Tesla Chronicles #21 - Level 1 Charging

From day 1 with my Tesla, I have had a Level 2 charger at my home. I highly recommend that anyone that gets an EV, immediately install a Level 2 charger in your home if feasible. Not only is it great to know that when at a very low state of charge, I can get to "full" in 5-6 hours maximum (basically overnight), but I have found that my charges are much more efficient. The difference is roughly 10%, so over long-term ownership, using the L2 charger essentially pays for itself. For this reason, get a L2 if you can. Quick EV 101.... When talking about EV charging, there are generally 3 categories:

- Level 1: 1-2 kw of power via a 110V outlet (up to 16 AMPs)

- Level 2: 3-16 kw of power via a 240V outlet (up to 48 AMPs)

- DCFC or "Level 3": 30 kw (slow) up to 100-150 kw (medium) up to 350 kw (fast).

But here is the thing, you can make a Level 1 charger work depending on your daily driving habits. I have exclusively used a L1 charger this week at work, and I wanted to share my experience. Only 4 work days for us this week....

Tuesday - left home at 55% - 9 hours of L1 charging - added 19% - 22 miles driven - finished the day at 61%

Wednesday and Thursday - much the same... a few more errands after work... hotter temps...

Friday - started the day at 69% - I should only drive about 22 miles again today - should get about 18% added today - I should arrive at home this afternoon with about 75%

So, in 4 days, I'll have driven a total of just over 100 miles. I will have also been charging only 9 hours per day average, and I will finish the week with 20% more than I started with.

Most likely, if I was doing this sort of Level 1 charging at home, I would generally be able to charge for at least 12 hours a day, which means I would be able to add about 24% of charge per night. In my experience, that equates to at least 50 miles of driving a day under typical conditions. Unfortunately, L1 charging is a complete failure in the super cold temperatures as I discovered when we were in Watkins Glen in February when temps were 0-10F.

In terms of Efficiency, here is my latest data. Blue is my L2 charging... Red is L1 charging. Here you can see L2 up around 95% average, where L1 is in the lower 80's. The really low outliers generally were during very cold weather, or something errored when the system was collecting the data.