Vacation Rental with Charging Outlet

[ArtistFalls]

I own a vacation rental development company and am adding a charging outlet to my latest house for the convenience of Tesla owners. These homes do not have garages but the parking area is within 20' of the house and I am installing a 240V RV Style Outlet with breaker for easy connection to the UMC. While I am not a Tesla owner, I would think that this amenity would be appealing and more useful as more EV cars come to market. I am hoping for some feedback as to what Tesla owners have experienced when driving their Tesla on vacation and whether or not using a standard 110V exterior outlet suffices for these trips. I am planning on retrofitting all my houses if the addition of the charging outlet attracts more interest.

 

[Electric700]

It's great to see you are doing this! A NEMA 14-50 would be ideal (it should be RV compatible too): GE 50-Amp Temporary RV Power Outlet-U054P - The Home Depot

120 V outlets allow for slow charging at about 4 miles/hour added, but a 14-50 240 V outlet allows close to 30 miles/hour added range.

Also if the outlets can be next to the parking spaces, that would be even better for accessibility/cable length reasons.

 

[pgiralt]

I would absolutely consider this in my decision to rent a property. Usually I end up asking where the clothes dryer outlet is in relation to the exterior of the building to see if there's a way I can use an extension to plug in. This is what I usually do, but would be far more convenient to have a 14-50 available.

 

[CHGolferJim]

Good question. I'm considering adding a NEMA 14-50 to 2 beach properties for renters and personal use.

 

[mmccord]

We stayed at a house on the outer banks this summer. It had a nice little carport with a 120v outlet that was perfect for charging. Typically a 120 isn't particularly useful, but when you're spending a whole week there and doing minimal driving, it's plenty.

That said, i would have been a lot happier with a 14-50.

 

[Zarwin]

We stayed at a house on the outer banks this summer. It had a nice little carport with a 120v outlet that was perfect for charging. Typically a 120 isn't particularly useful, but when you're spending a whole week there and doing minimal driving, it's plenty.

That said, i would have been a lot happier with a 14-50.

We stayed a week on the outer banks as well just over a month ago. I used both the dryer outlet to charge up the first night and then the 120v outlet to maintain while we were there. Here are pics of the dryer hookup:

OBX charging - Album on Imgur

 

[wcalvin]

The extension cord option

The main reason a 240V outlet is needed at a rental is if one uses the EV for back-to-back 240 mile trips on successive days. Otherwise, a 120v supply is enough to top up the tank before the next 240 mile day.

In FL I had a very long run to the assigned parking slot, and so the IR drop en route became the limiting factor. The Connector will drop out if the voltage falls below 96V (as measured at the car via the charging screen display). So start with current limited to 5A and see how much the voltage drops as it ramps up to 5A. Then increment by 1A and try again until maybe 99V is reached (to allow for fluctuations in supply). You might only gain 2 miles each hour but there at 24 hours every day, easily enough for most running around locally.

 

[Zarwin]

If not a 240v, a dedicated 120v (preferrably 20A with NEMA 5-20 outlet) would be nice. The last rental I stayed at had a standard 120v (with NEMA 5-15 outlet) and if I didn't tap back the amps from 12 to 10 it would pop the breaker within an hour, so there was likely something else drawing power on that circuit.

 

[pgiralt]

We stayed at a house on the outer banks this summer. It had a nice little carport with a 120v outlet that was perfect for charging. Typically a 120 isn't particularly useful, but when you're spending a whole week there and doing minimal driving, it's plenty.

That said, i would have been a lot happier with a 14-50.

I agree with this too. On my trips to the beach, charging with 120V is usually fine because we spend a week and don't drive much. On the other hand, when we go to the mountains, we usually do a lot of driving and that's where having a 240V outlet would really come in handy.

 

[gavine]

I'm installing a NEMA 14-50 outlet in my Disney vacation home in Florida this week. I'll let you know if I get any specific rentals due to the outlet. I'm confident that I will.

I may eventually put a J1772 charger in but for now, I'm hoping it'll attract Tesla owners. Other EV's can use the 120V in the garage for now.

I listed it on Plugshare as well.

 

[Galve2000]

I agree with this too. On my trips to the beach, charging with 120V is usually fine because we spend a week and don't drive much. On the other hand, when we go to the mountains, we usually do a lot of driving and that's where having a 240V outlet would really come in handy.

I ran into this issue last weekend up in the Berkshires. One of my doggies had a run in with a porcupine while on a hike and instead of heading back to NYC that evening, we spent an extra night at the cabin while the pup spent the night with the Vet after being given anesthesia so the quills could be removed from her snout and throat.

I figured that if we charged at the cabin off a 120 V outlet overnight we would gain 30-35 miles which would be enough of a cushion to make it to the greenwich, CT supercharger after picking up the pup from the Vet. But after about 45 minutes of charging at 120 V the main breaker at the cabin tripped. we did, in those 45 minutes, gain 2 miles of Rated Range... and I did not think of dropping the amps in the car from 12 to 10 or 9 to see if we might have made it through 10 or 12 hrs of charging thusly.

Another unfortunate finding was that while there are a handful of destination chargers in the area, none would allow us to spend the night there with a dog. (we have 2 doggies)

One of the innkeepers actually said to me, over the telephone: "I don't know anywhere up here that would meet both of your criteria.." these being 1. Pet friendly, and 2. Level II EVSE

In the end we decided to drive 30 miles to the West Springfield, MA supercharger. we hung out there about an hour and gained 252 rated miles, drove back to the cabin and spent the night.

In the morning we woke up with 210 rated miles of range. We picked up the pup from the vet later that day and drove back to NYC. W stopped by the Greenwhich, CT supercharger on the way home to pick up a few miles of range, even tho we did not need to.

The truth is that there was a hotel with a HPWC that had availability for us and was pet friendly. the Blantyre hotel in Lenox, MA has a single pet-friendly suite and a HPWC to boot. but they wanted $755 +tax for the night and we decided that since we weren't doing anything that night while anxiously awaiting any news of our doggie, we opted to spend 3 hrs driving to a supercharger, charging, and then returning to the cabin that we had already paid for rather than dropping the $750+tax. I'm not sure if they had other availability for that night (they do offer cheaper rooms) but the above-mentioned suite was the only pet-friendly option.

perhaps others would have chosen the convenience over the money savings, but YMMV.


If we were traveling with friends who had an ICE, we might of had them follow us to one of the B&Bs with a Level II charger and taken us back to the cabin while the Model S stayed at the B&B to charge overnight. we also might have left the Model S at the cabin all weekend and only put miles on the ICE (i have e had one such vacation so far) but I am loath to do that. The whole reason to head up to the Berkshires in the 1st place was to do a Tesla-inspired road trip. We put a lot of miles on my Model S last weekend. But in an emergency, things got kind of complicated, unfortunately.

The pup that had the run in with the porcupine is doing just fine, thank God.