Replacing home generator, is Tesla home charger compatible?

[laservet]

We have a 26 kW natural gas generator for our home. We’ve lost power for as long as 8 days and need power to the grinder pump to be able to use the bathrooms, and one large enough to kick that over will power the entire house indefinitely. It’s getting old and unreliable and we’re going to replace it. Can the Tesla home charger can be powered by a generator? My Tesla home charger is an 06/2020 purchase.

 

[Cosmacelf]

We have a 26 kW natural gas generator for our home. We’ve lost power for as long as 8 days and need power to the grinder pump to be able to use the bathrooms, and one large enough to kick that over will power the entire house indefinitely. It’s getting old and unreliable and we’re going to replace it. Can the Tesla home charger can be powered by a generator? My Tesla home charger is an 06/2020 purchase.

Yes, any reasonably large generator (and 26 kW is large) will produce sufficient power quality to charge a car.

 

[jcanoe]

Tesla includes the following note regarding using private power generators with the Tesla Gen2 Mobile Connector under Safety Information on Page 3.

Caution: Do not use private power generators as a power source for charging.

The reason is not stated but a bad ground connection could create a dangerous condition when handling the Mobile Connector. In addition, high levels of harmonic distortion in the generator's output AC voltage could damage the Tesla on-board charging equipment.

This same cautionary note is stated on page 4 of the Tesla Gen3 Wall Connector Owner's Manual.

I have a natural gas powered standby generator (14kW) that can power my home. I would only attempt to charge my Tesla Model Y off of the generator power in an emergency. The scenario where my generator is running for an extended period would likely include a snow/ice storm with wide spread power outages. Chances are the roads will not have been cleared. Also, the places I might want to go might be closed due to lack of power. I would skip charging (and driving except in an emergency) until conditions improve.

 

[laservet]

Thank you. I would only use it if we had an extended power outage, but hurricanes have done that repeatedly here. The generator guy needs to know because there is a setting on the generator or switch that depends on that info. IIRC, the generator can power regulate large loads, like the clothes dryer, if we are using power at max capacity (unlikely with a 26 kW generator, but I get it) it can selectively shut off the dryer or other big draw, and the car would be on that list, too.