Waiting for model 3 - what should I do to be planning for charger

[llbean]

HI

As I patiently and anxiously await my model 3 (order placed night of election!) - what should I be doing re home charger? Do I wait till I get a delivery date or should I act now?

 

[jelloslug]

There is no reason to wait. With that said, the advantage you do have right now is the ability to shop around. I was able to find new wall connectors on ebay for about half of what Tesla was asking for them a few months ago. The units were brand new and they were actually drop shipped directly from Tesla to me. You can also do what I did for a long time with my Model S: use a second hand mobile connector plugged into the appropriate sized 240V outlet. I picked up a nice next to new unit for a fraction of what either a new mobile connector kit or a wall unit costs and when I switched over to wall units, I was able to resell the mobile unit for more than what I paid for it.

 

[RyanDe]

Do it now. I waited until I got the car and then was in a hard place because I couldn't travel that far because I could only charge back like 50 miles a day. Now that I have the wall connector I don't worry about going anywhere as it's fully charged every morning. If you don't want the wall connector install the nema 14-50

 

[TexasEV]

You should read Tesla’s home charging instructions:
Home Charging Installation

 

[ElectricCanuck]

Order it as soon as you have a VIN. If you get it more than 90 days before you get the car, in Ontario, you won’t qualify for the rebates.

That is, if the rebates exist when your car arrives. Good luck!

 

[ZooSean]

HI

As I patiently and anxiously await my model 3 (order placed night of election!) - what should I be doing re home charger? Do I wait till I get a delivery date or should I act now?

You need 1st calculate your electricity load, if you have range/oven, dryer and air con, you probably need an 200amp panel for adding a charger. Looking your panel's main breaker to determine if it is 200amp or 100amp. Panel upgrade will cost you 3500 to 4500. That will be a steep..

 

[rainmaker002]

Sorry, I'm not an expert here but we only have a 100amp panel at our house. The workaround was a controller of some sort (I don't know what it's called, but electricians do) that cost about $850. What it does is prioritize the electrical load inside the house over the load outside of the house- so if you are running your dryer/oven it will cut the power to the wall connector so that the breakers don't blow. It is a lot cheaper than upgrading the service to your house and is pretty simple/well established technology.