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Talk me into 100A wiring vs 50A wiring

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Following this thread has been interesting.

I currently own an '11 Leaf, and before our recent move, charged it with a Schneider Electric EVSE at 3.3kW (It's capable up to 7.2kW). Now that we're in our new place I'm going to need an electrician to install it again. (so far just been using the 120v EVSE that came with the car).

In the near future we'll have a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid in the mix, and I've been sweating whether to buy two EVSE's and have one placed in each garage (we have a 2 car, and a 1 car garage), or just have the wife plug in the van in the afternoon in the driveway, and when I get home move the van into the 2 car garage, and then park my Leaf in the one car and start charging. If the Pacifica isn't fully charged, just use the 120v for the rest of the evening to top off.

The thing is 1.) I'm sure the Pacifica will have cabin preconditioning like most electric cars, and 120v won't cut it for a car that big. (It barely can handle warming up my Leaf in the mornings).

2.) It's a lot of juggling to get the cars charged, something that isn't easy with 3 kids under 6 demanding your attention the instant you come home.

If the wife can plug in, and I can plug in and just forget about it. That makes life simpler. At the same time I'm a major cheap ass, and I have a hard time justifying the expense for this type of first world (and arguably 1% :p) problem.

Decisions decisions......
 
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Following this thread has been interesting.

I currently own an '11 Leaf, and before our recent move, charged it with a Schneider Electric EVSE at 3.3kW (It's capable up to 7.2kW). Now that we're in our new place I'm going to need an electrician to install it again. (so far just been using the 120v EVSE that came with the car).

In the near future we'll have a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid in the mix, and I've been sweating whether to buy two EVSE's and have one placed in each garage (we have a 2 car, and a 1 car garage), or just have the wife plug in the van in the afternoon in the driveway, and when I get home move the van into the 2 car garage, and then park my Leaf in the one car and start charging. If the Pacifica isn't fully charged, just use the 120v for the rest of the evening to top off.

The thing is 1.) I'm sure the Pacifica will have cabin preconditioning like most electric cars, and 120v won't cut it for a car that big. (It barely can handle warming up my Leaf in the mornings).

2.) It's a lot of juggling to get the cars charged, something that isn't easy with 3 kids under 6 demanding your attention the instant you come home.

If the wife can plug in, and I can plug in and just forget about it. That makes life simpler. At the same time I'm a major cheap ass, and I have a hard time justifying the expense for this type of first world (and arguably 1% :p) problem.

Decisions decisions......

I also have a LEAF, and for that car I consider 30A mandatory if it's your only car. The range is just so limited that you need to be able to turn it around quickly after a round trip to the airport, etc. IMO the Teslas are a different story unless you drive REALLY long distances which I don't. So even 20-30A per Tesla would do fine for me.
 
I also have a LEAF, and for that car I consider 30A mandatory if it's your only car. The range is just so limited that you need to be able to turn it around quickly after a round trip to the airport, etc. IMO the Teslas are a different story unless you drive REALLY long distances which I don't. So even 20-30A per Tesla would do fine for me

While the EVSE makes a difference in turn around time for my Leaf and I definitely agree it's needed, unfortunately I have an '11, which can only charge at the 3.3kW rate so I can't utilize the full 30 amps. Looking forward to it charging the Pacifica, because I think it has a 6.6 or 7.2 kW charger on it.
 
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I currently have a 3.3 kW (240/16 amp) Voltec (Bosch) charger. For the 3 months that I had both a Tesla and still had the Volt, I was sharing that EVSE and just alternating nights between the vehicles. Since my wife commutes about 24 miles round trip, 2 days a week, and otherwise works at home, it was totally sufficient.

I really think people overestimate their needs around this.
 
The best part of EV ownership is the convenience of having your car full every morning. Having a dedicated EVSE for each car is key to achieving this convenience. The required capacity of the EVSE (amps) can vary by car and vehicle usage, but I cannot overstate the benefit to having a dedicated plug for each car.
 
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The best part of EV ownership is the convenience of having your car full every morning. Having a dedicated EVSE for each car is key to achieving this convenience. The required capacity of the EVSE (amps) can vary by car and vehicle usage, but I cannot overstate the benefit to having a dedicated plug for each car.

Along these same lines, I have a 50Amp plug they installed for me (for free) at my apartment. It's actually a double parking spot so I may get an electric Fiat before I get a 3.

Has anyone used a 50A splitter into 2 30Amp plugs to split the 50 Amp past the plug that would work to charge 2 cars at once? And if that's the case, is it smart enough to to give one car all 50amps after the other one is full?
 
Along these same lines, I have a 50Amp plug they installed for me (for free) at my apartment. It's actually a double parking spot so I may get an electric Fiat before I get a 3.

Has anyone used a 50A splitter into 2 30Amp plugs to split the 50 Amp past the plug that would work to charge 2 cars at once? And if that's the case, is it smart enough to to give one car all 50amps after the other one is full?
You should use power sharing EVSEs for this because 30x2>50. JuiceBox Pro and ClipperCreek Share2 have this function. Tesla HPWC also has this function, but using them for J1772 is somewhat cost prohibitive unless you want one J1772 and one Tesla connector.
 
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Along these same lines, I have a 50Amp plug they installed for me (for free) at my apartment. It's actually a double parking spot so I may get an electric Fiat before I get a 3.

Has anyone used a 50A splitter into 2 30Amp plugs to split the 50 Amp past the plug that would work to charge 2 cars at once? And if that's the case, is it smart enough to to give one car all 50amps after the other one is full?
That's not allowed/possible for a few reasons. First off, that 50 amp splitter to two 30 amp outlets is probably one of those things from camping gear stores that splits a 14-50 into two TT-30s. The TT-30 outlets on those are wired opposite from how the Tesla charging cable needs it to be, so they won't work anyway.

Now, bigger issue is the current draw level. It is a requirement from electric code that any permanent load must have a circuit rating 125% of the continuous current draw. Or you can reverse it and say you can only draw 80% of the circuit level. That means only 40A from a 50A circuit, 32 from a 40, 24 from a 30, etc. Notice how two 30s are more than one 50? Even with the restricted 80% current, 24 plus 24 would be 48, which would be overdrawing from a circuit that is only supposed to allow 40A.

So do not try anything like that. If you want to share a circuit, there is a proper way to do it. The new HPWCs from Tesla can be wired onto one circuit, with a communication wire to have them coordinate to not draw any more amps total than the circuit is supposed to use.
 
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Going back on what i originally said... If you run 50 amps now, and then decide you need 100 amps later, you're going to pay the full price for the 50 amp and the 100 amp run, whereas i'd imagine the 100 amp run would just be the cost difference in the wiring if you went ahead and did that up front.
 
You didn't provide pricing, but since you already have the HPWC. I'd pay 10-15% more for 100A over 50A.

I would likely go for 60A given the 48A chargers in the newer cars. Also, willing to pay 10% more, once again not including the price of the HPWC.

Otherwise, I'd be very happy with 50A service.
 
When I set things up for future use (two reservations for 3's, may get an X instead of one of them...), I wanted to be ready to charge one car quickly, two cars 'normally', or even a guest who needed to be on the way quickly (I'm on PlugShare). So, I went with 100 Amps and two HPWCs (with load balancing/sharing).

I had someone stop by the day after they were installed, and he wished he had the 72 Amp charger so he could have taking advantage of my 80 Amp feed!

Yes, in normal use, you may not need more than 50, but I think it's better to future proof all of these things. Back in the day, we said to add network cables when you built your house. That's sorta obsolete, since wifi now actually works (sucked then). But when adding infrastructure, the name of the game is to think ahead if you can.
 
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I also have a LEAF, and for that car I consider 30A mandatory if it's your only car. The range is just so limited that you need to be able to turn it around quickly after a round trip to the airport, etc. IMO the Teslas are a different story unless you drive REALLY long distances which I don't. So even 20-30A per Tesla would do fine for me.
My S is my only car in the US. I have effectively 25a/200v power (theoretically 208/30) and need no more. When I go on trips it takes 10-12 hours to get a full charge, so if I made such trips every day I'd want 240/80 available. I doubt I'll ever need that. I do think no EV owner should try to do with less than 208/30 per vehicle even with <20 kWh because the lower the battery size the greater the need for full changing, other things remaining equal.
 
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Go 100A whenever possible...there's going to be a day someone forgets to plug in and it might just save the day...avoiding that risk alone is worth the upgrade.
The "forget to plug in" is the scenario most people bring up, but as a counterpoint, I usually bring up what other options do you have locally where you are? If there is a Supercharger somewhat near you, that can be your backup plan for rare times when that happens. Also, how many miles do you do? If you can normally go two or three days, forgetting to fill up one night wouldn't be a problem.
 
The "forget to plug in" is the scenario most people bring up, but as a counterpoint, I usually bring up what other options do you have locally where you are? If there is a Supercharger somewhat near you, that can be your backup plan for rare times when that happens. Also, how many miles do you do? If you can normally go two or three days, forgetting to fill up one night wouldn't be a problem.
I suspect "forget to plug in" is ICE-speak. EV owners I know routinely plug in where ever they find a free plug and also routinely plug in every day at home. Not once has anybody I know ever reporting having "forgotten" to charge. In ICE, sure, because one must stop at a gasoline station somewhere. BEV's are another world. I notice PHEV including Porsche, routinely plugging in when visiting locations such as, for example, Whole Foods. Has anybody here ever "forgotten"?