There are polls about this. Some people do use a mobile connector... but the fact is that it's not as good as a hard wired EVSE.
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Tesla has officially removed the mobile connector as a standard accessory with every new car purchase; now a $400 separate purchase
- Thread starter Mockingbird
- Start date
There are polls about this. Some people do use a mobile connector... but the fact is that it's not as good as a hard wired EVSE.
I use the mobile charger and a Nema 14-50 adapter daily. We have a Model Y and a Q4 e-tron. We have a 240v Nema 14-50 outlet in our garage with a NeoCharge smart splitter. Both the Q4 mobile connector and the Tesla mobile connector plugged into the smart splitter. The outlet is on a 50amp breaker so I have the Tesla set at 20amps and the Q4 at 20 amps for simultaneous charging. I also use the Tesla mobile connector for when we travel to visit family. I’ll plug into just a regular wall outlet to get some juice from their house while visiting. Perfect set up for us with no issues. Having two hard wired chargers would be way more expensive and would require us to have a panel upgrade costing thousands of dollars.
RTPEV
Active Member
I have more or less had a dedicated EVSE since the day I got my first EV in 2011, so I mostly had a good solution for charging at home.
However, that first EV was a Nissan LEAF, which meant that being able to plug into a 120V (and eventually 240V) outlet at work was helpful. Also, when our second car was also an EV, while we could mostly just swap the plug each night to get both cars charged, occasionally it became necessary to use a portable EVSE to charge one of them so they could both charge simultaneously (I eventually resolved this issue by building a 2-connector J1772 Hydra). And for awhile, we lived in an apartment and only had 120V available to us, so we had to use the portable EVSE as our sole EVSE.
But of course with Teslas and other contemporary EVs, it is less of a concern. We can each go 4-5 days without needing to charge so can easily manage sharing a single charger (even though we still use the Hydra) and charging at work is simply not necessary.
However, I use the portable EVSE on most trips. My in-laws live in a remote part of northern NY, only about 45 miles past the last Supercharger en route, but while there I almost always make a 90 mile round trip to my old college town to check on things and attend my fraternity's annual meeting (although as of this past year, there is now a Supercharger there), in addition to making several small side trips to the store, to go out to dinner, etc. And being very rural and spread out, that can add quite a few miles. So, I just bring my mobile connector and plug in since we'll be there for many days, and by the time I am ready to leave, I'm at 100% and instead of having to stop 45 miles into the trip, I can make it all the way to our lunch stop in Pennsylvania before having to stop.
I've also shared that when we've visited my side of the family after my wife's, the route we take has no Superchargers for 280 miles. Given that we stayed a few days in my hometown (and driving around a bit), we could not have made it without diverting 30 miles to a Supercharger. As it turned, however, we did stay at a new hotel that did have a charging station, but in past years, being able to plug in to 120V was pretty much a necessity.
Even when not strictly necessary, plugging in to 120V at an overnight stop, such as at my son's house, is a convenience because it allows us to go that much further in the morning. And when we visited them a few weeks ago during a real cold spell, even though I barely got 10 miles added overnight, it did at least keep the battery somewhat warm.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I'm using the mobile connector exclusively as home charging on a 14-50. When I got my SR+ the wall charger was more expensive than it is now and I don't get faster speeds, given I have a SR+, so it made zero sense for me.
I included a poll with my post Choosing A Tesla Home-charging Option. If the results are at all valid (while the sample size is pretty good, it still must be considered non-scientific), then:
- A little over one-third (~35%) of responders use the Mobile Connector (MC) that came with the car. (This home-charging poll was published before Tesla stopped providing an MC with every new car.)
- Add another eight percent (to the total number of MC users) for people who purchased a second MC solely for dedicated home charging (leaving the original MC in the trunk/frunk).
- Only a measly 2.4% use the (more rugged/robust) Tesla Corded Mobile Connector (for home charging). (Never understood why the Tesla Corded MC, an otherwise good product, had a price that was originally so high--$520. More than a WC!)
- About seventeen percent use a Tesla Wall Connector that plugs into a NEMA 14-50 outlet. (Tesla NEMA 14-50 WCs were given out as referral rewards, I believe, in addition to being sold around 2019.)
- Around 35 percent use a Gen 3 WC.
- And about 18 percent of people who bothered to respond use a Gen 2 WC.
While the figures are not exact, I suspect that this snapshot nevertheless still* provides a reasonably reliable indication of the charging option popularity breakdown.
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* Results may eventually go out-of-date and become invalid due to inevitable product changes--e.g., continuing decline of new Gen 2 hardwired or NEMA 14-50 WCs in the marketplace; MCs no longer provided by Tesla in new cars; price drops; competitive aftermarket products; etc.).
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I’ve been using a mobile connector plugged into a 14-50 outlet to charge 2 BEVs for over 3 years now without issues. No splitting just charge 1 car at a time. At ~7kWh (32 amps) you’re fully charged overnight. When we had 1 Tesla and 1 Chevy we would just unplug the mobile connector and take it with us on road trips (2-3 a year) but now with 2 Teslas no need to unplug.
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