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Comment by jblow | Hacker News Reader

> Household wiring will anyway not have enough current capacity to support charging

citation needed

No need, because it is simply untrue: Electric vehicles can charge on anything from 1-ph 8A 240V, to 3-ph 32A 400V, all of which can easily be provided by common urban household wiring.

Not sure who is downvoting you. I charged my Tesla Roadster on 120v 15A for like 6 years.

Apparently motels are having to crack down on "extension cording" now. Park near your room, crack a window, free fill up...

It’s just a few dollars, maybe the should try letting people pay?

where are you located that household 3 phase is available? Lots of hobby machinists would kill for that but it just isn’t available most places.

Annecdata: all the houses I personally know of in the south bay (North California, USA) area have three phase power, and the oldest was built in the 1940es.

Charging a Model S from a 110V 20A outlet is very slow and probably not a very useful option (but I have done it on a visit to LA).

Three phase (typically 480/3)? Or split-phase 240 VAC (center-tapped, single-phase 240V)?

The latter is extremely common/the standard residential service. The former is extremely uncommon residentially.

Or even less. I tell my Model S to charge at 5A when I am at home (230 V single phase). Gets me 5 km per hour, 60 km from 18:00 to 06:00 which is fine because I average about 20000 km a year which is less than 60 km a day. On road trips I use the superchargers.

Sure here

https://www.tesla.com/support/home-charging-installation#out...

Most home electricity installations have circuit breakers @ 15 Amps where I live. Wiring typically rated to a max 20 Amps draw before overheating. At a below 15 Amps current draw levels, you'll required an inordinate number of hours of charging for getting mileage on the battery and it's just not practical.

Most homes have electric stoves and dryers.

How many km do you drive in a year? My 20k km is about 55 km per day which is easily supplied by 5A 230 V to my Tesla S in 12 hours, say from 18:00 to 06:00.

When we first got our electric car we used a cord strung out the window, 12 amps at 120 volts. Not a problem, plug in when you get home, unless you need more than 60 miles this will be fine.

Perhaps he's referring to the recommendations that Tesla has: "We recommend installing the Wall Connector with a power output to match the on-board charger of the vehicle, typically a 40, 60 or 90 amp circuit breaker."

https://www.tesla.com/support/home-charging-installation#wal...

For comparison, the average home circuit is rated for 15 amps.

Last I checked, most homes in the USA had 220v 30A dryer outlets.

Our house has a 30A dryer outlet on the second floor. The house is maxed out on a 100A main line. To get another 40A or 50A breaker permitted, and installed would mean new main line, new meter, new main breaker, new breaker box. Bids have come in between $7,000 to $9,000. New homes with 200A service will mostly be ok, but older homes are often underserved electrically.

I had my power upgraded from 100A to 200A for $1800 in DC. Do you have to dig?

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