Question about level 1 charging

[yellowmonky]

Hi all,

I'm considering buying a tesla and I live in a condo building with potential access to level one charging. I'm going to talk to my management company about using the outlet by my parking spot, but before I do that I want to clarify one detail...

My parking spot is in the bottom of an underground parking structure with no access to network/wifi. If I park my car and plug it in the outlet, can I control when the car charges without use of the Tesla app? I want to tell the management company that I will set the car to only charge during the lowest electricity hours, but I understand that without the Tesla app I might be limited to what I can control. I assume I can set a charging window in my car and it will only charge during that window, and plugging it in underground will be fine. I just won't be able to review the charging state of my car through the mobile app.

Thanks

 

[bradtem]

Don't undersell the ability of level 1. I drove for 2 years on level 1 just fine. People are shocked that it works. What matters is, how many miles do you drive per day on average. (If you drive 10,000 miles/year, that's 28 miles/day for example.) Level 1, in most places, can easily do that. What's important to realize is that you won't always get back to "full" every day. Some days you will get low. You may even get quite low, but rarely. But it works.

It will happen that sometimes you will do long drives 2 or 3 days in a row. 28 miles/day is just your average, and some days will be more, some much more, and some less. If that even happens, you will seek out other charging, such as a supercharger. The good news is, any day you are doing a long drive is a day you probably drive past a supercharger. That can top you up. I only ever supercharged at the charger near my home once in the 2 years, but I of course used superchargers, like everybody, on longer road trips.

Now, as some have noted, in my home town of Toronto it can get cold, though it doesn't get as cold in an underground garage. You will need to track just how cold it gets. In the winter you may need to visit superchargers a little more often to keep your levels up. If you find it's too much, you can start your quest for level 2.

Are you paying the electricity bill for this plug? Because if not, frankly you might not care about the time of day usage, and charge during mid-peak as well as off-peak, if that's how you are priced. Still cheaper than supercharger, usually. Ontario hydro electricity prices are super cheap. I pay 24 American cents per kWh in the middle of the night, you pay 2.8c Canadian. Just avoid from 4pm to 9pm and you will be fine.

If the plug belongs to you, however, there is a cheap option I might recommend. Rewire it to 240v from 120v. That means change the breakers in the breaker box (ie. plug has to belong to you) and replace the receptacle with a 240v 15a. (This is presuming wire rated for 15a. If you are lucky you might have 12AWG which can do 20a.) This inexpensive change will now let you gain 100 miles/night and also handle the cold. That should be more than enough unless you drive a very long commute. In fact, you'll get back to full most days, but remember, you don't need to get back to full. That's the advantage of a bigger battery.

Of course, if your car is there in the day you can get even more. If you commute to work, you can also try to push your work parking lot to put in some level 2 there. Or you might find there is some not too far from work. In that case, you might park there 1 day a week, those days you see your range getting low.