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Townhome with No L2 Charging Options. We Moved.

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Spacep0d

Active Member
Apr 20, 2019
1,354
3,097
Wildomar, CA
Howdy TMC!

This has been a LONG time coming, and a lot of you are well aware of this saga, soap opera, drama, troubleshooting, etc. A lot of you offered your amazing support and guidance.

To summarize, the townhome in which I lived for 17 years was fine until I became interested in EVs. In 2019 I bought a used Nissan LEAF but could only use trickle-charging, which I don't have to explain for most is just an EVSE plugged into a regular 120v wall socket at 12 amp. With the LEAF's short range, I'd run out of battery quickly and would have to supplement my commute travel with DC-3 fast charging.

I rented a Tesla for two days from Turo and fell in love. Bought my white P3D- in August 2020 and had been trying to upgrade my charging situation since before that time. 11 electricians, lots of advice from this forum, HOA provisional approval, and lots of preemptive work to convince the HOA to understand both the law and the need to keep the buildings current and future-proofed with EV-charging capability beyond trickle charging. Could not improve my charging situation at all, not even to the most humble NEMA 5-15—let alone a TWC (Tesla Wall Connector) or NEMA 14-50.

Soon after I got my Tesla my girlfriend bought one too after I raved about the advantages of EVs and talked her out of ICE cars and hybrids. She test-drove both the Y and the 3 and ended up with a Model 3 Long Range in MSM with white interior, and it's gorgeous.

Frustrated and faced with the prospect of two Teslas, trickle-charging for the foreseeable future in this smallish townhome and also realizing we had no space for a treadmill, we decided to consider a move. I was already working from home before the pandemic. I made sure to get clearance to WFH remotely (even another state if needed) and got the official go-ahead.

You can see where this is going. With all of the planets aligned here I found myself with a stable WFH career, two Teslas, the need for more space, good credit, and in a seller's market. We sold our place in two days where we got 32 offers and sold it for almost 40k over asking. We bought a place in Wildomar (near Temecula and Murrieta) with both a Generation 2 TWC and SOLAR. Solar was always a goal of mine and it's a nice SolarEdge system. You may have correctly guessed by now that the seller is a Tesla owner and fan too. They even left us two Tesla Hot Wheels <3 as a little housewarming gift and there's a little sign in the garage which reads; 'Tesla Parking Only; All Others are Unworthy' or something like that. Amazing. Can't wait to find a permanent spot for it.

I wrote a nice email to the president of my former HOA to really think about becoming more EV-friendly, because those rinky dink 60a panels enclosed in a lower bathroom separated by a patio are not going to cut it. Great place for ICE owners and awesome garages, but not as much for EVs if you're driving a lot or commuting. I don't know if they can muster any group effort without massive EV adoption in the complex, nor can they incentivize EV adoption without good charging possibilities at home. Bit of a circular issue, and I'm sure it won't be cheap but going forward, people will expect to charge EVs at home just as we expect to have indoor plumbing. I imagine that any new construction must consider EV-charging, especially for apartments and condos that don't necessarily come with garage space. Even then, one must consider EV-owners and their rising population. The incidence of EVs is only going up. Anyway, I was the first to inquire about this per the HOA, and it's no longer my problem.

The irony of ALL of this is that realtors/sellers almost never show the garage in real estate pictures, which I found highly annoying. I've been fighting that battle on other forums, but the takedowns I have for people defending NOT showing the garage are epic. I've heard every excuse under the sun, and they're all terrible. There's definitely a weird culture of repeated memes here (mind viruses) where somehow NOT showing the garage (even when empty and nice) is somehow the 'thing to do'. But OMG don't miss yet another picture of a bath/shower combo or kitchen backsplash. I will digress further if I don't stop here, lol. Agents never talk about panels either, whether they're 200a and ideally suited for EV-charging or 60a toy panels in the backyard. The way homes are sold needs to be updated ASAP, because it's not 1974 anymore. Show the damn garage, realtors. Talk about EV-charging readiness! No really, it's shocking how dense most (not all) realtors and sellers are in this regard. Even if the seller has decided to use the garage for storage, agents should advise sellers to take 'clean' shots of the garage (without cars) and show something. If the home merits a staging, the garage merits a cleaning and pictures if the seller insists on using it for storage.

It's not always the realtor's fault, as sometimes the sellers are the ones using their garage space as personal storage. Not the best idea. When we sold our place we stored our stuff offsite, which cleared the way for garage pics, walkthroughs, and inspections. I would never dream of NOT showing the garage for a home listing, because the garage is storage, parking, a place for hobbies or building, and even unfinished garages allow one to plan upgrades if there are pictures along with dimensions. Offsite storage could be those pod services too where they drop off storage containers and pick them up later. Easy peasy.

Looks like I digress anyway, lol.

All told, it's amazing to have robust charging and solar now. Problem solved.

Thanks to EVERYONE who read my story and helped out with commiseration, advice, and support.

P.S. Never underestimate the resolve of die-hard Tesla fans and TSLA HODLers! :D We are diamond-handed and determined AF.
 
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Glad to hear it worked out for you. I'm lucky that I was able to find a workable solution (using a DCC). The HOA was completely unhelpful - not that I expected them to be helpful, of course. I sent our property manager a summary of my experience and my recommendations after the fact. Never heard anything back from them and in the two years since, they've yet to communicate anything about EV charging to the homeowners.
 
Glad to hear it worked out for you. I'm lucky that I was able to find a workable solution (using a DCC). The HOA was completely unhelpful - not that I expected them to be helpful, of course. I sent our property manager a summary of my experience and my recommendations after the fact. Never heard anything back from them and in the two years since, they've yet to communicate anything about EV charging to the homeowners.

Thanks! Yeah with HOAs they're going to have a harder time reducing turnover if they don't address EV-charging. Granted, there's a major lack of housing right now but one way or another they will have to deal with this as EV-adoption increases exponentially.

Attracting and keeping buyers will require some kind of due-diligence here. Hopefully new construction has notice the EV explosion and is building-in charging options for futureproofing.
 
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