Won’t charge at home?

[Bedelivering]

I have a 2020 Model X long range. Sorry I’m not very technical. However I’ve been charging at home since I received the car in 10/2020 without any problems. A couple of weeks ago car said error and no charge happened overnight. I didn’t think much about it just thought it operator error. I was able to charge at work no issues. Had electrician who installed come to check stated breaker tripped. Fix that but keeps tripping breaker. Electrician has checked everything and says working properly. Took to Tesla everything on car fine and gave new charger but it’s still tripping breaker. It worked fine for a year and a half and I’ve haven’t changed anything. Type of set up I have in pics. Not sure what else’s to do besides upgrade and change whole set up. Have call out to electrician again to see if anything else can be done. Just wondering if someone else has had a problem like this?

 

[Tronguy]

Alrighty then. What you’ve got there (no surprise) is a Tesla Mobile Connector (TMC) hooked to a NEMA14-50. I take a flying guess and suggest that the original was the one that came with the car. Nice rack you’ve got it in.

So, in general, if the car’s not charging, it’s the car, the TMC, or the wiring. I note that the TMC isn’t just a bunch of wires and some LEDs; there’s a microcontroller in there that’s sensing adapter type, heat, and some other junk and does communication with the car.

So, first order of business is to throw that particular TMC into the car and find another NEMA14-50 to charge from. RV parks have got them. So might Tesla, but it’s not clear from your explanation whether they tested and found your original TMC faulty or simply threw you a new one. With or without the NEMA adapter which, itself, might be faulty. PlugShare may be your friend in finding that NEMA socket.

If your car charges at some other locale, then the issue is probably your house wiring, electrician or no. Especially as you’re popping breakers, never a good thing.

If the car doesn’t charge (and possibly pops a breaker) then it gets interesting. In this case it’s either the TMC or the car. The car has rectifiers that take AC city power, L1 (120 VAC) or L2 (240 VAC) and converts that to DC to charge the batteries. The rectifiers are bypassed during Supercharging. So, if the car doesn’t charge with the TMC and NEMA14-50 at some locale other than your house, take the car to a public L2 charger like ChargePoint and see if it’ll charge there with the 1210 adapter. If it won’t, there’s something wrong with the car’s rectifiers so schedule a service appointment. If it will, then it’s likely there’s something wrong with the TMC and/or its NEMA adapter.

Also: if you know somebody else with a Tesla, you might have them try charging at your house to see if that works.

Report back, please.

 

[Bedelivering]

From
The report tesla gave me it states the charger wires at the facility and charged the car. The car charges at other places like my work and superchargers. You are correct it was the original one with the car. I will look around for some PlugShare places to see if I can find the NEMA adapter. Also ask a neighbor to see if they can charge from my house. And if the my have the NEMA adapter I could see if that is faulty also they did not give me a new one of those . Thanks for the advice and I will update

 

[EbS-P]

One thing to do is Try lowering the charging current in your Tesla. I have mine set 20% lower than max rate. It will take longer. I’m wondering if the breaker is the issue. It happens.

If you can lower the charging rate to where it will consistently charge I would replace the breaker.

 

[Tronguy]

From
The report tesla gave me it states the charger wires at the facility and charged the car. The car charges at other places like my work and superchargers. You are correct it was the original one with the car. I will look around for some PlugShare places to see if I can find the NEMA adapter. Also ask a neighbor to see if they can charge from my house. And if the my have the NEMA adapter I could see if that is faulty also they did not give me a new one of those . Thanks for the advice and I will update

All right.

Charging, "At work" implies that you're using a L2 charger at work. That's usually a J1772-type plug; an adapter comes with the car that takes the J1772 on the one side and plugs into the car's Tesla connector on the other. The computer that talks to the car and lets the car know what's available at what level is in the charging station. The fact that all this work maybe gets the car off the hook; more on that in a bit.

It's @EbS-P's comment that's got me thinking. So, electrical breakers. What follows is a brief description of how your house's electrical panel works.

So, ye Standard US residential connection to the power lines consists of two hots and a neutral. Each of the two hots has a sine wave in voltage with respect to the neutral wire of 120 VRMS. The tricky bit is that the two sine waves are inverted; that is, as one sine wave is going up, the other is going down. This is referred to being, "180 degrees out of phase" or, "inverted". The voltage, measured with a voltmeter, of each hot to neutral is 120 VAC; the voltage from one hot to the other hot is 240 VAC. And that is how some of the stuff in your house is running at 240 VAC; typically, the air conditioning, the furnace, and any other seriously high power appliances. (Power = Voltage * Current. Losses in the wire (as in, heating up the wire) goes as current * current * wire resistance; so, if you double the voltage and halve the current for the same power into an appliance, the power dissipation in the wire goes down by (current/2)*(current/2)*resistance, or by 1/4. And now you know Why High Tension Wires . And why L2 charging gives one a lot more power than L1 charging.)

So, when the two hots and a neutral come into your house, the neutral gets bonded to a metal frame. (Which also, incidentally, has a Big Thick Wire from that frame to a 6' or longer copper ground stake planted in the physical ground outside your house.) At this primary breaker box, neutral and safety ground are the same, so all the green wires in all the sockets and such in your house are connected to that ground/neutral frame.

Next: Each of the two hots are connected to two other frames in the breaker box. These frames are designed to allow one to snap into place individual breakers that make contact with one of the two hots. On the output side of the breaker, a wire is connected. For lighting and wall sockets, a wire from the ground/neutral frame (usually white colored) and the wire from the output side of the breaker are paired; that goes out to Ye Random Sockets or Light Fixtures. The breaker so involved with this fun usually has a "15" on it, indicating that it's a 15A breaker. Run more than that through that breaker, ye Breaker Pops and Saves The Day. The wires and socket(s)/light fixtures hooked up to that breaker are all sized to handle 15A. (Yes, the wires. Get an undersized wire in there under full load and it can get hot enough to start a fire. Whee.)

So, how is 240 VAC handled? Well, if you look at your breaker box, say, on the left side, you'll notice that there's spots for breakers all the way down the left side, or down the right side, or, in a smaller box, down the middle. Take a vertical column of these things: The first one on the top is on one hot, the next one down is on the other hot, then the third one down is back on the first hot, ad infinitum. So, when one wants 240 VAC for an appliance or a Tesla, one buys a pair of ganged 120 VAC breakers and uses up two adjacent slots. I note, again, that there's two physical breakers in there, mechanically connected together, so that if one breaker goes, "pop!", the other one is dragged into the tripped position right along with the first.

You go ahead and go look at your breaker box now; you'll notice the 240 VAC breakers, they take up two slots, they're unmistakable.

Now, if you've got a NEMA14-50, presumably installed for your car.. The breaker for that durn well ought to be a 50A breaker and the number, "50" should be on that double-breaker for your car. There's a reason I mention this. As I said before, the breaker, the socket, and the wire should all be sized the same; the National Electric Code (NEC) says so. However, there turns out to be a fair number of electric clothes driers and the like out there that need, at most, 32A to run. (There's another NEC rule: No circuit shall have a steady-state load of more than 80% of the maximum set by the breaker. So such a drier would need a 40A breaker, 40A wire, and a nominal 40A socket.) However, somehow, the NEC allows a 40A breaker, 40A wire, but a NEMA14-50 socket to be Code. Which is one of the reasons that a TMC's maximum current at 240 VAC is 32A, since Tesla doesn't know if you've got a Real 50A Breaker there or a 40A, and in the interests of Not Catching The House On Fire a 32A load was deemed the maximum current a TMC would allow the car to draw.

Electricians kind of like that 40A breaker, though. The cost difference between a 40A breaker and a 50A breaker is minimal, but the cost difference of copper-based electrical cable is substantial.

So, as they say, "What could possibly go wrong?"

• The breakers may be doing their job properly. The car might be drawing 'way too much current, either because of an internal short in the rectifiers or a piece of wire that's nicked and touching something. Or one or the other of the two hots might have a short to ground or neutral. There's all sorts of threads around here about the longevity, or lack thereof, of various brands of NEMA14-50 sockets. Remember that the original use case of those kinds of sockets was for electric driers, where said drier gets plugged in, once, and then stays that way for N number of years. Not unplugged/plugged in/unplugged/etc. with a TMC. Unsurprisingly, the metal and plastic in a cheaper socket can fatigue and snap over time with lots of use and Shorts Are What You Get when that happens. Or opens. Either way, the car won't charge.
• Breakers... Breakers do fail. Breakers are, typically, thermal elements. There's some metal in there through which the current for the breaker runs. Run too much current, it expands or whatever and trips the breaker. Run full-load current often, it flexes back and forth and fatigues over time and can physically break. It's not unusual to have to replace lots of breakers at the 20-year or 30-year mark in a panel. You stated that you've only been doing this for a couple of years, so that seems somewhat unlikely. (Given a large enough population of parts, though, one will fail somewhere with someone. Statistics will catch up with a big enough crowd.)

And let me introduce you to this concept: "Infant Mortality". In any batch of a zillion thingies made, there's always going to be a small but significant number of those thingies that either die on the factory floor or get shipped (with or without testing) and die shortly thereafter. This is Why Warranties. If one of the two breakers that are nominally rated for 50A is actually a 30A breaker because of an early failure, that could explain what you're seeing. (Or, if @EbS-P is listening, what that party is seeing.) It's a nice hypothesis which may or may not be true and might be tricky to figure, since one would have to run a full load at, say, 40A to see if one of the two ganged breakers pops (with a 50A duplex breaker) when it shouldn't oughta do that thing. I imagine that Electricians have their methods on this, though. (There's this concept, "Dummy Load". People use such things on 12V car batteries all the time.)​

• Finally: The car/TMC can certainly detect things. For example, if one of the 120V hots is actually at 100V or lower (because of an open, or partial open) the car will either vastly reduce the charging rate or refuse to charge at all. They do check, I believe, for proper ground and neutral connections and will barf if they're not happy. The TMC monitors the temperature of the NEMA14-50 adapter so, if the socket starts getting 'way too hot, the car will stop charging. But.. you're reporting popped circuit breakers. Odd. Shorted NEMA14-50 adapter, maybe?

So, having said all this: Troubleshooting problems like this is very much like Sherlock Holmes on the loose. One has all the suspects in a locked room; figuring out what did the deed often requires some serious thought and messing about. Most of the above is a bit of a description of what you're contending with in order to aid your thought process.

 

[roblab]

I'd try asking some nearby random Tesla owner to come to the house and try to plug in, to see if the breaker pops.

But the plan to lower your charging current would probably cure the problem. I charge my cars at 28 amps. This easily fills the car overnight and allows me to charge both of my Teslas at once.

 

[Bedelivering]

I am going to try this this evening. I have tried to lower the amps to 28 and it continued trip the breaker as well. I was charging before at 28 with no problem and no change in the set up until a few weeks ago. Then when I would charge it would flip to 42. I would make sure app and car was set correctly and then it trip the breaker. I am going to try the TMC and the NEMA at a plugshare this evening to see if it works there. Hopefully my neighbor and come by and charge their car to see it trips the breaker with their NEMA and then try with mine. So have some plans in the works. We will see

 

[Bedelivering]

One thing to do is Try lowering the charging current in your Tesla. I have mine set 20% lower than max rate. It will take longer. I’m wondering if the breaker is the issue. It happens.

If you can lower the charging rate to where it will consistently charge I would replace the breaker.

Tried that still occurred.

All right.

Charging, "At work" implies that you're using a L2 charger at work. That's usually a J1772-type plug; an adapter comes with the car that takes the J1772 on the one side and plugs into the car's Tesla connector on the other. The computer that talks to the car and lets the car know what's available at what level is in the charging station. The fact that all this work maybe gets the car off the hook; more on that in a bit.

It's @EbS-P's comment that's got me thinking. So, electrical breakers. What follows is a brief description of how your house's electrical panel works.

So, ye Standard US residential connection to the power lines consists of two hots and a neutral. Each of the two hots has a sine wave in voltage with respect to the neutral wire of 120 VRMS. The tricky bit is that the two sine waves are inverted; that is, as one sine wave is going up, the other is going down. This is referred to being, "180 degrees out of phase" or, "inverted". The voltage, measured with a voltmeter, of each hot to neutral is 120 VAC; the voltage from one hot to the other hot is 240 VAC. And that is how some of the stuff in your house is running at 240 VAC; typically, the air conditioning, the furnace, and any other seriously high power appliances. (Power = Voltage * Current. Losses in the wire (as in, heating up the wire) goes as current * current * wire resistance; so, if you double the voltage and halve the current for the same power into an appliance, the power dissipation in the wire goes down by (current/2)*(current/2)*resistance, or by 1/4. And now you know Why High Tension Wires . And why L2 charging gives one a lot more power than L1 charging.)

So, when the two hots and a neutral come into your house, the neutral gets bonded to a metal frame. (Which also, incidentally, has a Big Thick Wire from that frame to a 6' or longer copper ground stake planted in the physical ground outside your house.) At this primary breaker box, neutral and safety ground are the same, so all the green wires in all the sockets and such in your house are connected to that ground/neutral frame.

Next: Each of the two hots are connected to two other frames in the breaker box. These frames are designed to allow one to snap into place individual breakers that make contact with one of the two hots. On the output side of the breaker, a wire is connected. For lighting and wall sockets, a wire from the ground/neutral frame (usually white colored) and the wire from the output side of the breaker are paired; that goes out to Ye Random Sockets or Light Fixtures. The breaker so involved with this fun usually has a "15" on it, indicating that it's a 15A breaker. Run more than that through that breaker, ye Breaker Pops and Saves The Day. The wires and socket(s)/light fixtures hooked up to that breaker are all sized to handle 15A. (Yes, the wires. Get an undersized wire in there under full load and it can get hot enough to start a fire. Whee.)

So, how is 240 VAC handled? Well, if you look at your breaker box, say, on the left side, you'll notice that there's spots for breakers all the way down the left side, or down the right side, or, in a smaller box, down the middle. Take a vertical column of these things: The first one on the top is on one hot, the next one down is on the other hot, then the third one down is back on the first hot, ad infinitum. So, when one wants 240 VAC for an appliance or a Tesla, one buys a pair of ganged 120 VAC breakers and uses up two adjacent slots. I note, again, that there's two physical breakers in there, mechanically connected together, so that if one breaker goes, "pop!", the other one is dragged into the tripped position right along with the first.

You go ahead and go look at your breaker box now; you'll notice the 240 VAC breakers, they take up two slots, they're unmistakable.

Now, if you've got a NEMA14-50, presumably installed for your car.. The breaker for that durn well ought to be a 50A breaker and the number, "50" should be on that double-breaker for your car. There's a reason I mention this. As I said before, the breaker, the socket, and the wire should all be sized the same; the National Electric Code (NEC) says so. However, there turns out to be a fair number of electric clothes driers and the like out there that need, at most, 32A to run. (There's another NEC rule: No circuit shall have a steady-state load of more than 80% of the maximum set by the breaker. So such a drier would need a 40A breaker, 40A wire, and a nominal 40A socket.) However, somehow, the NEC allows a 40A breaker, 40A wire, but a NEMA14-50 socket to be Code. Which is one of the reasons that a TMC's maximum current at 240 VAC is 32A, since Tesla doesn't know if you've got a Real 50A Breaker there or a 40A, and in the interests of Not Catching The House On Fire a 32A load was deemed the maximum current a TMC would allow the car to draw.

Electricians kind of like that 40A breaker, though. The cost difference between a 40A breaker and a 50A breaker is minimal, but the cost difference of copper-based electrical cable is substantial.

So, as they say, "What could possibly go wrong?"

• The breakers may be doing their job properly. The car might be drawing 'way too much current, either because of an internal short in the rectifiers or a piece of wire that's nicked and touching something. Or one or the other of the two hots might have a short to ground or neutral. There's all sorts of threads around here about the longevity, or lack thereof, of various brands of NEMA14-50 sockets. Remember that the original use case of those kinds of sockets was for electric driers, where said drier gets plugged in, once, and then stays that way for N number of years. Not unplugged/plugged in/unplugged/etc. with a TMC. Unsurprisingly, the metal and plastic in a cheaper socket can fatigue and snap over time with lots of use and Shorts Are What You Get when that happens. Or opens. Either way, the car won't charge.
• Breakers... Breakers do fail. Breakers are, typically, thermal elements. There's some metal in there through which the current for the breaker runs. Run too much current, it expands or whatever and trips the breaker. Run full-load current often, it flexes back and forth and fatigues over time and can physically break. It's not unusual to have to replace lots of breakers at the 20-year or 30-year mark in a panel. You stated that you've only been doing this for a couple of years, so that seems somewhat unlikely. (Given a large enough population of parts, though, one will fail somewhere with someone. Statistics will catch up with a big enough crowd.)

And let me introduce you to this concept: "Infant Mortality". In any batch of a zillion thingies made, there's always going to be a small but significant number of those thingies that either die on the factory floor or get shipped (with or without testing) and die shortly thereafter. This is Why Warranties. If one of the two breakers that are nominally rated for 50A is actually a 30A breaker because of an early failure, that could explain what you're seeing. (Or, if @EbS-P is listening, what that party is seeing.) It's a nice hypothesis which may or may not be true and might be tricky to figure, since one would have to run a full load at, say, 40A to see if one of the two ganged breakers pops (with a 50A duplex breaker) when it shouldn't oughta do that thing. I imagine that Electricians have their methods on this, though. (There's this concept, "Dummy Load". People use such things on 12V car batteries all the time.)​

• Finally: The car/TMC can certainly detect things. For example, if one of the 120V hots is actually at 100V or lower (because of an open, or partial open) the car will either vastly reduce the charging rate or refuse to charge at all. They do check, I believe, for proper ground and neutral connections and will barf if they're not happy. The TMC monitors the temperature of the NEMA14-50 adapter so, if the socket starts getting 'way too hot, the car will stop charging. But.. you're reporting popped circuit breakers. Odd. Shorted NEMA14-50 adapter, maybe?

So, having said all this: Troubleshooting problems like this is very much like Sherlock Holmes on the loose. One has all the suspects in a locked room; figuring out what did the deed often requires some serious thought and messing about. Most of the above is a bit of a description of what you're contending with in order to aid your thought process.

Thanks for the information and the education! I will be taking the charger to the plugshare NEMA and trying to see if it will charge. Hopefully a neighbor can come by and charge their care with their NEMA and then try with Mine at their location. I have not been plugging in and taking out the NEMA adapter I have left it plugged in since I purchased. I emailed TESLA to see if they had other recommendations but I will be trying this first as they were not much help.

 

[Bedelivering]

From
The report tesla gave me it states the charger wires at the facility and charged the car. The car charges at other places like my work and superchargers. You are correct it was the original one with the car. I will look around for some PlugShare places to see if I can find the NEMA adapter. Also ask a neighbor to see if they can charge from my house. And if the my have the NEMA adapter I could see if that is faulty also they did not give me a new one of those . Thanks for the advice and I will update

So at the NEMA charger and charged at 32A with both old and new chargerTMC without any issues did not change adapter.

 

[Tronguy]

So at the NEMA charger and charged at 32A with both old and new chargerTMC without any issues did not change adapter.

All right. You went to a different NEMA14-50; and your old and new TMCs charge sans problems. If I'm not mistaken, that wipes out any chances that your problems are with the car, the TMC, or the adapter plugged into the TMC.

We're now talking about the house and your electrician. Um. Hate to say this, but this is the same electrician who checked his/her own work and blessed same.

So, no offense to anybody, but I'm pretty sure that your electrician has made a mistake. Or that some piece of equipment that he installed was faulty, or became faulty over time.

One way to double-check this and (possibly) getting him/her on your side would be to have some other Tesla try (and likely fail) to charge at your socket. If All Teslas In The Universe Work Fine, but not at That NEMA14-50, then it's the NEMA14-50. Or something backing it up, like the breakers or the wiring.

Now, as it happens, I'm a EE. I don't work on city power, much, but, being in the field, so to speak, and having some experience replacing $RANDOM sockets, light fixtures, fans, and whatnot, I'm relatively comfortable with disassembling things electrical and putting them back together again. I used to be a RADAR technician before becoming an engineer, so you'd better believe I've had all that safety, safety, safety stuff drilled into me like you wouldn't believe; 15 kV power is nothing to fool around with. So, when I work on breaker panels, I got one hand stuffed in my back pocket, I tend to hit the main cutoffs, given a chance, and I double-check that things are de-energized with a working voltmeter. 120 VAC isn't that dangerous (if one isn't damp, that is). You get the idea.

So, if I were you, I'd be popping the main house breaker, taking off the front of the panel, and very carefully checking the wiring, both visually and with an ohmmeter. Ground swapped for neutral; a hot swapped for any of the other two wires; thorough tugging on various wires at both the socket and breaker end, possibly removing the breaker from the panel (they snap out) and, with an ohmmeter, verifying that both legs of the duplex breaker have continuity when they're supposed to and no continuity when they're not; pulling the socket out from its box, eyeballing the heck out of it and the wires around it, checking for continuity between wires and the contacts inside the socket, looking for cracks in the plastic, listening for rattles when it's shook; then putting everything back together again and trying to see if doing all that fixed anything. Looking for wires hitting things that they oughtn't, smoke/burn damage, etc., etc.

My old Chief Petty Officer said that (a) you'll find a lot on a visual inspection and (b) 90% of your problems will be in the wires. On the latter, he was dead right, but we're talking Naval Aircraft here, and they vibrate, lots, so wires break are very common. He was also dead right on the former as well.

Problems are, I'm not you, I'm not anywhere near you, and I am very definitely not a licensed electrician, just a (somewhat) knowledgeable homeowner. And you've stated that you and electrical things in general aren't best friends. Without somebody knowledgeable showing you the ropes, I wouldn't recommend you chasing around the breaker box as your first learning experience. Any serious mistakes could be final mistakes.

So: In terms of whom to turn to. Um. So, back when I had my Tesla Wall Connector (TWC) installed, Tesla had been keeping a list of electrical contractors who, were, "approved" for installing TWCs. I mean, any licensed electrician can install something like a TWC or NEMA14-50, this is more-or-less their bread and butter. I don't know how electricians got on that list. What I do know is that the particular batch (well, two people, and their boss who set it up, who I never actually laid eyes on) did all the work properly and, more to the point, took pictures of their work. I later got an email from Tesla with a link to a location on a Tesla server somewhere where one could look at these pictures. Which were kind of interesting: Pictures of the breaker in the panel, wires exposed; pictures of the interior of the Gen 2 TWC, and how the wires were connected, and so forth. Not that I ever had any problems with that TWC since 2018 when it was installed. But, clearly, if some techie at Tesla got a complaint, said techie would have pictures to figure out What Went Wrong. And I'm guessing that this whole picture rigamarole was put in place because, well, there were probably electricians who didn't get it right, and the process was put in place to help correct such failures. Nothing happens by accident.

(FWIW, a co-worker bought a M3 about 6 months after I had bought mine. He had a non-Tesla approved guy do the electrical work, and said guy flipped switches inside the Gen2 TWC, something that the manual (I actually read manuals, cover to cover, but apparently that electrician didn't) says not to do. The electrician bugged out before checking to see that the TWC was working.. which it wasn't. It was fried. Luckily, Tesla was nice to my co-worker, drop-shipped him a new one, which he installed himself, having that level of expertise.)

I'm guessing that Tesla still keeps that list of Approved Contractors around. I'd suggest that you contact Tesla, get that list, find somebody on it who's local and not the guy whose work we suspect, and have them come up to do an inspection.

What d'you know: Tesla has a web page for this. Give it a shot?

 

[Bedelivering]

All right. You went to a different NEMA14-50; and your old and new TMCs charge sans problems. If I'm not mistaken, that wipes out any chances that your problems are with the car, the TMC, or the adapter plugged into the TMC.

We're now talking about the house and your electrician. Um. Hate to say this, but this is the same electrician who checked his/her own work and blessed same.

So, no offense to anybody, but I'm pretty sure that your electrician has made a mistake. Or that some piece of equipment that he installed was faulty, or became faulty over time.

One way to double-check this and (possibly) getting him/her on your side would be to have some other Tesla try (and likely fail) to charge at your socket. If All Teslas In The Universe Work Fine, but not at That NEMA14-50, then it's the NEMA14-50. Or something backing it up, like the breakers or the wiring.

Now, as it happens, I'm a EE. I don't work on city power, much, but, being in the field, so to speak, and having some experience replacing $RANDOM sockets, light fixtures, fans, and whatnot, I'm relatively comfortable with disassembling things electrical and putting them back together again. I used to be a RADAR technician before becoming an engineer, so you'd better believe I've had all that safety, safety, safety stuff drilled into me like you wouldn't believe; 15 kV power is nothing to fool around with. So, when I work on breaker panels, I got one hand stuffed in my back pocket, I tend to hit the main cutoffs, given a chance, and I double-check that things are de-energized with a working voltmeter. 120 VAC isn't that dangerous (if one isn't damp, that is). You get the idea.

So, if I were you, I'd be popping the main house breaker, taking off the front of the panel, and very carefully checking the wiring, both visually and with an ohmmeter. Ground swapped for neutral; a hot swapped for any of the other two wires; thorough tugging on various wires at both the socket and breaker end, possibly removing the breaker from the panel (they snap out) and, with an ohmmeter, verifying that both legs of the duplex breaker have continuity when they're supposed to and no continuity when they're not; pulling the socket out from its box, eyeballing the heck out of it and the wires around it, checking for continuity between wires and the contacts inside the socket, looking for cracks in the plastic, listening for rattles when it's shook; then putting everything back together again and trying to see if doing all that fixed anything. Looking for wires hitting things that they oughtn't, smoke/burn damage, etc., etc.

My old Chief Petty Officer said that (a) you'll find a lot on a visual inspection and (b) 90% of your problems will be in the wires. On the latter, he was dead right, but we're talking Naval Aircraft here, and they vibrate, lots, so wires break are very common. He was also dead right on the former as well.

Problems are, I'm not you, I'm not anywhere near you, and I am very definitely not a licensed electrician, just a (somewhat) knowledgeable homeowner. And you've stated that you and electrical things in general aren't best friends. Without somebody knowledgeable showing you the ropes, I wouldn't recommend you chasing around the breaker box as your first learning experience. Any serious mistakes could be final mistakes.

So: In terms of whom to turn to. Um. So, back when I had my Tesla Wall Connector (TWC) installed, Tesla had been keeping a list of electrical contractors who, were, "approved" for installing TWCs. I mean, any licensed electrician can install something like a TWC or NEMA14-50, this is more-or-less their bread and butter. I don't know how electricians got on that list. What I do know is that the particular batch (well, two people, and their boss who set it up, who I never actually laid eyes on) did all the work properly and, more to the point, took pictures of their work. I later got an email from Tesla with a link to a location on a Tesla server somewhere where one could look at these pictures. Which were kind of interesting: Pictures of the breaker in the panel, wires exposed; pictures of the interior of the Gen 2 TWC, and how the wires were connected, and so forth. Not that I ever had any problems with that TWC since 2018 when it was installed. But, clearly, if some techie at Tesla got a complaint, said techie would have pictures to figure out What Went Wrong. And I'm guessing that this whole picture rigamarole was put in place because, well, there were probably electricians who didn't get it right, and the process was put in place to help correct such failures. Nothing happens by accident.

(FWIW, a co-worker bought a M3 about 6 months after I had bought mine. He had a non-Tesla approved guy do the electrical work, and said guy flipped switches inside the Gen2 TWC, something that the manual (I actually read manuals, cover to cover, but apparently that electrician didn't) says not to do. The electrician bugged out before checking to see that the TWC was working.. which it wasn't. It was fried. Luckily, Tesla was nice to my co-worker, drop-shipped him a new one, which he installed himself, having that level of expertise.)

I'm guessing that Tesla still keeps that list of Approved Contractors around. I'd suggest that you contact Tesla, get that list, find somebody on it who's local and not the guy whose work we suspect, and have them come up to do an inspection.

What d'you know: Tesla has a web page for this. Give it a shot?

It was installed with an electrician from the list from Tesla. I would not in a million years try to fix any of this on my own. I will have another Tesla try and charge at my house to rule that out. I had already called the company who installed it but I may get a second opinion on the issue. I appreciate all your good advise and help!! Thank you so much!!

 

[Tronguy]

It was installed with an electrician from the list from Tesla. I would not in a million years try to fix any of this on my own. I will have another Tesla try and charge at my house to rule that out. I had already called the company who installed it but I may get a second opinion on the issue. I appreciate all your good advise and help!! Thank you so much!!

Um. I dunno. If this guy is Tesla approved.. Not trying to make trouble, but maybe dropping a line to Tesla saying, "Trouble? What do I do now?" might get some traction.

If he/she's Tesla trained.. may just be a bad piece of gear. Socket died. Breaker died. Stuff like that happens. Diagnosing bad breakers for city power is a bit past my experience level.

 

[brkaus]

Picture of the breaker? Is it gfci?

I’d double check all the wiring, then I’d replace the breaker.

 

[posity]

I had a similar problem. Ended up being a slightly loose wire on one of the connections made by the electrician. Only way to find it was to go through and check/re-tighten every connection made by the electrician. Given the amount of current going through that 14-50, all connections need to be tip-top.

Also, what brand 14-50R receptacle did your electrician install? The Leviton receptacles sold at many big-box stores are pure garbage and will make intermittent connections after a fairly low amount of insertion/removal cycles (they are designed to be used on a range where the cord gets inserted/removed only a handful of times over the life of the receptacle). Many electricians don't know to install an industrial quality 14-50R receptacle for your EV (like a Hubble or Cooper).

So I'd check ALL wiring connections. verify you have an industrial quality 14-50 receptacle (google here on TMC for a list of the quality brands/models), then replace the breaker if all that looks good.

The problem with getting the same electrician out to check his/her own work is they are not too motivated to find their own mistakes.
If you look at your 14-50R and your electrician did install a consumer-quality receptacle like the Leviton (instead of one of the industrial 14-50R's), there is no way I would call him/her back: sure sign they don't have much relevant experience or know how to wire for a reliable EV connection.

 

[EbS-P]

Changing the breaker is the fastest way to tell if it’s the breaker. I found several other breakers with lugs that were not nearly tight enough. Rather disconcerting.

 

[shingles]

It's also worth noting that not all NEMA 14-15 receptacles are created equal. Here's a thread that goes through a few different ones to show the differences.

Master Thread: Definitive 14-50 NEMA Outlet Guide

Comparing the 2 outlets recommended by Tesla with the sub $10 big box model as well as the one I think you should buy 1. Hubbell 9450a 2. Bryant 9450fr 3. Cooper 5754n 4. Leviton 279-S00 The Hubbell and Bryant are far and away the superior product here and since Hubbell owns Bryant and these...

teslamotorsclub.com

I have read that some people have had issues with cheaper options. Might be worth investigating/changing out.

 

[Bedelivering]

Picture of the breaker? Is it gfci?

I’d double check all the wiring, then I’d replace the breaker.

The electrician stated it is a GFCI. Is this a good or bad thing? He was going to try and change to a standard breaker because he stated the head electrician stated the Tesla charger has one in it. He stated he was going to try a wire insulation test also

 

[brkaus]

The electrician stated it is a GFCI. Is this a good or bad thing? He was going to try and change to a standard breaker because he stated the head electrician stated the Tesla charger has one in it. He stated he was going to try a wire insulation test also

Code requires a gfci in most areas now.

But they can be sensitive and they do go bad. Basically, as I understand it, the gfci in the UMC can cause the gfci in the breaker to trip.

 

[Rocky_H]

But they can be sensitive and they do go bad. Basically, as I understand it, the gfci in the UMC can cause the gfci in the breaker to trip.

They are susceptible to problems, but it's not exactly because of one GFCI tripping the other. It's because of how the Tesla connector tries to run a test to evaluate if the ground pin is good or not. It trickles a tiny bit of current onto that ground pin to detect if it seems to be floating or tied down solidly to 0V. It's supposed to be a small enough amount of current that it would be below the threshold to trip a GFCI, but they're both tiny amounts and are fairly close, so if the breaker is a little out of spec, that ground test can set it off.