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What Advantage Does the Wall Connector Give?
- Thread starter SummerlinChiro
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- nema wall connector
you get to have the mobile cord in your car...
Honestly I don't see a big deal getting the wall connector. I have the mobile connecter on a dedicated 14-50 meter that tracks my energy usage and I can't get that set with the wall connector easily.
For me, my electric company gives a $500 rebate for buying a EV charger. With the exception of the Tesla one because I read from somewhere about Tesla not sharing data with the electric company. I ordered a Juicebox 40. Waiting for it to come. Currently just running the portable charger off a house outlet. haha
*sigh* I keep seeing these "just in case" people. The OP lives in Las Vegas, not Siberia. There are dozens of public charging resources around for "just in case".
Oh, and @MorrisonHiker gets all of my internet points for today for that incredibly detailed explanation of the circuit sharing with wall connectors.
Yah true. I've used my mobile connector 1x in the almost two years of ownership for 12v charging on a wall plug and even then I had more then enough range without plugging in.
Needs is a relative term. If you have only one charge cord and it breaks, there are many people for whom the hassle of waiting 2-6 weeks for a new UMC from Tesla would make it an easy decision to spend $200 in advance.
You can get a J1772 on Amazon in 2 days shipping if you have prime, but then you are stuck with the J1772 adapter (ie. you'll be buying the UMC again). Especially after the 1 year warranty period on the UMC.
Supercharging is an incredible pain when used within your local area, and L2 charging is rental car territory. Sure, if you are retired, unemployed, with friends and family who can ferry you around, then no big deal.
If you setup your UMC with some creative setup, then you won't want to remove it for trips. Maybe you don't "need it", but it is a tangible benefit. So I think that it is only the $200 down the drain and not $550.
Add to that the asthetics, I'm not sure it is a waste at all for many buyers.
We have a Model 3 and a Y. I have run two circuits to the garage and bought two Gen1 UMC's then the virus hit.....
Anyway when I travel to my family's in Kerrville I can charge from their 6-50. The nearest SC is Junction or near San Antonio.
When we travel to Phila, I charge from my son's 14-50. There are no SC locations nearby which seems weird but look at the map. Must be something with the local utility. So yes there are cases where having the UMC in your car is really handy when traveling.
When the CT arrives, I may buy two wall connectors for the cars in the garage and use the the circuit for the CT.
Or I may sell the 3 and figure out how to get the CT in the garage.
Anyway when I travel to my family's in Kerrville I can charge from their 6-50. The nearest SC is Junction or near San Antonio.
When we travel to Phila, I charge from my son's 14-50. There are no SC locations nearby which seems weird but look at the map. Must be something with the local utility. So yes there are cases where having the UMC in your car is really handy when traveling.
When the CT arrives, I may buy two wall connectors for the cars in the garage and use the the circuit for the CT.
Or I may sell the 3 and figure out how to get the CT in the garage.
There are some personal calculations here about the "hassle" versus cost. You don't delay buying spare light bulbs or AA batteries because they are cheap versus the hassle. Something that is hundreds of dollars? Not cheap, but that does depend on how actually bad that hassle is.
Really? Is it? If that had to be your way of life 365 days a year I would definitely agree with you--that will eventually get old. But we're talking about a week or two that might happen if your UMC breaks sometime in the next 4 or 5 years or so. (I'm at 7 years with my original one, by the way.) So what is that quantifiable level of "hassle" if you had to use Supercharging a couple days a week for one or two weeks at some point in the next several years while waiting for a new UMC? I would assert that it's "not much".
And the related factor to that is that if your UMC does eventually break in 4 or 5 years, is that really the product that you want to replace it? You don't know what will be available then. Maybe there is something better with different features? Basic time value of money? Much more extensive charging infrastructure availability by that time that would make it unnecessary? But you already bought an expensive replacement years ago that is course already long out of warranty at that point. There's an interesting downside, huh?
Ah, OK. That is definitely a good one. I have seen some of these creative home construction projects that build the UMC into the garage, and it's not remotely easy to remove it to take it with you on a trip. If you have that going on, that is a very good reason.
First of all, a lot of people make $50-$100+ an hour, so its not that big of an expense, also depending on the situation.
The whole "once a week" supercharger thing is very much an understatement even for trivial driving cases, especially in the winter. You don't get a good charge rate, and you may not want to charge past 80%, may want to arrive at 20% and even higher due to convenience, may have to drive 15-30 miles out of way.
Imagine that you leave at 7:30, drive 1 hour to work, start work at 9:30, get off at 6:30, home at 8:00, leaves you just enough time to eat and sleep. You have plenty of money, but no time. Do they want to supercharge on the weekends and before/after work? Not even once, I think.
That's not my situation (though similar has been), but it is the situation of a LOT of the country, especially those who can afford Tesla cars.
I'm not saying that I'd go out and buy a second UMC (I have an extra by coincidence), but in the context of buying a wall charger, I'd give you the $200 fair economic value and $350 luxury value.
I wouldn't say that I have it "built into" the garage, but I'd need to do some climbing. Not what you want to have to do after returning from a long trip, and even unplugging and unwinding it means you are less likely to take it.
I only unplugged mine once, and I think its worth it. Over 10 years, that is $20 a year plus interest. Its more of a sticker shock. Good for peace of mind even.
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ucmndd
Well-Known Member
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Your definition of “regular” is quite a bit different than mine.
There might be a few more reports of melted low quality 14-50s here than melted wall connectors, but nowhere near enough to claim that one regularly fails while the other is bullet proof. A properly installed, high quality 14-50 is just as reliable and safe as a properly installed, high quality wall connector.
mspohr
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mspohr
Well-Known Member
Not really. You have the extra failure points of the four pins and their sockets.
I'm sensing some grasping here.
I do get the principle of valuing time more than money if you have enough to trade there. I mean, I hate wasting my time doing lawn care stuff, so I just pay a lawn service. But that's a lot of miscellaneous chores every week through most of the year forever. This is a much rarer situation of something that may happen sometime for a couple of weeks in the next several years.
Anyway, neither of us is likely to convince the other, so @SummerlinChiro , you have now heard plenty of pros and cons in debate style here, so choose your own adventure.
...which is why I said twice.
OP is in Las Vegas. I don't think there is room in Vegas to drive for 1 hour to work. Vegas has other issues, but being huge with giant commute times isn't one of them.
And this is sounding suspiciously like what shows up on these forums too much: "You bought an expensive car; you can afford to waste more money."
I do get the principle of valuing time more than money if you have enough to trade there. I mean, I hate wasting my time doing lawn care stuff, so I just pay a lawn service. But that's a lot of miscellaneous chores every week through most of the year forever. This is a much rarer situation of something that may happen sometime for a couple of weeks in the next several years.
Anyway, neither of us is likely to convince the other, so @SummerlinChiro , you have now heard plenty of pros and cons in debate style here, so choose your own adventure.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Right, which is again, basically nothing. 150,000 miles of EV driving all over the western US and I’ve never been in a situation where an unexpected charging need arose that that the mobile connector would have helped with.
Boy Scouts like to Be Prepared and all that, but they don’t carry electric kettles with them on their backpacking trips just in case they happen to need hot water and there’s a plug nearby.
I wouldn't necessarily go and buy 2 UMC cables, but to say that the Wall Connector is just $500 down the drain for an inside garage isn't accurate.
What I'm saying is that many people literally do not have the time, not regarding the amount of driving so much. A lot of so-called "good" companies give only 10 days vacation, and expect long hours.
I think that the aesthetics and the proper wall mounting have a lot of value as well. If I had a finished garage (also a waste of money), then I'd most likely get the wall connector to compliment it.
If you have a 14-50 outlet installed, you only need the mobile connector adapter for that outlet and can then just use the included cable. The advantage of the wall connector is that it's attached to the wall leaving your mobile connector free to live in your car for trips, and that it can charge at up to 48A vs the 32A limit of the included cable if installed on a 60A circuit.
Whether that's worth the added cost to you is debatable (and has been debated here ad nauseum).
Not unless you want to, and what you want is the appropriate adapter to plug the mobile connector that comes with the car into whatever socket your 240V dedicated circuit is on.
The only adapter that comes with the mobile connector is one for the regular 5-15 (standard wall plug). You will want to purchase the adapter for the mobile connector for your 240v outlet. I think the various adapters cost around $35-40 or so, unless you have a non standard one.
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