Home Charger Choice/Strategy?

[IBA 270]

Hello all! This is my first post. This is also my first EV. I feel incredibly lost, but excited. I've searched to find some answers but fell just a bit short.

As luck would have it, and a contributing factor in buying an EV, I have an old drier connection that's on an exterior wall, adjacent to the driveway! It still has the three prong outlet, and it's hot. Below that is the old drier vent. Penetration already there too. Years ago, we moved the drier to the opposite wall. TMI I know, except I'm quite confident the electrician simply tapped into that circuit. That means those two are shared.

With that information, here's the question; what's the best charger strategy? Should I buy an additional portable charger? I will not be easily able to(so I'm sure I won't) remove or unplug it. Or, should I spend the $800 for Rivian level 2, wire a three prong plug, set the dip switches for 30A and call it day? Yes, I know the drier and the car won't play nice on a single circuit.

Or do I call an electrician who does this regularly (FB and CL seem littered with these guys) to come and design the strategy?

And yes, I'm giddy for my new R1S in El Cap with max battery and performance upgrade! Picking up Friday!

Allen Dye
Dallas, TX

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[theonetruestripes]

The safest and fastest charging option is to get an electrician to run a fresh circuit dedicated to the EV and get a wall charger that can go up to 11kW which will need a circuit rated for 60A (because you need 20% or so headroom for a circuit you expect to run for many hours in row)..

That said “fastest” is not all that important. You will likely be parked in the garage for 8 to 10 hours so getting 17 miles back per hour v 25 or so won’t matter except on a day where you both drive over 170 miles and expect to need all that range the following day, oh and didn’t drive so many on either day that you needed to fast charge close enough to home that you could have just spent another 3 minutes making up the difference.

I’ve had an one EV or another for around 6 years and never had an issue with home charging being “too slow”.

On the other hand hand “safest” is kind of a big deal. Fire is bad, and you don’t want one inside your walls. I’m not even enough of an expert in how this stuff works to guarantee that having the dryer and the EV on one circuit when you never ever use both at once is actually safe. I mean it seems like it would be because that is how we design 110V circuits in houses, and 220V is really two 110V circuits with the phase 90º apart. So it should be ok. Plus the breaker should pop if you use both, and it should pop before fire starts. Should. Should. Maybe. I’m not an expert, which is why I urge you to find a real expert. Sometimes “same thing but bigger numbers” is no longer “same thing” and it would suck to lose a house or die because neither of us know any better.

Depending on how the “old” circuit is run it might be another set of wires all the way back to the breaker box tied into the same breaker which would make it easy for an electrician to move them to a new breaker. If not they might be able to use the existing wire as a “runner” to pull a new circuit through. If not the cost to wire a new one “from scratch” might be reasonable (I’ve had one done for $300 and another for $800, different states and different distances).

 

[LL75]

Hello all! This is my first post. This is also my first EV. I feel incredibly lost, but excited. I've searched to find some answers but fell just a bit short.

As luck would have it, and a contributing factor in buying an EV, I have an old drier connection that's on an exterior wall, adjacent to the driveway! It still has the three prong outlet, and it's hot. Below that is the old drier vent. Penetration already there too. Years ago, we moved the drier to the opposite wall. TMI I know, except I'm quite confident the electrician simply tapped into that circuit. That means those two are shared.

With that information, here's the question; what's the best charger strategy? Should I buy an additional portable charger? I will not be easily able to(so I'm sure I won't) remove or unplug it. Or, should I spend the $800 for Rivian level 2, wire a three prong plug, set the dip switches for 30A and call it day? Yes, I know the drier and the car won't play nice on a single circuit.

Or do I call an electrician who does this regularly (FB and CL seem littered with these guys) to come and design the strategy?

And yes, I'm giddy for my new R1S in El Cap with max battery and performance upgrade! Picking up Friday!

Allen Dye
Dallas, TX

How big is your electrical panel? 200 amp? I wouldn't go with the 30 amp route with your car since it would takes forever to charge. 30 amp output of 80% is only 24 amp !!! I would go with a dedicate L2 charger direct line 60 amp (48 amp output installation.)
I have two dedicated L2 chargers at home for our 2 rivians. One of them is the Rivian L2 charger and the other one is Amazon Emporia (highly recommended for the price). I see that you are in dallas area, let me know if you need the name of the electrician that did mine.

 

[IBA 270]

Good morning! Thank you both for your replies!

My panel is only 150A. I will likely use the mobile charger with a 220v dryer plug adapter for the interim as we are planning a move in the next few months. Unless maybe anyone thinks it makes sense to purchase a level 2, wire a plug temporarily, and then take it with me on the move...I'm not sure the few added miles per hour charging would be worth the effort.

I REALLY appreciate the time and effort in helping!

Allen Dye
Dallas, TX

 

[LL75]

Good morning! Thank you both for your replies!

My panel is only 150A. I will likely use the mobile charger with a 220v dryer plug adapter for the interim as we are planning a move in the next few months. Unless maybe anyone thinks it makes sense to purchase a level 2, wire a plug temporarily, and then take it with me on the move...I'm not sure the few added miles per hour charging would be worth the effort.

I REALLY appreciate the time and effort in helping!

Allen Dye
Dallas, TX

If you going to move in a few months then just use the mobile charger. There are plenty of Tesla superchargers around dallas if you need to do a fast charge. You will need an adapter for that. I would definitely recommended to get the L2 charger first and have it ready for the electrician if you are planning to do hardwired 60 amp installation in the future at your new home. I would go with the Emporia charger, half the cost of the Rivian charger, and personally, more reliable.

 

[theonetruestripes]

I would think the mobile charger would be absolutely fine for months, or years. The whole time I owned my prior EV (Tesla Model Y) I used it’s mobile charger.

Using an abandoned circuit that may or may not share with other items in the house you might want to think twice about. Yes I know you don’t want to put $800 of electrical work into a rental house you will only be in for a few months, but you also probably don’t like fires. So checking with a real electrician would be a good idea. Even if they will tend to err on the side of “lets do a little extra work just to be sure..."

I mean if you talk to a real electrician and they say “that guy on the internets is way to nervous for his own health, just don’t run the dryer at the same time and it’ll be fine” then absolutely believe the real electrician and totally ignore me. (or better yet tell me I’m overruled by a real electrician, I won’t be offended & I’ll learn something)

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

If your planning to move that soon it sounds like the portable charger is the way to go. If they are on the same circuit make sure you don't try to charge the EV and use the dryer at the same time. Make sure your not pulling more than 24 amps.

 

[beatle]

Probably best to turn the original dryer receptacle into a junction box and pretend like it's not actually there. If the dryer's receptacle is within reach of the truck, you can run a manual switch to flip back and forth between the dryer and EVSE:

https://www.amazon.com/Charging-NEMA-14-30-Splitter-Hand-Operated/dp/B0DRHSKMTT

Having a more capable mobile EVSE is a good idea. The Tesla UWC is inexpensive ($300 new) and offers a lot of different interchangeable plugs that will automatically set the current draw. I'm guessing your "3 prong" dryer plug is a 10-30 which you can buy a $45 adapter from Tesla to use natively. No need to set the correct number of amps in the truck; the UMC will tell you the maximum based on the plug.

If your dryer plug is out of reach even with the UMC reaching across, you can also run a heavy duty extension cord. People poo-poo the idea of an extension cord, but they work fine as long as they're sized properly. They are just unwieldy and can be a tripping hazard more than anything else. I charged my Lightning for 6 weeks at 40A using a Tesla UMC and an extension cord. Even in the summer the cord barely got warm. I still use an extension cord when traveling to family members' homes that don't have receptacles within reach of where I park.

 

[IBA 270]

If your planning to move that soon it sounds like the portable charger is the way to go. If they are on the same circuit make sure you don't try to charge the EV and use the dryer at the same time. Make sure your not pulling more than 24 amps.

This is the way I think. If we stay in our current home longer, I can dig into the expense...I've got all kinds of room in my panel, I'd just have to pull a bunch of 6awg...

 

[HaveBlue]

Could also be a 6-30 dryer plug since you said 3 prong or even an L6-30. There are adapters you can buy with a 6-30P to 14-50R. You would have to set the Rivian to 24A each time before you plug in there.

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