Tesla Model S waffling

[ZBB]

Originally Posted by bren

This company sells a switching device that ties into an existing 240 circuit so that you can share between appliances and the car. It senses when the dryer (or whatever) is running and disables the car side to help manage the draw on the panel.

http://evsellc.com/

For FYI -- electric dryers are normally on 30A circuits. Electric ranges on 50A circuits.

The switch could still be very helpful for houses on 100A panel -- where it may not have capacity to add a dedicated EV circuit (at either 30 or 50A).

[lemming]

Originally Posted by bren

This company sells a switching device that ties into an existing 240 circuit so that you can share between appliances and the car. It senses when the dryer (or whatever) is running and disables the car side to help manage the draw on the panel.

http://evsellc.com/

this makes sense. although, in areas where electricity is expensive, charging at peak hours could still add significantly.

[ZBB]

So we're back from our overnight trip to Tucson.

The drive itself was completely uneventful. We got in the car and ~2.5 hours later arrived at our hotel. We checked in, had lunch and then went down to the UofA campus for the homecoming activities and the UofA/UCLA football game, then back to the hotel late last night. This morning we woke up, took it easy for a bit, checked out, and drove back home.

We drove with traffic at about 5 over the posted limit (I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson desperately needs to be widened -- much of it is still 2 lanes in each direction, so speeds generally are close to the limit due to passing trucks). At no point did the Tesla have less than 40 miles of range remaining.

We also never waited for the car to charge. The resort we stayed at had a NEMA 14-50 outlet (i.e. the same "50 Amp" outlet used in RV parks) avail in the parking garage -- conveniently next to the elevator. When we checked in, the front desk told me where it was, and had a maintenance person meet me there in order to show me the outlet (it was not permanently installed -- it was on a very thick cable -- you can see in the attached pic that we set the outlet on the ground and plugged in the stock Tesla UMC). I plugged the car in (which took less than a minute after parking -- most of which was taking the UMC out of its travel case)... We let the car charge while we had lunch -- although that wasn't really necessary (we had plenty of range remaining to get to campus and back to the hotel). We also charged overnight and the Tesla had a full battery by the time we woke up.

Stats for the trip: 313 miles, 93.6kWh used -- an average of 299 Wh/mile (basically spot on the EPA rating of 300). The good thing to know is that this is lower than the EV trip planner site suggested -- the estimate it gave was 107kWh and an average of 348 Wh/mile. Good to know that I can get about 20% lower energy use than the planner... Will track this on future trips to see if that holds...

About 50kWh were provided by the hotel. Have you ever stayed at a hotel and had them provide you enough gas to drive ~170 miles?

[John V]

It makes me wonder how this will be managed long-term. I suspect as EVs become more popular hotels will be less inclined to provide free electricity. Credit-card swipe chargers I guess? Or mobile app managed chargers?

[ZBB]

Originally Posted by John V

It makes me wonder how this will be managed long-term. I suspect as EVs become more popular hotels will be less inclined to provide free electricity. Credit-card swipe chargers I guess? Or mobile app managed chargers?

We used between $3 and $6 of electricity (depending on the commercial rate the hotel pays...).

Some hotels have paid chargers already... Some waive the fee for guests, others don't -- but for now having a charger is a competitive advantage for hotels (and considering Tesla's demographic, providing $3 and $6 of electricity per night may be considered inexpensive marketing). We also considered staying at another place that has 8 Blink Network chargers (one of the paid charging networks) -- although that hotel was sold out for Sat months ago (its a very nice boutique hotel within walking distance of campus -- and was my back up charging location if our hotel's outlet had problems...).

But today's charging AC -- which is slow (6-10 hours to top off most EVs). As DC charging becomes more widespread, charging at a hotel won't be necessary. One of the rumored Tesla Supercharger sites is in Casa Grande, midway between Tucson and Phoenix. If that had been available, we could have used it (stopping on the way down and back home) instead and not charged while in Tucson. There's also a CHAdeMO charger in Tucson -- so when the CHAdeMO adapter is avail from Tesla, that would have been another option to quickly charge the car while in Tucson...

[clyde]

Originally Posted by John V

It makes me wonder how this will be managed long-term. I suspect as EVs become more popular hotels will be less inclined to provide free electricity. Credit-card swipe chargers I guess? Or mobile app managed chargers?

Probably like HBO once was, like wifi is now, etc where some charge and some don't, where the nicer, more expensive places charge and the more pedestrian don't.

I'm more interested in seeing whether capacity will meet demand over the next few years. Having the maintenance guy meet you to help you get charged sounds like something they can do, but not common. Could they have handled 3 or 4 Teslas while you were there?

I passed a hotel the other day in downtown DC. There was a Tesla with NY tags charging off the main driveway drop-off. Not sure what they would have done if two cars needed charging.

[JST]

Originally Posted by ZBB

We used between $3 and $6 of electricity (depending on the commercial rate the hotel pays...).

Some hotels have paid chargers already... Some waive the fee for guests, others don't -- but for now having a charger is a competitive advantage for hotels (and considering Tesla's demographic, providing $3 and $6 of electricity per night may be considered inexpensive marketing). We also considered staying at another place that has 8 Blink Network chargers (one of the paid charging networks) -- although that hotel was sold out for Sat months ago (its a very nice boutique hotel within walking distance of campus -- and was my back up charging location if our hotel's outlet had problems...).

But today's charging AC -- which is slow (6-10 hours to top off most EVs). As DC charging becomes more widespread, charging at a hotel won't be necessary. One of the rumored Tesla Supercharger sites is in Casa Grande, midway between Tucson and Phoenix. If that had been available, we could have used it (stopping on the way down and back home) instead and not charged while in Tucson. There's also a CHAdeMO charger in Tucson -- so when the CHAdeMO adapter is avail from Tesla, that would have been another option to quickly charge the car while in Tucson...

I can see this as something like WiFi--a guest amenity that some chains charge for and others do not.

One potential issue may be that not all hotels own their garages, or they may lease them to a separate company. We ran into this in my office, and had to essentially bypass the "garage" electricity to put in a line that our company pays for because the garage management company didn't want to deal with it.

[JST]

Originally Posted by clyde

Probably like HBO once was, like wifi is now, etc where some charge and some don't, where the nicer, more expensive places charge and the more pedestrian don't.

I'm more interested in seeing whether capacity will meet demand over the next few years. Having the maintenance guy meet you to help you get charged sounds like something they can do, but not common. Could they have handled 3 or 4 Teslas while you were there?

I passed a hotel the other day in downtown DC. There was a Tesla with NY tags charging off the main driveway drop-off. Not sure what they would have done if two cars needed charging.

If you've got valet service, it's easy enough, though obviously each car gets less time on the charger.

Adding capacity is not that expensive, relatively, depending on the kind of charging infrastructure you put in.

[ZBB]

The hotel we stayed at only had the one outlet...

I agree that having the maintenance woman meet me in the garage is not efficient (although that was only when we first arrived -- she asked when I was checking out and the outlet was left there for our entire stay). The cable was coming out of an electrical room, and they had notched a corner off the door to allow the door to close. They easily could have run some conduit and permanently mounted 2-3 of the outlets on the wall by some of the parking spaces nearby. At one end of the garage, the hotel had about 10 spots used by their golf carts -- with 120V outlets mounted on the wall.

[Sharp11]

Well, I'll give this, the Tesla's not likely to suffer oil leaks ... that's a plus ... sigh.