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Old 04-16-2018, 07:11 PM   #81
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And the tradeoff is that you never have to think about going to the gas station during your daily driving, since the car is fully charged every morning.
That is one of the things I found most appealing and made me think about getting an electric car. If it works for my daily routine I'm golden.

Regarding road trips... Why the hell are people taking them in electric cars if they have an alternative vehicle? I can't imagine sitting around for 20 mins waiting for a charge. Not happening.
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Old 04-16-2018, 07:44 PM   #82
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For AF, here’s a pic of my EVSE (wall unit).

It’s not going to win any design awards, but it’s fine. I don’t really notice it anymore.

Re: road trips. I guess it might be different if I didn’t have kids? But when I go to NYC I stop once and invariably the car is ready before the people are.

The calculus might change on a road trip that required more than one stop, but I don’t do many of those. At that point it’s usually worth my time to just fly.

As for why I take the Tesla? It’s bigger and more comfortable. And I’d much rather stop to charge than buy gas in NJ.
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Old 04-16-2018, 07:54 PM   #83
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And I’d much rather stop to charge than buy gas in NJ.
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Old 04-16-2018, 07:58 PM   #84
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Regarding road trips... Why the hell are people taking them in electric cars if they have an alternative vehicle? I can't imagine sitting around for 20 mins waiting for a charge. Not happening.
We never did big road trips before the Tesla. Before, the biggest trips we’d take were to hit Disney or the beach in San Diego.

Phoenix to SoCal is a 7-8 hour drive to most places, plus stops. We found taking the Tesla to take about 45 min longer. In a gas car, we always stopped at least 3x for bio breaks, food, or gas for easily an hour or more. In the Tesla we also stopped 2 or 3 times to charge (mine has the smallest battery offered — all newer Tesla’s have 20 to 120 more miles avail from the bigger packs, so could stop less). One stop was for about an hour, with another 40 min stop needed. The 3rd stop was purely optional and was more for a bio break than charge, so only 10 min or so.

But we found Tesla road tripping to be more relaxing. You stop about every 2 or so hours, anywhere from 20 min to an hour. Enough time to plug in, grab a snack or meal, or even take a short walk. When we got where we were going, we were more relaxed. We’ve done around 20k miles of road trips in the Tesla now. It’s been to several national parks, including Death Valley, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Redwood, Yellowstone, the Petrified Forest and Moab.
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Old 04-16-2018, 08:05 PM   #85
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pic of my EVSE
That's much more discrete than I was thinking. I was expecting one of those big, grey Tesla charging stations that you see out in public.
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Old 04-16-2018, 09:02 PM   #86
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For AF, here’s a pic of my EVSE (wall unit).


As for why I take the Tesla? It’s bigger and more comfortable. And I’d much rather stop to charge than buy gas in NJ.
does that railing actually attach to your concrete?? looks a little bit unsafe.


And kinda joking, kinda serious, are you allowed to plug in your Tesla in NJ, or does some kid have to come out and do it?
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Old 04-16-2018, 09:08 PM   #87
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That's much more discrete than I was thinking. I was expecting one of those big, grey Tesla charging stations that you see out in public.
what big gray Tesla chargers?
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Old 04-16-2018, 09:13 PM   #88
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You can plug yourself in in NJ.

Uh, yeah, on railing? I guess? Feels sturdy enough. Not sure whether there’s something inside the concrete that it’s bolted to.
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Old 04-16-2018, 09:29 PM   #89
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what big gray Tesla chargers?
I remember something similar to this a couple of years ago. Maybe that's something different though. Power wall?
https://understandsolar.com/tesla-home-charger/
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Old 04-16-2018, 09:44 PM   #90
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The wall connector (which is what I’ve got) attaches to a 240V circuit and supplies AC power to the car. The car has a charger (or 2) on board that takes that power, converts it to DC, and charges the battery.

The wall connector can be hooked up to a couple of different amp circuits. Mine is a 100 amp circuit, meaning the wall connector can supply 80 Amps continuous power to the car, and it’s two onboard chargers can each convert 40 of that into DC for the battery.

All told, my car will add about 60 rated miles an hour to its range when plugged into this circuit.

The big boxes you see at public supercharging stations would differently. They convert the AC mains feed into DC power in pedestal mounted box, and then feed that dc power into the car. That power bypasses the car’s charger(s) entirely and goes straight into the car’s battery.

Superchargers are big because of that, though the pedestal looking thing that says “Tesla” on it isn’t the charger stack; it’s just a mount for the cable. The chargers stacks are usually white boxes with big fans mounted on them, about 5’ tall and 2’ wide—typically they sit next to a transformer behind some decorative fencing.
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