Are Tesla’s high-powered wall connectors really necessary for at-home daily use?

Ask yourself, how far do you drive during your normal activities? Probably between 30 to 65 miles a day, a mere 10-20% of your full range. When you get home and plug in for the next day, is it necessary to get back this 30-65 miles in under an hour? What would be the effect if the charging took 3-4 hours instead?

The Fight for Power

We bring up this topic as many customers request level-2 80-amp chargers. While rapid-charging is impressive (and is a selling point for Tesla) the effects it has on most buildings outweighs the impact it has on the community and your wallet.

Specifically, in multi-tenant properties there are two major differences over a single family home: availability of power and the distance to that power.

In a single family home, the available capacity at your property is yours and yours alone. This means if you have 100 amps available, why not install the largest charger possible? In a multi-tenant property that same 100 amps needs to support the entire community and surprisingly, even given the size of the property, there usually isn’t much readily-available power.

Taking 100 amps and giving it to one station will substantially, if not entirely, impede other residents from setting up EV charging. Using EverCharge chargers, 100 amps can go on to sufficiently charge and support 10-12 vehicles before more supply power must be added. Residents can charge up as much or as often as they like.

Not All Outlets Are the Same

The second difference is distance from the power source. In a single family home you may go 5-30 feet from the electrical panel. In a large multi-tenant property it could be hundreds of feet before a suitable power source is available. Also to account for voltage drop, very large-gauge wire is often needed which requires larger gauge conduit. This can have an exponential impact on installation costs over a 40- or 60-amp circuit.

High-powered wall connectors in multi-tenant buildings have a significant impact on the number of vehicles a property can charge. Their ability to more quickly charge a vehicle that will remain stationary for 8-10 hours provides limited value versus the costs it will place on a property when more EVs try to connect. Leveraging EverCharge’s SmartPower^TM Technology, a building can provide sufficient charging performance while supporting more EV owners.

In the end, the more EVs on the road, the better the impact will be on our environment. And that's what we are all about.