Tesla – Page 2 – My ActiveE Made Me Accidentally Environmental

Five Years of EV Ownership

February 23 is a special day for me. It’s the day that we took delivery of our first EV in 2012. This means that five years ago, today, I joined the rEVolution and picked up my BMW Active E from Long Beach BMW.

I didn’t even have Level 2 charging installed in the garage on that day and had to plug in the car on 110V.

In fact, it wasn’t until several weeks have passed until I got our Level 2 charger installed under a grant that covered the charger, but not the installation. It’s a 30A J1772 charger from Chargepoint (CT-500) that is still going strong today (I use this for the Model S predominantly). It’s lost it’s networked feature as the modem in the device is no longer supported.

What this also means is that February 23 is also a bittersweet day for me as well… As that same Active E was taken from me quite unceremoniously on this same day in 2014.

Time does heal old wounds and I don’t pout when I say Active E anymore.

Then again, we did add the Roadster and Model S to our garage as we wait for our Model 3 and whatEVer else will take our EV future.

It helps that I can borrow the Roadster when my wife feels generous in letting me use it.

These next two pictures are from when we first picked the Roadster up…

and how it looks a week ago.

Here’s the Model S when we picked it up at the Tesla Factory

at its first Level 2 charge on our delivery weekend first roadtrip (in Sonoma for this shot).

And this recent shot when I was using the CHAdeMO charger near the Fountain Valley Supercharger from almost two weeks ago.

And a little nostalgia for those few months that we had more EVs than drivers in 2013-2014.

That was all three cars scheduled to charge at various times throughout the night on their own chargers.

Unfortunately, didn’t have a better shot of all three cars… Here’s a classic shot of the Model S and Roadster on the Model S first day home.

In fact, for the past five years since we picked up the Active E With all three cars (and various loaners and the few EV rentals we’ve done), we’ve added approximately 204,000 electric miles vs. 24,000 gasoline miles (both our own use, and when we lend our lone ICE car to visitors, as well as our use of ICE rental cars). What’s funny is how much fanfare I had when I first hit 100,000 electric miles, and 200,000 went by and I didn’t even pay attention to it.

I’ve documented the challenges that we’ve had with all three cars and they’ve all pretty much “behaved.” In fact our Model S just replaced its first 12V battery earlier this week. We’ve actually just replaced all four tires on the Model S a few weeks prior (still around 69,000 miles on the Model S).

To be fair, we did replace ONE of the four tires about 30,000 miles or so ago for a tire failure from driving over a road hazard. But the wear was pretty even, and we replaced all four tires when the tread was around 4/32 for two of the tires, and kept the other two (at 5/32) as “back-up”. The tires are “special order” and I would hate to have a failure and not have a pair ready to swap out (at the same tread.)

I guess what’s really special with driving EV is how “normal” it is for us now. In the beginning everything felt like it was going to be a challenge. How we managed to get 54,321 miles in the Active E in the two years that we had it depended a lot on available Level 2 charging. The infrastructure was there and we planned our trips so that we can recover miles when we got to our destinations. With the Roadster, we didn’t need to plan as much. We often had enough range to get back home. Now with the Model S, it’s even more interesting. We went Here, There, and EVerywhere as well as the Long Way Round to the Gigafactory Party. But the fact of the matter is, we picked up the Model S at the Fremont Factory. Went to Sonoma for wine and then back down to Southern California in November 2013, without much planning. That’s what EV ownership should be like. Pick up and go.

Are we there yet? To me, I’m there. But to the rest of the world, perhaps we’re getting there. It’s been a great 5 years and 200,000 miles of EV driving, and I’m looking for more and more EV adventures. Stay with us and see where electricity will take us.

Tesla Weekend Social 2017, a visit to Paramus, NJ

A week ago, January 21, 2017, my wife and I were on a trip to New York and planned to visit my cousin and the new addition to his family in Randolph, NJ for the day. This is one of my cousins who had kindly housed us both heading to Maine and back from Maine during our Here, There, EVerywhere cross-country trip of 2015. We were staying in Manhattan the night before and had some time before we were scheduled to see them on January 21st, so it was a welcome surprise when we received an invite to the first Tesla Weekend Social of 2017. We wanted to see what has changed since the first social that we attended last year.

We received the following email on the 14th of January.

Please join us for a Weekend Social New Year celebration at your nearest Tesla location.

Kick off 2017 alongside fellow owners, enthusiasts and Tesla staff. Family and friends are also welcome. Seasonal refreshments will be provided.

To attend an upcoming event near you, please RSVP below. We look forward to celebrating with you

After some challenges obtaining a confirmation (apparently there were some back-end issues that was communicated to us and eventually fixed,) we were able to get a confirmation to be added to the attendee list at the Paramus, NJ Sales, Service, Delivery Center and Supercharger location. Since our family commitments were not until the afternoon, we decided to head over to Paramus, NJ to attend the first Tesla Social of the year and to spend a few hours with some New Jersey Tesla folks.

To provide ourselves with the most flexibility for this visit, we rented a car from Hertz. Unfortunately, unlike our experience renting with Hertz’s On-Demand 24×7 product from a few years ago, there are no longer any electric vehicles in Hertz New York locations (nor is the 24×7 product being offered in the USA.) So, we had to rely on driving an ICE vehicle for this trip, a Ford Focus.

We arrived at the location about 15 minutes before the scheduled 10:00 am program and secured a spot near the front of the store. Here is a photograph of the area by the entrance of the store that we parked our rental car in. We were originally parked right beside the HUGE ICE SUV on the right of the photograph.

Upon exiting our rental, one of the employees requested my keys to move the vehicle to the back of the store. It’s a rental and I had some items in the car that I didn’t feel comfortable to be in a section that I can’t see the car in, so I asked if he needed to move it, that he move it somewhere closer. He decided to move it to the other side of the parking lot, away from the entrance and across the superchargers at the location.

This location was not nearly as convenient as the customer parking spot that I originally used, but I figured there must be a reason why he needed to move my rental. However, as you can see from the first photograph, this was a strange request as our original parking spot was right beside a large ICE SUV and another ICE vehicle.

We checked in and signed into the paper sign-in sheet that the store had placed at the entrance. Here is the walkway to the entrance and the sign in is to the left of the photo.

Directly ahead of the entrance is your typical Tesla Service Center entrance reception desk. (This is not normally situated in a Tesla Store). Remember, Paramus is a combination Sales, Service, Deliver Center and Supercharger location.

For the event, the store personnel provided coffee, bagels and other breakfast items along the credenza under the apparel, beside the Design Studio wall.

I walked around the area to get my bearings and took a peek at the Delivery Center part of the store and saw an X and an S awaiting their new owners. It seems that the New Jersey folks were not one of the stores that cover the vehicles in some sort of drop-cloth as I’ve seen in other Delivery Centers.

Not being used to weather, we originally walked in with our winter travel coats and realized that there was no place to keep our jackets. Rather than wear our jackets the whole time, I decided to return them to the car. I had to look for the employee who took our rental key to get access to the rental car and place our jackets in there. Once I located that employee, who is nameless, not to protect the guilty, but because he never took the time to introduce himself to me. I found the car tucked in between several inventory Model S that they have on the lot, and not by any customer vehicles.

The rental car was nicely surrounded by Teslas, but I did not ever notice any other customers vehicles being collected in the same manner as our rental car.

It appears that we were particularly targeted for this as when I walked by my original parking spot. Another monstrous ICE SUV was parked there and not another Tesla or anything related to the event. I was a little miffed at this considering the fact that all other customers were able to park in the customer section and our little rental car was summarily moved. Either way, that’s a section of improvement for Tesla Paramus. Either valet park all cars, or leave them be.

This particular event at Paramus seemed to be more casual than the other Tesla Social events that we have attended in the past. There did not seem to be an agenda and we spent a long time talking to the Tesla employees and fellow owners before we were brought into the lounge for the group discussion portion of the event.

Prior to being brought into the lounge for the group discussion, we spent a lot of time with two members of the staff who were very attentive and we wanted to commend them. Monica and Joey (didn’t catch last names). Monica moved to Paramus, NJ from Pasadena, CA and Joey who just started a few weeks ago. They were very eager and helpful. Monica has been with Tesla for a while and we discussed her move to New Jersey from California as well as my wife’s Roadster and Joey, as a new employee, was effectively being trained by us as long-time owners of Tesla.

Don’t get me wrong, I can spend HOURS talking Tesla with people, it’s just strange to invite a group of owners without seeming to have a plan for their time.

We waited until about 10:45 am before the program started. However, program might be a generous word for this event. It seems that it was meant to be very free-flow and I suspect that an agenda and some structure could have helped make the event better. The format was very open and thus had a hard time maintaining a flow. There were many owners there.

Topics ranged all over the place and it was interesting to hear information that was directly contradictory to advice that I have received in Southern California regarding tire rotations and the like from Tesla Service personnel in New Jersey. Perhaps the difference can be attributed to the difference in climate and weather between the states. In hearing from those involved at the location, it seems that folks around New Jersey have to go through a lot more tires than I do in Southern California. I didn’t want to be the cause of ire from other owners, so I politely kept this information to myself.

Another subject that was brought up was regarding the $0.40 per minute supercharger idle fee that was recently enacted by Tesla. It seems that these concerns are quite universal and the discussion around this was interesting.

After the group discussion wrapped up, a few of the New Jersey owners joined us in conversation as they were intrigued by visitors from California attending their session. It seems that there is currently not an official Tesla Owners club for the New Jersey area and I spent some time explaining how the Orange County, CA club operates versus its other brethren in other parts of the world. Several of the New Jersey owners seemed interested in forming one for their area and I handed out club cards for them to reach out for more information.

We also discussed Roadster ownership versus Model S as well as our visit to their state from our trip cross-country and how relatively easy and enjoyable that trip had been.

In the end, it was just as advertised, it was a Tesla Social, but one without an agenda. I felt that an opportunity was missed in that this was the first social after some drastic changes in ownership for those that take delivery of a Tesla after the removal of the included supercharging for the life of the vehicle policy was replaced with the new pay as you go system. Additionally, it’s been a few days since the release of the Tesla Model S and Model X 100D top range versions of those vehicles and it would have been good to have been provided some sort of presentation on those. Alas, this was not the plan for the day.

We spent some time with yet another early Model S owner discussing growing pains and we took our leave so that we can head out to visit my cousin and his family. We said our farewell to the two Tesla staff members, Monica and Joey, who provided such good company and service and left for the day. These two counterbalanced the unnamed employee who saw it fit to move our Ford Focus rental while leaving all other vehicles unmolested.

Civil disturbance and Tesla supercharging…

A few months ago, around Thanksgiving Holiday, there have been numerous reports of the Barstow Tesla Supercharger being vandalized and a key route between Nevada and California being taken offline. Our friends at Teslarati (and photo credits to Tony Williams) had great coverage of the event. That event shows the challenge of the current configuration of the Supercharger network and the need for those that travel the long distance supercharger routes to be aware of their options to charge.

Last weekend, January 7, 2017. I found myself running low on charge while visiting family.

We were 40 miles from home and 39 miles of range left for the car. The family members we were visiting were close to the Tesla Supercharger at the Westfield at Culver City. I figured to make a pit-stop over there to top up while my better half took care of family commitments. Rather than risk driving out of charge, I figured to go ahead and top-up. Besides, January is often a slow month at the mall.

The Culver City Supercharger has a mix of back in and head-in charging stations. I took one of the stalls that head in as it was not paired with anyone and wanted to get as quick a charge rate as possible.

My plan was to charge to full as it was a slow day. Besides, I had my iPad on me and took the time to catch up on things while I charged. I figured that when the station fills up, I can move. If someone else pulled up and needed to use a stall, I can leave at that time. The entire time I was at the center, the usage was unusually low for this location. I chalked this up to a slow January evening. With the after holiday sales going on, I decided to head over to the recently opened Starbucks across the parking lot from the supercharger to see if they had any clearance items left.

So, I put my iPad down, stepped out, and looked behind me.

Well, it seems that the mall was unusually empty and I started to take pictures as I saw police vehicles and people mulling about.

The news was here too, and I thought that was strange.

There were people standing outside what looks to be a closed mall entrance.

And there were three more police vehicles parked with no officers in them, nor were their lights flashing.

I turned the corner to get toward the Starbucks and noticed ANOTHER police vehicle with lights flashing this time. However, no sign of any officers directing traffic or anything.

At this side of the mall, the entrance was definitely closed.

I decided to speak to some of the people and received a wide range of conjecture of what was happening. Some of their reports ranged from minor things to really serious things that I figured to head back to my car.

On the way back, I contacted a friend of mine who advised me that the local Culver City news was reporting that there were teenagers in the parking structure about a football field away from the superchargers were causing mayhem and vandalizing parked cars. He wasn’t sure how accurate the reports were, but that behavior seems to target people IN the parking lot and not at the mall itself.

Needless to say, that motivated me to leave. Prior to departing, however, I made the other owners at the superchargers aware of the reports that I heard and let them make their own decision to stay or to leave.

The reports were finally written and I am linking to the article published in the Culver City News. I’m glad that these troublemakers didn’t get anywhere close to the superchargers.

This event brings me back to wonder about supercharging and the need to have backup charging sites identified. In the case of the Culver City Supercharger, it is very close to the original Los Angeles Supercharger at the Hawthorne Design Center or the Redondo Beach Supercharger.

(map screenshot from Teslarati.com)

Granted, we could have plugged in at 120V at the house that we were visiting, but that is cumbersome and events like what happened last week are rare. I’m just glad that the event was really a “non” event for us, but it could just as easily have been a challenge and one really needs to be more aware of options in charging. A good part of this blame really is my own, but I assumed that I would have sufficient charge. The other thing I suppose I should have done more is to take my head off the iPad when I am sitting in my car and charging. When I have company when I am charging, I spend my time conversing with my traveling companions, but when I am charging at a location by myself, then it’s not a guarantee that I won’t get engrossed in what I am doing. So, a word of caution, and just something else to learn from.

A few things about those Tesla Referral Links…

Some of you may be getting tired of all the Tesla Referral codes being published by Tesla Owners for $1000 USD / £750 GBP (or whatever it is in your currency) off the purchase of a new Model S or Model X. (In case you’re not, here’s our referral code – http://ts.la/dennis5317)

Well, it’s because Tesla has a referral program for owners to get their friends and acquaintances into a Tesla Model S or Model X. The original iteration of the program had provided cash rewards (service credits and the like) for each referral that purchases a Model S or Model X. That was cool, but felt kinda “funny” and it was actually a disincentive for me to participate when the reward program was for cash. Here is a link to the current program.

Subsequent programs provided a prize pool for each referral and the one that has been the most successful for me had been the referral program that led us to an invite to the gigafactory party and our main 2016 Roadtrip that took us the Long Way Round to the Gigafactory.

Aside from the party, we got a few other items…

What did we get here?

Whatever it is, it comes in the nice Tesla bag.

It’s the Tesla Moab Leather Weekender.

The bag is supposed to be for a weekend, but it was pretty full for the overnight trip we took to try it out.

And here it is in the trunk of our Model S.

So, we took the weekender bag on a trip and caught a nice sunset at the Barstow supercharger.

A week after the trip, we got something else in the mail from Tesla.

It was the personalized Tesla Owners jacket. They even put our last name on the jacket.

The back has a nice standard logo on it. So, beware when wearing this jacket at a company event, folks might think that you’re an employee.

Your author now ready for a Southern California winter…

Or as others call it… Summer.

Now, this current program that runs until January 15 is actually pretty cool. After seven referrals, Tesla will provide the referrer with a Signature Red Powerwall 2 that is signed by Elon, JB Straubel, and Franz von Holzhausen. That’s my goal and need a LOT of help before then.

So, if you’re looking to order a Tesla Model S or Model X before the end of the year, you get $1000 USD or £750 GBP off (or equivalent currency) AND be eligible for free supercharging for the life of your vehicle. Our Referral code – http://ts.la/dennis5317.

Traveling without your EV? Here’s how we do it, most recent stop, Perth, Australia

We love to travel.

Even before our many roadtrips in the Model S, we used to fly all over the place. However, the past few years, we’ve done more driving than flying.

When we went on airplane trips, we always made note of EVs and EV infrastructure wherever we went.

From visiting the BMWi Park Lane store in London when the BMWi brand was still in the concept stage.

To spotting Nissan Leaf at Hong Kong airport.

To EV charging stations throughout Malta.

One of the things that I tried to do during the past few years was to catch up and have dinner or lunch or whatever with someone that I’ve gotten to know in the International EV community. First it was one-on-one meetups with specific people when I visit a country. And then, last year I figured that it would be more fun to get together with groups of fellow rEVolutionaries on my International trips.

Last year, while visiting England for Rugby World cup 2015, I figured to send a message out to meet up with the EV community in the UK. I’m pretty active on the Speak EV forum, even volunteering as a moderator.

Speak EV is a great forum for EV enthusiasts because it is not focused on a specific brand of Electric Vehicle. Many of the really popular ones are. But Speak EV is different and that’s what I like about it. The owner/operator for Speak EV is British and many members are from the UK, the presence outside of the UK is mainly Europeans, though there are quite a few of us from this side of the Pond. I started a thread last year to invite folks for this get together that I called the TransAtlantic EV Social and Drinks.

Here’s a panorama that was taken by Tim Ostler at the event.

TransAtlantic EV Meetup - 2015-October-29

From left to right: @Sussex Trug , @MikeProcter and Hilary Procter, @Dennis and Carolyn Pascual, @dpeilow , @RickMGoldie

And then one which we asked someone to take our picture (to include Tim)

It was funny because it was an EV Meetup without the EVs. We all had a great time and I truly enjoy comparing EV experiences with folks in different countries.

So, last month, we decided to take a trip to Perth, Australia. A distance of 9,528 miles from Los Angeles via Sydney, Australia. Now, I started off by reaching out to a few guys on Twitter who happen to be involved with the AEVA West Coast branch (Australian Electric Vehicle Association) I also figured to reach out to the Tesla Owners Club of Australia and via a post on Teslamotorsclub.com. We haven’t been to Perth since 2005 and it was a chance to spend time and visit my godsiblings and the new baby that joined their family.

So, on Thursday, October 20, 2016, we had a meetup at the Odyssea Restaurant at City Beach.

From left to right: Antony Day, Christopher Cook, Matt (@MDK on TMC) [partially blocked], Chris Jones, Joseph Law, My better half, Me, and my godbrother Aaron.

Here’s a better picture from Twitter… (Matt’s not blocked on this one.)

EV meetup with @dennis_p @electriccarbuyr @g4qber @TransOzTesla pic.twitter.com/37LgFx9Amp

— E.V. Grin (@antday) October 20, 2016

My godbrother chose the restaurant for the food and service, but also for the large parking lot so that we can take these sort of shots.

Not an EV, but a cool vanity plate.

Matt with his cool “plate”

He was the first EV to cross the Null Arbor part of Australia. Basically, the Outback for thousands of kilometers on his Perth to Brisbane and back trip from earlier in the year. For those of us in the US, that’s like crossing the Us from San Diego to Baltimore and back. Where the only supercharging available would be the original one in California. Luckily, Australia has a lot of three phase power and Matt has an older Model S that can still make use of the 22kW available on dual charging.

Besides, it’s always fun when we visit different places and spot interesting road crossing signs. Our first trip to Australia in 2003, we had my godparents drive us all over WA to look for a Kangaroo crossing sign and tried to capture a Kookaburra sitting on a gum tree. We’ve been to visit Oz many times since, so I didn’t go out of my way to spot any of these things… However, whilst out and about the city, we did spot some interesting signs.

Spotted the ultra aggressive Black Swans that the river in Perth was named after.

Funny enough, our first trip here over a dozen years ago, we were chased by a Black Swan, so my better half took this shot using the zoom lens on her camera.

Also get to see a magpie… And now I understand why the Collingwood Magpies have them as a mascot. This particular bird was also unperturbed by our presence at the park when we were hanging out and enjoying time with our godsister’s new baby.

On the Friday of our visit there, we went to catch a basketball game at the Perth Arena.

We parked in the parking garage across from the arena. I was impressed that the parking garage had several charging outlets as well as a dedicated EV charging bay.

The one EV charging bay was respected by the ICE drivers and the first-come-first-serve spots that had plugs still had a spot available for another plug-in vehicle to use.

Since these are first-come-first-serve and not dedicated to EV charging, it was perfectly fine for ICE cars to be using these spots.

And many ICE vehicles did take these spots, but at least respected the dedicated EV spot.

This means that as EVs proliferate in their city, they can start claiming those outlets for EVs easily.

The basketball game itself was quite fun and the Perth Wildcats won that game.

It was impressive to see the winning record and staying power of the Perth basketball team in its league.

It was also quite entertaining seeing the different things that fans do at these games vs. the NBA.

Those crazy huge head signs would not be allowed in the NBA by the competition committee.

Unfortunately, the Super Rugby and AFL were out of season, but I did get a chance to see their various organizations represented.

The Perth Spirit, which is the division below the Western Force Super Rugby team actually had its players getting ready for their trip to the Grand Finals (which they won as an away game over the weekend of our trip to Perth.) Perhaps we brought them luck.

We also passed by Domain Stadium (which I remember as the Subiaco Oval) (where both the West Coast Eagles and Freemantle Dockers have been playing for years, but apparently both abandoning soon.)

Later that weekend, we took time to speak with some of the same AEVA crew as they did their EV advocacy at the Perth Spring Eco-Fest in Perth’s Central Business District (CBD), or “downtown” as we would call it in LA.

It wasn’t all EVs, got to see a really tiny Joey.

Which made me a little guilty that I had the kangaroo at lunch the other day with the AEVA.

I finally got to sit behind the wheel of a RWD Model S…

And one that has the same color as our Model S at that.

Got to see all the different charging plugs that the guys in Australia use for their Model S. Especially in Perth, where there is no supercharging network.

The charging port is on the same side of the car as the US Model S, which means the driver has to walk around to get to it.

EV conversions still have a big presence in the Australian EV scene as is evidenced by this Mazda Miata.

We took a photo with the fellow rEVolutionaries at the Spring Eco-Fest.

From Left to Right: Mitch Bisby, Bruce Armstrong, Robin (or is it Robyn) Dean (Mrs. Blue Heaven on TMC), Me, Better Half, Matt (MDK on TMC), Rob Dean (Mr. Blue Heaven on TMC), and Joseph Law. Unfortunately we didn’t get to be properly introduced or speak with Mitch and Bruce, but had a great time chatting with the others.

It’s interesting to note that many of these rEVolutionaries in Australia had decided to switch to EVs without any of the incentives available to those of us in other parts of the world. Their cost per kWh is also very expensive and they have a government that does not seem to be too friendly for the EV movement. The reason that Tesla has focused its Tesla Energy sales to Australia and Germany has to do with their ability to compete against the utilities in Australia. Solar and battery storage is “on par” with the cost of energy from the grid.

That being said, hats off to these rEVolutionaries in Australia that have decided to take the plunge without the help that many of us get from our government.

On our last day at Perth we went to King’s Park to take a great picture of the city from its vantage point.

And on our last night, we enjoyed a night market before we headed off to fly back home.

All sorts of cuisine and even American food.

We enjoyed our visit and meeting with the local rEVolutionaries and discuss their challenges and triumphs as well as bring some of Australia’s, especially Western Australia (the “other WA State”) best home with us is another highlight.

So, the next time you travel without your EV, you can always see if you can make it a visit with other rEVolutionaries. There are plenty of friendly EV folks out there.

Model S Third Year Anniversary – November 8, 2016

I am drafting this post around 3pm Pacific/6pm Eastern on November 8, 2016 as the pundits and media discuss the initial returns of the current Presidential Election Cycle. Everywhere else in the country folks are talking about Election Night 2016. As I write this, we didn’t know who has won the race. The polls in California are not even closed. It’s been a very challenging election season and I thought that it would be good to step away from all that and focus on something I really like to do.

…and that’s write about EVs and my experiences on this blog.

It so happens that November 8 is a significant day in our family. It’s the day that we flew up to Fremont to pick up our Model S from the factory and started our ownership of the Model S. This is one of the big benefits of Tesla, they’re an American company with a factory that actually builds its cars in California.

I did a bunch of “near real-time” posts on the blog that probably would have been best served by Twitter three years ago. But if you’re interested in following that, just click above and follow the subsequent posts.

I decided to publish this post on November 10 to separate my car’s three year anniversary from Election Day and post-Election Day coverage and to emphasize that US produced electrons from the Sun has done its part to save me money and to ensure that we don’t create more veterans of wars for oil. Energy independence means less need to go and fight wars, but I digress.

On November 7, 2016, we brought the Model S in for its annual service. It was originally scheduled for the previous month, but the Roadster has been in for an extended period, so we tried to time it when the Roadster was going to be ready. We brought the car in with slightly above 66,500 miles and picked up the car and brought it home with 66,569 miles on the odometer.

So, what do they do for the three year service? Well, apparently they match it against the mileage of the car. Our car got service as if it was a five year old car at 62,500 mile service.

We had prepaid our first four years of Model S service and were charged accordingly.

Ironically, when we were exiting the freeway to drive to the service center, the TPMS warning light went yellow and rather than stop and check it out ourselves, I figured to go ahead and drive to the service center directly and just report the notice to Tesla. I’m glad to report that even though the tire had a nail in it, and Tesla’s previous policies were to replace the tire, the service center are now patching tires under certain conditions (in a nutshell as long as the sidewall is not compromised.) We are still on our original set of four tires. We even added a fifth one (that is usually in the frunk) and that one is at 8/32. We’ll need to replace those four tires soon (Tesla recommends replacement at 3/32)

The other thing that we reported to Tesla (and had reported it earlier in the year as well) is the continuing and increasing level of milling noise coming from the motor. Our previous request to repair this noise resulted in Tesla notifying us that the noise was within parameters. The last time this occurred was around 25,000 miles and it resulted in the motor being replaced. The noise is a constant whir that occurs between 20-35 mph (32-56 kph) and gradually lessens (though still existent) as the car approaches 55 mph (88 kph) and then is imperceptible to my ears. The error was not as bad as the drivetrain failure on the loaner P85D but is quite irritating and I don’t know if it’s a symptom prior to a bigger failure.

This time around, apparently the noise has gotten to the point that Tesla Engineering has approved the replacement and we are waiting for the replacement part to arrive to re-schedule the repair. Since we just got the car back today, there has not been an estimate on when the service center expects to receive the replacement motor.

In all, the car spent less than 24 hours at the service center and we were able to pick it up “good as new.”

So, how does our three year old car look? Let’s compare to previous pictures at pickup at the factory.

Three Years Ago

Today

Three Years Ago

Today

Three Years Ago

Today

Three Years Ago

Today

So, our car still looks pretty close to how it looked when we picked it up three years ago. Not bad. In fact, if Tesla had not modified the fascia of 2016 Model S, I would dare say that our car would still look brand new.

With the service that we receive from Tesla, we can hopefully say the same for the car many years to come.

Drivetrain failure on a P85D loaner and a temporary solution

So, we brought my better half’s Roadster in for its annual service . Since we scheduled our service a while back, we were able to request and receive a loaner. Our first loaner was a regular P85 and it was a nice ride. However, while the Roadster was in for service, the guys at the service center found an issue when the car was headed back to us after completion of the service.

Roadster parts and service is a little bit more of a challenge to Tesla than Model S service. The issue with the car is still ongoing and the fault has been isolated. In the meantime, the loaner will be with us a little longer than expected. Having never experienced Autopilot as a driver, I requested a swap out of loaners to an AP enabled one, should the service center be able to accommodate. A while after the request, and about a week after we’ve been driving a standard classic Model S P85, we got word from the service center that an AP enabled Model S was available for a swap, so I hurried down to the Service Center to swap out the P85 loaner for a P85D loaner.

Not a Ludicrous P90D, but still insane.

So, aside from auto pilot, we also got Insane. I’ve been through a few Insane launches previously, so I didn’t really care to try that again. One of the things that struck me with this Model S is the upgraded TPMS system that these newer Model S has. Older Model S TPMS did not indicate the status of each individual tire pressure. The Roadster does, but early Model S did not.

The car had firmware 7.1.

One of the best tests for Autopilot is in stop and go traffic and you can see this loaner handling that fine.

Speeding up when the traffic ahead starts to move faster.

We took it out for the weekend. Both the Tesla Owners Club of Orange County (meetup, TMC, or Twitter) and Los Angeles (website or Twitter) decided to go Apple Picking in Yucaipa. We figured it would be a great way to try out the autonomous features and get some experience with Auto Pilot since none of our current Tesla cars have it. We met at the Rancho Cucamonga Supercharger and left for the Apple Farm from there.

The caravan was fun, but we were in the back, and the group ahead of us got there a lot sooner than we did.

Here we are at the Apple Farm with the group.

It was a great long trip to Rancho Cucamonga and Yucaipa. The car performed admirably and I still was not as comfortable as others with the Auto Pilot. It worked great, but I’m just too much of a control freak. The car seems to sit closer to the right side of the lane than I do. Either way, there’s a lot of coverage on AP and now that 8.0 is released and AP 2.0 is getting produced, I’m not adding anything to further the pro or con case for AutoPilot 1.0.

However, I can give some hints on what can be done should you encounter some trouble. This is not an all-inclusive list, just a story of what happened to us and how we temporarily resolved it.

A few days after our club trip for Apple Picking. Something distressing happened. The drivetrain failed. We were doing some errands locally. I was making a left and had the PRND status on the driver dashboard go red, that was strange, so, I put the car on park, and the PRND status went to P. I then switched back to D and it engaged. Figured that this was a weird event, we decided to head home and swap cars.

Five minutes later, we were at a stop and the PRND status went red again. Once again, I didn’t get a picture of the failure because of traffic. Unfortunately for us, we were in Pacific Coast Highway at a stoplight. Now this is a very busy road, and we were a little stressed at the speeds that people behind us were traveling before the stop. We called Tesla Roadside Service to see what was going on. Their solution was to send a tow truck to pick us up. However, we were stalled in the middle of the street. So, we called our service center and were advised to reset the car. Now, it was too dangerous to get out of the car to do this. Turning the car off would have turned off our hazard lights.

The service center had a novel and ingenious way of restarting the car to see if the car can fix itself. While parked. Brace yourself so that you can raise yourself off the seat. Open and close the door quickly. What this does is reset the vehicle. The car went off and then turned back on. Guess what. It worked. The drive train was able to be re-engaged. We were a few minutes from home and were happy to get home unscathed.

Called Tesla back to redirect the tow to our home.

As with any Tesla, the car needs to be towed by a flat bed.

It was an afternoon in Southern California, during Rush Hour… So, we spoke with the service center and they were able to get us a replacement loaner. No auto pilot, but a nice Silver P85. Here is the P85D getting towed.

This loaner has the built in center console and I used to want one. Now, I’m sure I prefer to have the open space.

Bottom line is, the car is great, but if you ever find yourself in a situation where the drive train won’t engage. Try a few things.

1) Put it in Park. (and then switch it back to gear. This worked ONCE and wouldn’t again.)

2) Step out of the car and step back in. (or make it think that you do by lifting your bum off the seat, then open and then close the door.) Car will go “off”. Then start the car as normal.

Hope that helps.

Tesla Solar EVent

On Friday, October 28, 2016, approximately a year and a half since the original Tesla Energy launch EVent on April 30, 2015, Tesla improved upon the PowerWall and PowerPack, Tesla revisited Tesla Energy with the launch of the Tesla/Solar City product launch for the Solar Shingles.

Tesla Energy 2015 Launch

I did a bunch of tweets during the original Tesla Energy, PowerWall and PowerPack launch event from April 30, 2015…

(Here’s a link to the Flickr album from the Tesla Energy event.)

Some selected tweets from the original Tesla Energy Event:

Still waiting for Elon to show up at PowerWall Tesla Home Battery #TeslaLive https://t.co/C24NB1RnB9

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) May 1, 2015

The @TeslaMotors Home Battery solution in a nice red! #TEatTesla https://t.co/LMbj1gecE5

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) May 1, 2015

The Home solution is slightly wider than an iPhone 4s #TEatTesla https://t.co/2odpKLpbkE

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) May 1, 2015

#StackedPower #TeslaEnergy RT @dennis_p: Close up of the Commercial @TeslaMotors 100kWh pack #TEatTesla http://t.co/N5iJGyO4hG

— Anthony Nanas (@dhuDz) May 1, 2015

Your correspondents for @Teslarati @danielsparks on left @dennis_p on right #TeslaLive https://t.co/D8GCzbz9Cj

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 1, 2015

Tesla Solar Event

The focus of the event held by Tesla this past Friday, October 28, 2016, at Universal Studios Hollywood was on the newly unveiled Solar Roofing products that were developed in conjunction with Solar City. As impressive as this product line is, the Solar Roof is definitely not a financial fit in our current configuration. Many who follow this blog will note that we just achieved our break-even point this past year (the fourth year of our twenty year agreement for Solar power) and paid less than $20 for all of the fourth year of energy (not counting taxes.)

One could say that neither the PowerWall nor its succeeding product, the PowerWall2 really makes economic sense for our use case either. With net-metering still in effect in California, the economics of the PowerWall2 is not the reason to go ahead and purchase one. However, coupled with time-of-use, and the whole-house backup capabilities of the PowerWall2, it looks like a great solution for a whole-house backup system. With our summer peaks generating power at 40 kWh, two units may be all we’ll ever need. I intend to recharge the system during the super off-peak time of day and get more bang for our buck by feeding back our solar production to the grid at a higher rate. Southern California is known to be very seismically active, and a whole-house backup system might just be something that would be really cool to have.

I was involved in tweeting out details for the event this past Friday through both my own account and my friends at Teslarati’s as well. The guys at Teslarati had family commitments to attend to during the event and I was approached to see if I could possibly cover their Twitter feed for them, so I embed those tweets that I sent out here. Hope those of you that follow Teslarati and my Twitter accounts enjoyed the coverage.

Gearing up for #Tesla solar roof event, 1st must beat LA traffic. pic.twitter.com/iLrM4t8Ewx

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016

We’re in the neighborhood. Still in traffic. pic.twitter.com/Fr57HOAP2B

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016

Spotting fellow @TeslaMotors owners is a good sign that we’re headed the right direction #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/7XBtU8Bq4t

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016

Waiting to park. Looks like we followed the right guys #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/ZhQ8si0J93

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016

We’re waiting to park with a few of our closest @TeslaMotors friends #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/3dKgV0q1Cb

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016

Hanging out, waiting and tweeting for @Teslarati today #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/tq53Hurwss

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 28, 2016

Top notch security at the event #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/xENAQt0Z6r

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016

Elon’s not the only one with magic at this place! #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/T9Gqi39xvJ

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016

We’re badged for the event. #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/UYEy4nCtkX

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016

The @TeslaMotors Solar announcement is hanging out at a famous set. pic.twitter.com/grYhdnFCtD

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 29, 2016

It’s a backyard barbecue at the @TeslaMotors Announcement event today. The food is good! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/gyeburUD1G

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 29, 2016

A @TeslaMotors powered neighborhood? yes please! Check out the solar shingles. pic.twitter.com/9wdicbThcR

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 29, 2016

Waiting for Elon… as usual. 😜 https://t.co/B17vTvf9gm

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 29, 2016

Since I committed to cover the event for Teslarati, I figured that we should arrive a little early. No press pass for me, but covering it as an owner was fine for them.

The valet at this event provided sent us a text with a mobile website to handle the request and retrieval of our vehicle, it’s a lot more greeen than handing us a paper voucher. I don’t remember whether they had this system at the last event we drove in for. It’s been a while that we valet parked a vehicle at a Tesla EVent since the last Tesla event for us was the Gigafactory Party that was the subject of our Long Way Round Round trip. However, we took a loaner to the event. So, I photographed the vehicle and key to ensure that I know what I’m looking for. Just in case this SMS ticket method were to fail.

We were among the first ten cars through the valet and had been asked to wait in a lounge area to the right of the check in desk until they opened the “neighborhood” area.

I think that the folks were unprepared for the number of people forced to wait in this area. It was standing room only.

Luckily, the wait was not too long before the “neighborhood” was opened for us to enjoy. Fans of the old “Desperate Housewives” set will recognize the set as “Wisteria Lane.”

Tesla’s catering services were the best that we’ve had in the various parties that we’ve attended. The neighborhood setting had enough seating, the food and drink was plentiful and did not run out as they have in the past. There was a mix of self-serve sections as well as server provided locations.

The bar lines were manageable and had a good selection of wine and other drinks.

A few panoramics of the first neighborhood, before the section with the four remodeled houses was opened for the presentation.

And right around 5:30pm, they let us into the neighborhood with the new Solar Tiles.

Here’s the stage with the sun shining brightly on it.

I was able to take one panoramic shot of the stage and the two closest houses to it. On the left side of the stage is the house that the Model 3 prototype will emerge from later in the presentation. I didn’t actually notice it emerge as I was closer to the right side of the stage.

Here’s a closer shot of the house with the Model 3 in the garage before it emerged during Elon’s presentation.

The house on the right’s shingles was more obviously solar shingles. However, aesthetically they were quite pleasing.

While waiting for the event to start, we were looking at the two houses on our left and were wondering whether they were solar shingles. Something that Elon revealed as fact during the presentation. The Tuscan Solar Tile, as this model was revealed later, is ideal for many homes in Southern California.

I even tweeted my suspicions just prior to Elon’s talk.

I wonder if these are all solar shingles! @Teslarati pic.twitter.com/ULGR2Cfubq

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 29, 2016

Tuscan glass tile @TeslaMotors and @solarcity roof is built for @OCTeslaClub members. Lots of those roofs in CA pic.twitter.com/hfe62DB78a

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 29, 2016

The Presentation

Since the presentation was a joint Solar City/Tesla Event, it started off with a few minutes with Lyndon Rive, Solar City’s CEO and Elon Musk’s first cousin.

Afterwards, Elon spoke.

Here’s Tesla’s official YouTube video of the event:

Needless to say… The Solar Tiles are impressive. However, as I previously mentioned, we recently re-roofed when we installed our Solar Panels four years ago. So, that’s just not going to happen. We paid less than $20 for last year’s power and have recently hit our break-even point for our solar panels.

We did take a few good close ups, but a lot of the pictures can be seen on our Flickr Album of the event.

Here are some of the pictures on the album above.

Even though we’re probably not going with the cool solar tiles, the whole house backup thing though is VERY tempting. So tempting that we put in a deposit for a few of them.

How many you may ask? Probably more than we needed… But here’s a hint.

Especially since the new version can be more efficiently mounted and stacked this way.

Multiple stacked @TeslaMotors Powerwall 2 can be installed on top of each other! pic.twitter.com/M5XwPW3SUe

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 29, 2016

The original PowerWall had to be installed side by side and mounted on the wall.

Looks really cool, but I think it’s probably more efficient to install it stacked.

One other thing about that Powerwall… It’s capacity is doubled in the same amount of space at less than double the price, considering the fact that the AC-DC Inverters are included. I also did the iPhone 4 width test that I did with PowerWall 1 with PowerWall 2.

PowerWall 1 compared to an iPhone 4.

PowerWall 2 compared to an iPhone 4.

Color me impressed.

Model 3

The surprise for me was the appearance of the Prototype Model 3 at such close proximity.

The @TeslaMotors #Model3 is at the Solar Event. This is the neighborhood for me. @Teslarati https://t.co/u5UOhwudCJ

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 29, 2016

The album for the event has a lot more pictures of the Model 3, but here are a few more shots.

It’s bigger than I had hoped. It is smaller than the Model S, but bigger than the Active E. We got a few great shots in before security cordoned off the vehicle from closer inspection.

Still a great shot that the better half took of me with the Model 3 in the background.

We didn’t get any good interior shots, but this was the best shot of the Model 3 interior… Security was starting to cordon off and was kicking us out.

It may be bigger than what I expected, but I still like the Model 3.

A multi-Tesla neighborhood… Sounds like a nice, clean environment.

There was also a nice, blue Roadster there.

There were a few Xs there, but just didn’t take pictures. There’s just so many of them around now. 😉

It was a fun event. The food and drink was the best service of the ones that I’ve been to. The valet had a wait, but I think that it was better than previous events that I used valet in. Take that last sentiment with a “grain of salt” since I used the bus at the Gigafactory Party, and I found that to be the most relaxing way in and out of a Tesla Party. The party may have been free to attend, but I walked away with a very expensive deposit for some batteries for the house. We’ll have to see how long before we get these installed.

National Drive Electric Week 2016 – Santa Monica, Long Beach, and a wrap-up

I usually attend two or three of the National Drive Electric Week (formerly National Plug In Day) events a year. I’ve always found them to be fun and key to confirming me as a member of the rEVolution.

This past year’s events in Diamond Bar and Los Angeles were published on this blog pretty much as it happened. I wanted to cover the other two events that I attended in the same manner, but also wanted to share our Long Way Round Trip with readers two months from when the trip happened (and, intentionally, as a way to celebrate National Drive Electric Week.) The trip won out and so, here we are with Santa Monica and Long Beach coverage weeks later.

Santa Monica, September 16, 2016

The Santa Monica NDEW2016 event was held on Friday and Saturday (September 16-17, 2016) in conjunction with Alt Car Expo. I actually went to Santa Monica to attend Alt Car Expo, and was pleasantly surprised by the NDEW2016 event that was being held at the same time.

Drove to Santa Monica in the better half’s Roadster. We’ve been having some challenges with its charging and I wanted to test the car and see if it faults with the chargers at the parking lot in Santa Monica. Luckily (and yet frustratingly), for the test, it did not.

The City of Santa Monica is one of the most EV friendly cities and many of the municipal lots have free charging and the one at the civic center is no exception. Additionally, these Level 2 chargers were also powered by a solar carport.

At 30A, charging was going to take a while, but I’m here for the whole day, so I put my contact information on the EV Hangtag, checked into Plugshare and gave a status on when I expect to be done with charging, and went inside to the Alt Car Expo conference.

The NDEW part of the conference was set up in a cordoned off section of the parking lot.

The check in table for the Alt Car Expo was apparently where one also signs up for the Ride & Drive portion. Something which I did not fill up at the time, and turns out, I should’ve.

The Santa Monica set-up was a mix between EV owners and drivers demonstrating their EVs to the public (no Ride and Drive.)

The Coda Sedan that was at the site was owned by the same gentleman who owns and operates several Codas and Coda gliders. In talking with the owner, it turns out that he was the same Coda that I spotted at the Los Angeles event as well.

The Corbin Sparrow that was at Santa Monica is also the same exact one that was in the Los Angeles event. I guess, I’m not the only EVangelist who enjoys talking EVs with the public.

At this location, only the car manufacturers were the only ones providing Ride and Drive events at this location. The participating vehicles were more than just BEVs, there were several hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as well.

The Honda Clarity,

the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell,

and the Toyota Mirai was there too.

I was surprised to spot a Diesel Volkswagen at the site, it was part of the Zipcar car-sharing program and I suppose that Alt Car considers this to be an acceptable solution. I’m not too keen on any more diesel vehicles.

Personally, I think the service from Waivecar.com is a better candidate as it provides car sharing AND an EV (Chevy Spark EVs, to be precise) for no cost for the first two hours is quite an amazing deal.

There were other exhibitors here as well.

It looks like the same Chevy Bolt EV that was in Portland for EV Roadmap 9 was in Santa Monica as well.

The only plug-in that was at the site that I have yet to drive was the Audi A3 E-Tron. Unfortunately, I did not sign up for the Ride and Drive portion of the event in front, and I wasn’t that thrilled to drive a plug-in hybrid anyway, so I skipped it. I spent the time at the event talking to and catching up with EV friends and decided to pass on the evening reception for the conference.

Leaving Santa Monica during rush hour is often an exercise in futility. I decided to take some surface streets South through Venice. Had an interesting sighting on my drive. I spotted some manufacturer cars being driven around. Unfortunately they were not EVs, but still a thrill to spot these camouflaged vehicles on the road. I’m guessing its a new BMW 7 series, but could be a 5 series, I suppose.

Hard to see, but click and zoom in on the rearview mirror. Can’t mistake the “kidney beans” on the front grill.

I know that BMW is working on further electrification, but it would have been cool to spot a new EV on the road.

Long Beach, September 17, 2016

The following day, Saturday, September 17, I attended the NDEW gathering in Long Beach, CA. This event was the closest to the traditional NDEW events that I have attended in the past. This one had less manufacturer involvement in it and more public-facing event. It was more traditional in that we were welcomed by some politicians and spent the time just “hanging out” and talking to folks.

There were a lot of Teslas at this event because the Tesla Owners Club of Orange County had identified this particular NDEW for its annual NDEW event.

All manners of Teslas were represented.

The red roadster was for sale and is VIN #5.

Of course the Falcon Wing Doors have to go up with the Model X in the crowd.

It is the latest Tesla around.

and we had three Roadsters at this event.

There was representation from members of the EV community as well.

From other vehicles like the Zero Motorcycle and Smart ED.

To several Leafs and a Porsche 912 conversion that gets around 150 miles.

There was a Fiat 500e and a Coda (same owner as was in Santa Monica the previous day and Los Angeles the previous week.)

Even the Honda Fit EV made an appearance. Three times, to be exact.

I don’t believe many of the Tesla owners allowed the public to take a drive in their vehicle. The owner for the Red Roadster #5 did take a few interested parties out in that car, then again she was also taking the opportunity to see if anyone wanted to buy her car.

The other manufacturer’s car was different. I saw a few take rides in the converted Porsche and I believe one of the Leafs took a drive around.

Conclusion

Around Southern California, National Drive Electric Week is celebrated in many places and some get a lot of car manufacturer support, whereas others are sparsely attended by the manufacturers. It’s great to see all the participation in these events and I hope that more and more and convinced to go electric as a result of attending these EVents. As for letting folks drive our EVs, I was a lot more forgiving when I drove the Active E for this event, but when we moved to the Tesla, not so much. Besides, in California, Tesla does a great job providing folks with a nice long drive at their retail locations. Some of the events seem well attended, whereas others are more sparse. The one in Diamond Bar was much better this year, but the Los Angeles one seemed to have less people. Either way, I hope that we’ve convinced more people to go electric.

I often look forward to September because of this week and am looking forward to when it becomes every day that we celebrate Drive Electric Days.

Home Electric Vehicle Charging Solutions

We had the opportunity to upgrade and make some changes to our home Electric Vehicle (EV) charging setup and thought to share that with you.

I went back to look at my posts to see if I could update what I thought I had written about in the past. It turns out that I must have shared this information to the public via forum posts and not on the blog, so I figured to go over home charging today.

As a long-time multi-EV owner, one of the things that we’ve setup at our home is the ability to charge our EVs at the same time. This can be as simple as running several 120V plugs, but when you drive the miles that we had on our daily commute, 120V service is just not enough. As a result, we’ve made accommodations to upgrade our EV charging to varying grades of 240V service.

So, to explain what I mean by varying grades of 240V service, I need to go off on a short tangent, I’m not an electrician, but having been involved with EVs for over four years has made me understand some EV basics.

1) Battery capacity and EV range is measured in kWh of storage (your consumption rate determines what that range is in miles or kilometers.) This is why the Model S and Model X is sold with differing models corresponding with battery size.

2) The speed to re-fill this battery capacity is measured in several ways, but basically in kW of power. The higher the number, the faster that a car can charge. So, this kW maximum for a charger is the amount of Volts multiplied by the Amps of the service. Furthermore, an EV charges at 80% of the total Amperage that the circuit is rated for, so a 40A circuit can use a maximum of 32A to charge.

On a basic, common North American plug outlet, 120 Volt x 15 Amp service, an EV driver can use 120V x 12A = 1.44 kW of power. (On Model S, this is a maximum of 4 miles per hour charge rate, under ideal conditions.) It is interesting to note that many early EVs of this current generation (2011 and 2012 Nissan LEAF and Chevy Volts) had a 3.3 kW charger. Even though, I believe, previous generations of EVs (GM EV-1, RAV4 1st gen, etc.) had 6.6 kW charging. Many current EVs now provide at least a 6.6 kW charger.

Our old ActiveE was rated at 7.2 kW (originally, but by the end this was de-rated closer to 5.5 kW by software because of some issues.) My wife’s Roadster has a 16.8 kW charger and our Model S is equipped with dual chargers for a total of 20 kW charging capability.

That being said, the higher the voltage one uses the amperage of the wire has to increase to give you a quicker charge. So, to get a 16.8 kW service for the Roadster to run at full speed the Electric Vehicle Supply equipment (EVSE/i.e. electric vehicle charger) has to have a 90 Amp circuit to run at 70 Amps continuously over 240V. (Remember the 80% rule for charging.) So, to get the 20 kW charger to work on a Model S, a 100 Amp wire and breaker needs to run to get that going (19.2 kW, but who’s counting.)

I digress… Back to the point… The higher the amperage for the circuit installed, the thicker AND more expensive the wire will be.

I am sure that for my North American EV readers, many have one EV plug to provide 240V service charge their car. How many places to charge 240V do you have at home? When we first took delivery of our BMW Active E in 2012, we didn’t have a single 240V service installed in our garage.

We actually spent a few weeks charging the car on 120V. Something that those of us that follow Thomas J. Thias (the Amazing Chevy Volt) on Twitter see him espouse the greater than 1.5 Billion charging locations at this voltage in North America – 120V regular outlets (at 1-4 miles per hour, not normally relevant to me, but as Thomas reminds us, it’s a “good enough” solution for 80% of the drivers on their average commute.)

Just this evening, September 27, 2016, Thomas Tweeted the following out (in reply to a ZeroMC tweet)

@zeromc @greencarreports +20 | > 1.5B 120V AC Sockets N America. All #ElectricFueledVehicle‘s Refuel This Way. Nails 100% Range, 80% Drivers

— Thomas J. Thias (@AmazingChevVolt) September 28, 2016

We’ve even used the same Level 1 charger when we visited family…

Needless to say, that got old FAST…

So, two weeks later, we took advantage of a grant in 2012 and got a Chargepoint CT-500 (back when the company known as Chargepoint was called Coulomb Technologies.)

There was a grant program available for new EV owners/lessors to take advantage of that covered the cost of the EVSE and some of the installation. The Chargepoint CT-500 was an intelligent/networked EVSE that connected to the Internet over a mobile network (2G?!?) connection and part of the bargain was that the government and researchers can glean the information about the habits of the participants in the grant program.

Since EVSEs in 2012 were over a thousand dollars, we opted to participate in this program and had our first charger installed. We expected it to be a 32A EVSE, (80% of the 40A circuit that was installed) but it was actually a 30A Level 2 station. The total cost of the EVSE and Installation was $1,640. However, there was a state program that covered $1,200. Which meant that we were liable for $440 (plus $150 permit) for a total of $590 for the cost of our hardwired Level 2 station (plus the loss of privacy by participating in this monitored program.)

Here is the CT-500 when it was first installed.

To install the units, we had to use Clean Fuel Connection and their sub-contractors for the work and it was a pretty painless program. After signing the contract they were at our house two days later with the EVSE and our days of charging Level 1 was put in the back burner.

The charger was hardwired and the installers did a great job.

Here it is on the day we first installed the EVSE and we charged the Active E on that first Level 2 charger.

With this Level 2 setup and public Level 2 charging we were able to drive the Active E 54,321 total miles during the two years of the lease. Several years later, the intelligent features of this charger became unsupported because the mobile network that the signals rode on was being decommissioned by AT&T. So, today, we’ve lost the “smart” functionality of the charger, but it still works great with the Model S. So, our first dedicated EV charger was installed in March 2012.

A year and a half after we started driving the Active E, we purchased my wife’s Roadster and finalized the order for our Model S. Since we were already “experienced” rEVolutionaries. We had a good idea of what it takes to charge a car and how long it took to do so. We decided to install several NEMA outlets in the house, two NEMA 14-50 outlets and one NEMA 6-50. We picked the NEMA 6-50 because, in 2013, the first “plug” ready non-Tesla EVSEs were being produced and we wanted to be able to charge “anything” off that and didn’t feel the need to recover miles faster than a 50 Amp feed on either the Roadster that we took or the Model S that was soon to arrive in November 2013. The approximately 25 miles per hour that we anticipated to recover on a 50 Amp circuit (40 Amps usable) was going to be enough for our drive.

When we originally ordered our Roadster, we were unsure as to what sort of charging we would get with it that we ordered a Leviton 40A EVSE to deliver the wire speed of the NEMA 6-50 at full speed. Here is that Leviton being installed for the Roadster to use on its side of the garage. At the time of the purchase, this EVSE was selling for approximately $1200 elsewhere and Amazon sold the same model for $1050. In 2016, this same EVSE is now $699.

The EVSE powered up. However, we ended up returning the Leviton EVSE as it was incompatible with the BMW Active E and made some WEIRD noises and sounded like it was having a BAD time, electrically speaking. Furthermore, it turned out that we were going to get a Roadster MC240 with my wife’s car, so that can take full use of the NEMA 6-50 that we installed for the Leviton EVSE. (We just needed an adapter to go from NEMA 14-50 to NEMA 6-50 that we had made for us.) We charged the car on this MC240 for a short while (Tesla actually stepped down the charge from 40A to 30A on the MC240 on a 50A circuit) because we wanted a faster recharge time, so we found another Roadster owner selling their Roadster UMC and purchased that unit with a 6-50 Adapter to fit directly onto the circuit that our electrician installed for the Leviton. And used that equipment to continue to charge the Roadster until today.

Here is a photo of the NEMA 14-50 outlet on the other side of the garage from the NEMA 6-50 installed for the Roadster.

We wanted to makes sure to protect it from the elements.

When we were having our electrician wire up the outlet for the Roadster, we wanted to future-proof that location and asked to have 70A service pulled in. To maximize the 70A breaker, we split that wire to two NEMA connectors the one (NEMA 6-50) in the garage for the Roadster and another one on the outside wall of the garage (a NEMA 14-50.) This sharing of the one breaker is not really the “code” for these connections. However, as long as we manually manage the Amperage on the line when using two different vehicles on each of the NEMA connectors, we should be fine. (Remember the 80% rule, so a 70 Amp breaker means that we don’t draw more than 56A continuously on the circuit.) One of the benefits of driving any Tesla is its ability to be managed “downward” on the amount of current to draw from a circuit. So, if a newer 6.6 kW Leaf were to be plugged into that receptacle and draw 32A, we still have 24A to use for the Roadster or the Model S.

As I mentioned earlier, we lucked out when we took delivery of our Roadster, we were provided with an original MC240 (which works only with the 1.5 Roadster) and we shortly thereafter got the Roadster UMC which is the pre-cursor for the Model S Mobile Connector (MC) and its replaceable terminals. The Roadster one continues to be more flexible than the Model S MC in that it still has ten choices for different terminals for the product, we bought the NEMA 14-50 and NEMA 6-50 adapters to work with the plugs that we have in our garage.

We also ordered Quick Charge Power’s Jesla, however this was before it was even a QCP product. Tony Williams worked with me to customize a Model S MC to be a Jesla. I wanted something that would work with ANY EV out there and the Jesla would plug into any of the other outlets in the garage and in the exterior of the house for when we have visitors, like my mom and her Nissan Leaf.

Here’s a picture of the Roadster charging on one of our exterior NEMA 14-50 outlets.

We had the same protective enclosure for the NEMA 14-50 that we installed on the exterior side of the house. Additionally, should we ever decide to get an RV, we can plug an RV on the side of the house as well since this plug is dedicated to its own 50 Amp circuit.

Here is that outlet without the Roadster plugged into it.

That is the MC240 that the Roadster originally came with. It has a hardwired NEMA 14-50 plug on the end of it.

It’s just on our driveway, but away from blocking the garage. This was convenient, but not the ideal place for the Roadster, the noisiest that a Roadster gets is when it is CHARGING, so we make sure, in the interest of keeping the peace with our neighbor, to have an outlet ready for the Roadster in the garage.

During the months between November 2013 and February 2014, we kicked the Active E out of the garage and it ended up charging on the driveway.

Here are a couple of pictures I took when we used to have all three cars, all plugged in and charging.

The J1772 EVSE that is plugged into the Active E during this duty cycle is the Jesla that I had asked Tony Williams of Quick Charge Power make for me. It is great to see all the business that he has since built from the time that he made this product for me.

So, for several years we’ve had a great set-up at the house that allowed us to charge four EVs at once and not sure if we’ve ever have needed to do this… I do remember my mom visiting with her Leaf and charging it. The Model S was already charged, so I could just plug her Leaf into that J1772 (the original Chargepoint CT-500 from 2012). This photo was from Thanksgiving 2014, and the Active E was already back with BMW for at least 9 months at this point. You can see the Roadster UMC plugged to the wall beside the Roadster (using a NEMA 6-50 at this point.)

That’s a long way to catch you up to what we just had done this past weekend… in 2016.

Well, a short while ago, we’ve had some charger challenges with the Roadster. During testing, we kept swapping chargers to see the effects, and as a result of one of these tests, the MC240 that came with our car died and was not repairable. Our service center provided us a replacement as a result of this failure because we still had our CPO warranty in effect. The MC240 is quite rare, so the service center provided us with a second Roadster UMCs.

When we took the “new” UMC home and plugged it in, it turned out that the new one was “flaky” (or, I suspect that there’s something with the Roadster, but we’re still figuring that out.)

Now, it has been difficult for Tesla to track down the UMC to begin with, and they are quite pricey, so, instead of trying to find ANOTHER Roadster UMC, I asked if they could just replace the dead MC240/flaky Roadster UMC with a new Model S/Model X High Power Wall Connector (HPWC.)

My point was that they were producing more of these HPWCs, the price for the unit has dropped significantly and is about a third the cost of another replacement Roadster UMC. The retail price for the Roadster UMC is $1,500 without a NEMA 14-50 connector, and adding that connector is an additional $100 for a total of $1,600, and the Model S/Model X HPWC is now $550 for the 24 foot model. Luckily, my logic was deemed to be a sound one, and we were able to get a 24 foot Tesla Model S/Model X HPWC (ver 2? (the one that can be daisy-chained)). I figure that between the Roadster UMC, the Jesla, and our CAN SR and CAN JR, we have enough portable Level 2 capability for the vehicle.

Several weeks later, mid-last week, we get word that the replacement Tesla Model S/Model X HPWC was at the service center ready for pick up.

We went to pick up the box from the service center and take it home. It wasn’t going to fit in the Roadster, so we took an S (the service center’s loaner as the Roadster is in the shop for its annual service) to bring this box home.

One thing about the Model S/X High Power Wall Connector is it is glorious and aesthetically pleasing EVSE.

Unboxing the HPWC…

In order to install the unit, it had to be hardwired, and I’m not an electrician, remember. I scheduled our electrician to do the work this past Sunday, September 25.

As I mentioned earlier, we ran 70A service to the garage for the Roadster and the two shared NEMA outlets (the NEMA 6-50 and NEMA 14-50). I figured to have him use that feed for the HPWC. Since it seems that we’re now predominantly a Tesla family, I also had one other change that I requested. Between our Tesla bias and the fact that there are now more EVSE providers that are selling NEMA 14-50 plug-in EVSEs, not just NEMA 6-50 ones, I went ahead and asked our electrician to replace the NEMA 6-50 outlet for the Roadster with a NEMA 14-50 one.

The new HPWC can go to 80A on a 100A wire, but it was cost prohibitive to run that wire three years ago. I was glad that we ran 70A because we are now able to take advantage of 56A power for charging (when we’re not using the NEMA 14-50 outlets) we’re able to charge a Model S (with dual chargers, or enabled for greater than 48A for the newer ones) at 34 miles per hour. The Model S normally uses the old reliable Chargepoint CT-500 at 30A and approximately 18 miles per hour of charging. So, if we’re in a hurry or if the Chargepoint “misbehaves” we now have the means to “charge quicker.”

Besides, the nearest supercharger to us is Fountain Valley and though it is a supercharger, it is easily the busiest one in the area as is evidenced by this photo around 1pm on 9/27/2016.

That’s six cars waiting and eight charging (there were seven cars waiting just before I took this picture.)

Additionally, we still have the NEMA outlets (now all 14-50s). We just have to manage the load effectively, and safely. I could use the advanced features of the new HPWC and daisy chain them in the future, but I think we’re OK with the way we’re set up for now. In the meantime, we just have to do the math and run a total of 56A on the feed. One requirement currently is that all these vehicles will have to be Teslas because it’s difficult to limit each feed to only 16A… We can, conceivably charge two Teslas at 20A and a Chevy Spark, Chevy Volt, or 2011/2012 Nissan Leaf on 16A of power. As we mentioned earlier, many EVs now run at 6.6kW or higher and that’s 32A of power on 240V.

So, in 2016, we are now able to plug in five vehicles to charge at 240V service in our home…

Looks like we’re ready for the rEVolution and hosting an EV meetup…

Or to have family visit us… My sister and her husband just added a Volkswagen E-Golf to their garage a few months ago and, as expected, my gearhead brother-in-law has been “digging” driving electric. (I think that he’s garaged his Porsche ICE and taken to driving the E-Golf places.)

Furthermore, once we get our Model 3 reservations delivered, we’re ready for those as well. We might need a bigger driveway and garage!