Trying to get ahead of delivery -- home charger questions

[cyberbear]

Looking forward to when I get my tri motor. I’m trying to get a head start,and maybe do the charger now. But I don’t know what the size of the battery pack is yet. I will do most of my charging at home over night.What is the most common size breaker that is bring used for the larger battery pack,and how do you know how long it will it take to to go from 25% to 100%

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[VolklKatana]

I have gone down this path already as well. One of me best friends owns 2 Tesla's and he said the mistake he made was putting in the "Tesla" charger. He said going with a generic brand would have been a better move for future resale of the house.

Additionally, his thought was that simply putting in a NEMA 14-50 plug and using the included Tesla charging cable was the way to go. That outlet uses a 50A breaker and I believe will charge at somewhere around 25-35 miles of range per hour.

 

[Ehninger1212]

I have an array of welding outlets. Nema 14-50 is also what i will use for the cybertruck at home seems like the best bet.

 

[Saskateam]

I am planning on putting in a sub panel in my garage. From the sub panel I will run my charger as well as the rest of the garage. My main panel is full and it will be nice to open some space.

I need to do some other work to get the CT to fit in my garage and I have time to work on finding space for everything.

 

[nordenvonthule]

I charge my model s in the garage with an 80 amp hpwc, I also have a NEMA 14-50 in there. Both work great. NEMA outlets are much cheaper to install, but the Tesla hpwc ads some convenience as you won't have to pull out your mobile charger and if you get the longer cable it'll pretty much reach no matter how you park.

Make sure you charge on a dedicated circuit (nothing else drawing power). Since copper is the expensive part, plan on installing your outlet as close as possible to the breaker box.

 

[Jon Snow]

50 amp breaker, 40 amp charging should be fine. I installed 80 amps for my MS, but never use it at 80 amps .. no need. Tesla wall chargers are nice and not expensive ... installed It myself and saved a lot!

 

[azjohn]

I am wondering if the Cybertruck will come with a more powerful onboard charger than the 11kw. I have been looking at the Wattzilla which has an 80 amp model available

 

[nordenvonthule]

50 amp breaker, 40 amp charging should be fine. I installed 80 amps for my MS, but never use it at 80 amps .. no need. Tesla wall chargers are nice and not expensive ... installed It myself and saved a lot!

I agree I almost never use all 80 amps. I actually throttle it at 20amps, it's easier on the pack and better for longevity.

 

[ajdelange]

It doesn't so much matter what the size of the battery pack is. The most important factor is the rate at which the vehicle will use energy. That's estimated to be pretty close to 500 Wh/mi. Thus each kW of charging capacity will give 2 miles per hour added range. The obvious solution is the Tesla HPWC which requires a 100 A circuit breaker but which can supply 80 A (19.2 kW @ 240 V) or about 38 mi added per hour charging. Note that 80 A is the most any Tesla on the road today can accept (AFAIK) and the most the more recent (since just about a year ago) ones can take is 48 A (11.5 kW) though some of the fairly recent (prior to 2019) can take 72 A (17.28 kW). Since the CT is going to use appreciably more energy (close to 500 wH/mi) relative to the largest X out there now (330 wH/mi) Tesla may start incorporating the 72 A chargers in the CT. I doubt they will go over 80 as that requires the 100A breaker and many houses only have 200 A service and I think there are now liability concerns which I feel were probably behind the 48 A limitation of the current generation. Thus the HPWC on a 100 A breaker seems to be the obvious answer. If you wish to charge at a slower rate (I do to avoid peak demand charges) you can easily set that up in the car on with the App.

A big advantage of the HPWC is that if you have multiple vehicles you can install multiple HPWCs on the same circuit and the one you designate as the master will control the amount of power that goes to each.

The apparent big disadvantage of the HPWC is that you cannot, ostensibly, charge any other make of BEV. That's no longer true. There is an adapter called the Tesla Tap that would allow me to charge, for example, a Rivian at 50 A (the max it can take) using my existing HPWC. And, if I put another HPWC on the same circuit I could even charge an R1T at that rate while charging a CT or my X at a 30 amp. rate, or an R1T and a CT at 40 A each. Or with a 3rd HPWC an R1T, a CT and an X simultaneously at 26.7 A (6.4 kW --> 12.8 mi/hr for the Rivian and CT and about 19 mi/h for the X). But I wouldn't want to do that as I don't really want to buy two more HPWC's and I can't drive 3 BEVs at the same time.

Clearly, as a current Tesla owner I am set up for the addition of another Tesla without having to do anything unless I want to do simultaneous charging. With the next BEV likely to be a Rivian I started to look at CCS charging solutions. They are generally lower capacity than the HPWC and quite expensive. With the Tesla Tap (also quite expensive) there is no need to consider them. So that's my plan. Do nothing and see how things play out when the truck(s) actually arrive. Were I starting from scratch I believe that is what I would do.

Though I dismissed length of time to charge the battery from one SoC to another as being less significant that miles added per hour it is still a reasonable question to ask. The TriMotor CT has an expected range of 500 miles and ABRP rates its consumption as 485 Wh/mi. Charging from 25% to 100% means adding 75% or 3/4 of 500 which is 375 miles. At .485 kWh/ mile that means about 182 kWh would have to be added. Supposing Telsa puts the 72A charger back in. That means charging at 17.28 kWh/hr implying that 182/17.28 = 10.5 hours would be required. For other battery sizes the formula is hrs = 1000*0.75*range*.485/(240*amps) = 10.52 hrs for 75% SoC range and the 500 mi range vehicle. For the 300 mile range vehicle the time drops to 3/5 of that but so do the miles added.

Note that you would not operate between 25% and 100% but more likely, for daily driving, between 20% and 70% or 80%.

 

[ReddykwRun]

I have gone down this path already as well. One of me best friends owns 2 Tesla's and he said the mistake he made was putting in the "Tesla" charger. He said going with a generic brand would have been a better move for future resale of the house.

Additionally, his thought was that simply putting in a NEMA 14-50 plug and using the included Tesla charging cable was the way to go. That outlet uses a 50A breaker and I believe will charge at somewhere around 25-35 miles of range per hour.

You do realize that the 14-50 is slower than the Tesla 60 amp wall charger.


Tesla Wall Charger Features

• "Up to 11.5 kW power output for a single vehicle (50 percent faster than Mobile Connector with NEMA 14-50 outlet)" from Tesla HPWC manual.

 

[VolklKatana]

Yes I am aware. He was just stating that for the future of a home, not everyone will necessarily own a Tesla, so he was just thinking in resale terms. Also, for my situation, a NEMA 14-50 will be able to top off my vehicle in just a couple hours as I don't road trip or commute all that far. (I also have free charging at work once or twice a week)

 

[ReddykwRun]

Yes I am aware. He was just stating that for the future of a home, not everyone will necessarily own a Tesla, so he was just thinking in resale terms. Also, for my situation, a NEMA 14-50 will be able to top off my vehicle in just a couple hours as I don't road trip or commute all that far. (I also have free charging at work once or twice a week)

Nice to be able to charge at work. My funny situation: I now live 4 miles from where I pick up my company truck, so much for enjoying a fun commute to and from work. I guess I can drive around for a while before and after work to feel like I am commuting again. Used to do a 75-minute commute each way a few years ago (interstate) and I don't miss it, now I have 4 miles of country road and I switch vehicles.

 

[ajdelange]

You do realize that the 14-50 is slower than the Tesla 60 amp wall charger.


Tesla Wall Charger Features

• "Up to 11.5 kW power output for a single vehicle (50 percent faster than Mobile Connector with NEMA 14-50 outlet)" from Tesla HPWC manual.

Just to be clear: The wall charger is an 80 amp unit. It will deliver that much power to some of the older S models that have the high power charging option. It will deliver 72 amperes to my 2018 model X and 72 amperes to that and 8 amperes to my as yet non existent Rivian or Cyber truck at the same time*. It will only deliver 48 amps (11.5 kW) to the current crop of Teslas because none of them has more than 2 rectifier modules. I am guessing that the CT will be able to take more than 11.5 kW, e.g. at least as much as the old X (17.3 kW) and quite possibly the full capacity of the HPWC (80*240 = 19.2 kW).

*Actually a second HPWC on the same circuit is required to share. The pair can deliver up to 80 A.

 

[Garden_Aum]

I ordered a JuiceBox for charging electric vehicles. The reason for this particular selection is my local power company (BGE) offers a rebate of $300 after the charger is professionally installed. It is a 40 amp charger that will be plugged into a NEMA 14-50 plug. I currently drive a PHEV with a n 8.8KW battery pack. It gets charged 2x a day; once over night at home and once during the day while at work. The range on pure electric is not enough to get to work. I will stick with this vehicle until the CT is delivered at which time it will get passed down to the soon to be driving teenager.

 

[SentinelOne]

Getting ready to setup my house (for new Model 3 and future cyber truck)....thinking dedicated 100amp circuit to center between garage doors...this way I can reach either the double side of the garage (future), single side of the garage (model 3) + driveway on either side - all from one charger.....and the 100amp is so I have excess power to add a second wall charger in the future, that can cover all the spots as well and so I can charge Cybertruck + Model 3 simultaneously.....best I could come up with, but not near the breaker panel so might cost some $'s....but best to do it right.