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2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.comEdmunds.com Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 10,315
edited September 2014 in Tesla

image2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

The cost of electricity varies widely across the USA, and the 2013 Tesla Model S makes more sense on the Oregon coast than I ever imagined.

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    dunning15dunning15 Member Posts: 0
    Apparently from the lack of comments there isn't much that is sexy about the wall adapter.
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    stovt001_stovt001_ Member Posts: 799
    That's the challenge Tesla faces. So many owners are going to try low-quality home electrical work, possibly even DIY stuff when they're totally unqualified. But the minute something starts smoking, they'll go crying to the media that the evil electric cars are trying to burn down everyone's house with the women and children trapped inside!
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    diigiidiigii Member Posts: 156
    The lack of comments on this particular blog suggests that most of the readers/posters here are not well-versed in home electricity. LOL
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    mfennellmfennell Member Posts: 91
    New Chevy Volts default to 8amp charging instead of 12amp on 120V circuits. There is no way to change the default. You have to manually reset to 12 every single time you use the car. Chevy (or their lawyers) were also concerned with poor wiring.
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    lmbvettelmbvette Member Posts: 93
    2012 Volt owner here. The amperage on my model are set on the charger, fortunately.

    The original 15 amp outlet in my house melted just from the 12 amp draw from my Volt. It turns out the builder installed the .89 cent Home Depot special. I replaced it with a heavy duty $7 Home Depot special. LOL

    For the Volt, if there is any sort of fluctuation in power the EVSE (the 110V external charger) will stop charging the vehicle and blink two red lights. The car will then send me a text and email to let me know that charging stopped or was interrupted. The point of the EVSE is to protect the expensive batteries from any power fluctuations (surge or brown out).

    I would imagine that the Tesla charger acts the same way, albeit with much more electricity which can do a lot more damage. I'm surprised they don't require (or include considering the price) an electrician install the charger, considering the amount of power being drawn, 40 amps is a lot of juice.
    Don't worry about what other people think. Drive what makes you happy.
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    fordson1fordson1 Unconfirmed Posts: 1,512
    Since the circuit was originally 60A, I'm thinking it was a range - ? That would make it what - 6GA 3 conductor w/gnd. - ? The updated adapter change is for overheating, for whatever reason. the firmware upgrade is for line fluctuations. Sounds like they're running into the real world, where wiring is iffy, where they are imposing a 100% duty cycle at 40A where houses have 200A or even just 150A service, which represents a huge percentage of the supply available to the house's service panel, and where they are trying to get home wiring to play nice with a huge battery, which is a new enough environment, never mind the fact that the battery acts way different in both charging and discharging modes depending on what the ambient temp is. They just learned that the safety margins they planned on are not enough in the real, flawed world. Unfortunately, the larger safety margins mean a whole lot of the home fast-charge capability goes away.
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    ariusjariusj Member Posts: 1
    Hmm, let's review the facts:
    1) Charge Cord Fault after charging 2-3 hours.
    2) No smoke/heat detected anywhere.
    3) NEMA 14-50 wiring is long but likely oversized.
    4) Tesla UMC tripped but Auto Charge Reduction software did not.

    I don't know the UMC design but if it is like most EVSE units, then it is my best guess that Dan's dad's house has a bad wiring on one of the HOT wires for his NEMA 14-50 outlet. The fault isn't serious enough to cause noticeable heat buildup (i.e. burn insulation) but it was enough to trip the UMC's circuit balance detector. The UMC likely wants to see the same voltage and current going through both Hot wires. So if one wire was bad (i.e. more resistive due to corrosion, loose connector etc), then the current flow over time will heat up the weak point, which will in turn increase resistive losses till the voltage drop exceeded the UMC's trip threshold.
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    ariusjariusj Member Posts: 1
    Hmm, let's review the facts:
    1) Charge Cord Fault after charging 2-3 hours.
    2) No smoke/heat detected anywhere.
    3) NEMA 14-50 wiring is long but likely oversized.
    4) Tesla UMC tripped but Auto Charge Reduction software did not.

    I don't know the UMC design but if it is like most EVSE units, then it is my best guess that Dan's dad's house has a bad wiring on one of the HOT wires for his NEMA 14-50 outlet. The fault isn't serious enough to cause noticeable heat buildup (i.e. burn insulation) but it was enough to trip the UMC's circuit balance detector. The UMC likely wants to see the same voltage and current going through both Hot wires. So if one wire was bad (i.e. more resistive due to corrosion, loose connector etc), then the current flow over time will heat up the weak point, which will in turn increase resistive losses till the voltage drop exceeded the UMC's trip threshold.
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