My neighbor has a Leaf and in a year has successfully charged with 120V with little issues. I think there have been 3 days where he had to swap with the wife. One time a blown breaker, once he forgot to plug in and once too much driving.

I am likely to get a Volt for the wife and plan to use 120V. So it can work.

If the EV were my primary car 220V gives more flexibility. But if daily average is low it can work.

I used 110V for our volt for the first year, it works fine. Takes about 10 hours . When I got the Tesla adding 3 miles of range per hour just didn't cut it. I got a 240V 14-50 added + a clipper creek 32A so the volt and Tesla can use it. Now the volt charges in 4 hours (it has a 3.3Kw charger), the Tesla will get +22 miles per hour using the J1772, if I swap the plug and directly plug in using the UMC I get +28 miles per hour range. I expect our electric bill for the volt to drop by 15% since I didn't realise 110V actually costs more KWH, I wrongly assumed it was just time.
 
I had my NEMA 14-50 installed this very afternoon. I lucked out and it is directly on the other side of the wall from my panel. Installation and all parts cost me $311. Not too bad at all. Certainly worth getting a few quotes for that one or two times you need it and don't have it you might be kicking yourself.