Tesla Wall Connector For Performance Model 3

[NathanielHrnblwr]

If you have LED lights in the house and if some of those circuits are for lighting only, ask your electrician if you may be able to combine two on one circuit breaker. That layout was designed for incandescent lighting and would draw nowhere near 15a with LED's.

 

[SageBrush]

is it going to make a major difference between 50 amp vs 60 ?

5/6 = 0.83
The 50 Amp solution will be 17% slower
Phrased another way, you will spend 6 minutes charging on the slower solution instead of 5 minutes with the faster solution.

 

[WarpedOne]

Human nature is such that we start to notice differences above ~1/3 or some 30%.
Smaller changes get increasingly hard to notice without paying special attention.

 

[brkaus]

I put my WC on a 50a circuit due to utility rate plan. No regrets at all.

We have an S & 3 in the garage and still manage fine. Might add a second WC, but will still share the 50a circuit.

 

[jbcarioca]

Awesome Thank You Everyone, This helps a lot. So yeah Plus I think Tesla has plans to add a supercharger near my house in few months so I can live with 50amps for sure.. I think and Just charge at supercharger if need it any faster.. Thank You So much for all your wonderful help what a great community we have so helpful !

Almost everyone thinks they need higher power at home, just because the HPWC can accept higher power. At home I have lived happily with 30/208 for four years, meaning 23 amps and ~200 volts in practice. I almost always stay at home for 10 hours or more overnight and never have needed more power. Once you become accustomed to plugging in every night you'll find you might even want to dial back on the amperage to keep charging at a modest rate, thus avoiding any passive battery drain at all. Very often I dial back to 10 amps or so, for that reason.

Further, more and more shopping centers, restaurants and other facilities are adding J1772 and/or other charging options. Even a 120V wall plug gives 4-5 mph charge and that helps more tahn you'd think. I plug in those went at movies or restaurants when I see them. They simply add a little bit of charge, so you'll find over item that you'll plug into whatever you find wherever it is. It's a mindset change from thinking of 'refueling' as lost time.

For the record I agonized over charging when I first was driving Tesla in 2014. Now I only need to think about it when driving in remote areas, like Northern Ontario, even there the Trans-Canada-Highway has available charging options alreafy, and Superchargers are coming also. I thought I needed more power at home...luckily I gave up on paying for charging speed I did not need.

 

[dhrivnak]

Just to be easy on the grid I normally charge at 24 amps. Only twice in 16,500 miles of driving did I bump it up. So charging at 40 amps would cover the VAST number of situations.

 

[SageBrush]

I have not done so yet but I've thought about dialing down my 32 Amp charge (on a 40 Amp circuit) to 16 Amps in order to match my PV output. It would be an obvious thing to do when my utility goes to demand charging.

As @jbcarioca says, a daily charging habit does not require a high powered circuit.

 

[127.0.0.0]

Awesome, Thank You everyone for the input and

Human nature is such that we start to notice differences above ~1/3 or some 30%.
Smaller changes get increasingly hard to notice without paying special attention.

5/6 = 0.83
The 50 Amp solution will be 17% slower
Phrased another way, you will spend 6 minutes charging on the slower solution instead of 5 minutes with the faster solution.

I agree it will be only like 17% Improvement and that too over night regardless I doubt I will notice anything since it be overnight anyways.. So I think I will stick with the 50amp.

Wow! That is the most packed density panel I have ever seen. Literally every single breaker position already is "tandemed" up. The inside of that thing must be packed!

Your electrician is correct. The highest amperage "quad tandem" breaker Eaton makes is 50a. Something like this:

Eaton - BQ2502115, Quadplex Circuit Breakers, Residential, Power Distribution - Platt Electric Supply

I would probably still do the Wall Connector but just do it on a 50a breaker. The charge rate will be only 8 amps different. Still will be a little faster than just a UMC Gen 2.

And yes My panel Is packed I guess when the solar company came in they took some of the space of what ever it was left.

If you have LED lights in the house and if some of those circuits are for lighting only, ask your electrician if you may be able to combine two on one circuit breaker. That layout was designed for incandescent lighting and would draw nowhere near 15a with LED's.

By The way yes, All of my lights in the house are LED BULB. I cannot count anything which is not LED..

 

[SageBrush]

I agree it will be only like 17% Improvement

Fun with numbers: The 60 Amp solution is 20% faster than the 50 Amp solution.

Why ?
5*1.2 = 6

But looked at the other way
6*0.83 = 5

--
It would be a rare person who charges more than 20 kWh at a time and is watching the clock. I say this because once you have 20 kWh in the battery, you take off to the first supercharger en-route. It takes about 110 minutes to add 20 kWh to the battery at 60 Amps and 110*1.2 = 132 minutes at 50 Amps. So the very unusual corner case is a 22 minute additional delay.

However, this corner case can be almost entirely avoided by just having a daily routine that keeps your SoC over 20%. By doing so you have at least 60 miles of range for emergencies, and any long trip out of the blue where you waiting for the car to charge to 20 kWh before setting out would now be 22 * 6 /20 = 6 minutes additional delay from the slower charging choice.

If you live closer than 100 miles to a Supercharger that is en-route then there is no corner case at all.

 

[CrazyCoconut]

Fun with numbers: The 60 Amp solution is 20% faster than the 50 Amp solution.

Why ?
5*1.2 = 6

But looked at the other way
6*0.83 = 5

--
It would be a rare person who charges more than 20 kWh at a time and is watching the clock. I say this because once you have 20 kWh in the battery, you take off to the first supercharger en-route. It takes about 110 minutes to add 20 kWh to the battery at 60 Amps and 110*1.2 = 132 minutes at 50 Amps. So the very unusual corner case is a 22 minute additional delay.

However, this corner case can be almost entirely avoided by just having a daily routine that keeps your SoC over 20%. By doing so you have at least 60 miles of range for emergencies, and any long trip out of the blue where you waiting for the car to charge to 20 kWh before setting out would now be 22 * 6 /20 = 6 minutes additional delay from the slower charging choice.

If you live closer than 100 miles to a Supercharger that is en-route then there is no corner case at all.

Minor nitpick. It's actually 48A vs 40A for 60A and 50A circuits, respectively. Sustained load should be no more than 80% of breaker size per code. Still a 20% difference though between the two.

 

[127.0.0.0]

Fun with numbers: The 60 Amp solution is 20% faster than the 50 Amp solution.

Why ?
5*1.2 = 6

But looked at the other way
6*0.83 = 5

--
It would be a rare person who charges more than 20 kWh at a time and is watching the clock. I say this because once you have 20 kWh in the battery, you take off to the first supercharger en-route. It takes about 110 minutes to add 20 kWh to the battery at 60 Amps and 110*1.2 = 132 minutes at 50 Amps. So the very unusual corner case is a 22 minute additional delay.

However, this corner case can be almost entirely avoided by just having a daily routine that keeps your SoC over 20%. By doing so you have at least 60 miles of range for emergencies, and any long trip out of the blue where you waiting for the car to charge to 20 kWh before setting out would now be 22 * 6 /20 = 6 minutes additional delay from the slower charging choice.

If you live closer than 100 miles to a Supercharger that is en-route then there is no corner case at all.

I am about 20-25 miles from The supercharger rite now. So back and forth if I am just going for the charging is about 40-50 miles round trip. How-ever that is about to change quick for me. At-least according to Tesla website they are building a supercharger next to my house

Antioch, CA | Tesla

So if this happens At-least according to the permit it seems like it be about 1.8 miles so round trip 4 miles than. Cannot wait for it. Plus I do have free Unlimited supercharging as well. So it be nice... Can't wait for the construction to start.. Anyhow I still will get my 50 amp with Tesla wall connector installed within few weeks.

Electrician has put in a order for that quad breaker so waiting for the part to arrive. So he can install the connector.

 

[SageBrush]

^^ I didn't mean you should use the supercharger instead of home charging.
I was just saying that a corner case where you want to leave home but have to wait for the car to have enough charge to make it to a supercharger is about the same whether you have a 50 or 60 Amp EVSE at home. All the other times the car is charging while you are sleeping.

 

[SageBrush]

Still a 20% difference though between the two.

Yep. The time ratio remains the same

 

[127.0.0.0]

Hi Wanted to thank everyone and it worked out great ! I got the charger up and running today. Once again thank you everyone. Attached is the pic.

 

[NickFie]

If you live closer than 100 miles to a Supercharger that is en-route then there is no corner case at all.

There are times when it’s convenient to have fast charging at home. The cases rarely justify radically higher Installation cost.

However, I don’t regret paying the incremental cost of heavier gauge cable and higher-amp breaker for our HPWC.

We’re on a trip that started with dinner slightly more than 100 miles from home. The next lap had a tight schedule and called for high charge at start. Fortunately, there’s a SuperCharger between the restaurant and the Turnpike on-ramp.

Our daughter’s family had been using the S 100D we wanted for the trip. When we swapped the 3 for the S at mid-day, we found charge was barely above 50%.

No problem. HPWC has 100 amp connection. Set S to 72-amp maximum charge rate. We left home at 95%. This eliminated pre-dinner SuperCharger stop and minimized time spent at the SuperCharger after dinner.

Also, Philadelphia is a SuperCharger desert.

 

[UngaBunga1989]

Almost everyone thinks they need higher power at home, just because the HPWC can accept higher power. At home I have lived happily with 30/208 for four years, meaning 23 amps and ~200 volts in practice. I almost always stay at home for 10 hours or more overnight and never have needed more power. Once you become accustomed to plugging in every night you'll find you might even want to dial back on the amperage to keep charging at a modest rate, thus avoiding any passive battery drain at all. Very often I dial back to 10 amps or so, for that reason.

Further, more and more shopping centers, restaurants and other facilities are adding J1772 and/or other charging options. Even a 120V wall plug gives 4-5 mph charge and that helps more tahn you'd think. I plug in those went at movies or restaurants when I see them. They simply add a little bit of charge, so you'll find over item that you'll plug into whatever you find wherever it is. It's a mindset change from thinking of 'refueling' as lost time.

For the record I agonized over charging when I first was driving Tesla in 2014. Now I only need to think about it when driving in remote areas, like Northern Ontario, even there the Trans-Canada-Highway has available charging options alreafy, and Superchargers are coming also. I thought I needed more power at home...luckily I gave up on paying for charging speed I did not need.

+1 on folks worrying too much about the size of their charging circuits. My wife drives a 2016 Chevy Volt (formerly my beloved Volt) and I now have an M3P. I use a 30-amp 220-volt circuit (with the portable charger that comes with the car) and she just uses a regular 8-amp, 110-volt outlet for the Volt. We both drive every day and charge every night and we have never not had fully charged cars in the morning. Realistically I would never run the battery down to zero and assuming a 20-mile safety margin left in the battery, even with the M3P's 310-mile theoretical range I can get a complete charge from "empty" in 13 hours (a 30-amp, 200-volt circuit adds 22 miles/hour of range). More typically I drive 70 - 80 miles at most per day and they gets topped off in under four hours.

So, unless money is no object, I'd err on the side of waiting and seeing what you actually need before spending a lot of money to upgrade your electrical system. Plus, charging batteries slower, at lower amperages is actually much less stressful to them and makes them last longer...FWIW.

 

[NickFie]

Plus, charging batteries slower, at lower amperages is actually much less stressful to them and makes them last longer...FWIW.

Doubt that maximum HPWC charge rate stresses battery at all. It is a small fraction of SuperCharger speed.

Teslafi stats for our 3 and S show lower efficiency at slower charge rate - fewer KWh pulled from the wall end up as battery charge.