Tesla Wall Connector (Gen 4) for Cybertruck

[Carlos Thomas]

Do you think Tesla will release a GEN 4 Wall Connector for the Cybertruck due to the larger potential battery?

The Cybertruck will be my first EV and I don’t want to get the GEN 3 installed too early, just in case Tesla releases a bigger/better charger. If the battery is north of 150 kHw, it would take awhile to charge up a low battery. At 150 kHw, your looking somewhere around 13 hours. At 180kHw, your looking at 15.5 hours.

Thoughts?

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[Cyberman]

Do you think Tesla will release a GEN 4 Wall Connector for the Cybertruck due to the larger potential battery?

The Cybertruck will be my first EV and I don’t want to get the GEN 3 installed too early, just in case Tesla releases a bigger/better charger. If the battery is north of 150kw, it would take awhile to charge up a low battery. At 150kw, your looking somewhere around 13 hours. At 180kw, your looking at 15.5 hours.

Thoughts?

(Sigh) By the time Cybertruck reaches production, they'll probably have Gen 5 chargers...

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

You meant to say 150 KwH. In the early days of the Model S/X one could charge at a higher amperage than the current maximum of 48 amps. The Tesla chargers can be configured to other amperages but the car has to be able to handle it. Also, some say that the 4680 cells might be able charge faster. These two things might allow a 150 KwH battery pack to charge faster w/o changing the charger...but we will see.

 

[android04]

If the Cybertruck can take more than 48A while charging on Level 2 then I'm sure Tesla will offer an updated Wall Connector to match. Otherwise people will have to buy Gen 2 Tesla Wall Connectors that can output up to 80A (or a non-Tesla EVSE that can output more than 48A). There aren't enough Gen 2 Tesla Wall Connectors to go around, and Tesla isn't making them anymore.

 

[anionic1]

Do you think Tesla will release a GEN 4 Wall Connector for the Cybertruck due to the larger potential battery?

The Cybertruck will be my first EV and I don’t want to get the GEN 3 installed too early, just in case Tesla releases a bigger/better charger. If the battery is north of 150 kHw, it would take awhile to charge up a low battery. At 150 kHw, your looking somewhere around 13 hours. At 180kHw, your looking at 15.5 hours.

Thoughts?

I would wait. They recently released the gen 3 with a longer cable. Also, it would probably be a good idea to make your home ready to accept any EV charger not just a tesla.

 

[Ogre]

With a 60 AMP breaker, you should be able to add more than 250 miles of charge per night.

That will top off the CT1 and the CT2 (assuming you have some reserves), and give you some pretty good mileage on the CT3.

The only way this is a big issue is if you frequently completely drain your battery and expect to do another 200+ mile trip the next day. I’m 8 months into Model Y ownership and only a bit frustrated with the much slower 110v/ 12 amp charger. If my state of charge is particularly low after a trip I just stop at a Supercharger for 10 minutes or so before coming home.

 

[Crissa]

At that point it might be easier to install a DC fast charger in your garage.

-Crissa

 

[ajdelange]

Do you think Tesla will release a GEN 4 Wall Connector for the Cybertruck due to the larger potential battery?

Would you also like to know the stock price 2 years out?

If the battery is north of 150 kHw, it would take awhile to charge up a low battery. At 150 kHw, your looking somewhere around 13 hours. At 180kHw, your looking at 15.5 hours.

Thoughts?

It isn't actually the size of the battery that matters but rather how far you drive in a day and what the vehicle's consumption turns out to be. That's probably going to be about 420 Wh/mi. If you drive 100 mi per day then you will have to load 42 kWh meaning you'll need 42/0.9 = 46.7 from the wall (90% charger efficiency0 which, at 11.5 kW (48A) would require 4.1 hr. That's not too bad. The other number to look at assumes that you keep it at 60% normally and an unexpected trip such comes up such that you want to get it to 90% for departure. That means adding 30%. If the battery is (TriMotor) 220 kWh (a reasonable estimate) that means 66 kWh which will take 66/(.9*11.5) = 6.4 hours more for a total of 10.5. Thus 48 A seems quite manageable for most cases. But will the market want faster than that? No question it would be a "nice to have". How would Tesla implement it?

As has been mentioned here Tesla has, in the past, sold cars that charged at 80 and 72A. Both of these required branch circuits of more than 60A and such a circuit requires a separate, lockable disconnect. Is it a coincidence that the manufacturers stopped offering EVSE that required feeders over 60A? I don't know. But how were those cars built? They had multiple chargers in them. The S's and X's had two 24 Amp chargers and with the fast charging option you got 3 for a total of 72. What is a DC fast charger? An assemblage of these chargers in an external cabinet. Thus for faster charging more charging modules are required but do they go in the car or in an external unit. We also have to look at the competition. Ford is evidently going to offer an EVSE that does V2H and charges at 80A. So it's obvious they have decided to put the modules in the EVSE and make them bi directional. Except that isn't what they have decided to do. They will apparently have the rectifiers in the truck and feed them 80A AC. Rivian is also talking about externally mouted EVSE that will do V2H. Again its obvious that this could be used as a DC charger but then who knows what they will come up with?

About a year ago I thought I knew the answer for Tesla. They would do for the CT what they do with the Semi and that is have multiple charge ports each with its own rectifier module(s). This neatly accommodates the customer with more than one Gen 3 HPWC (or any other 48A or 30A pair of EVSE by another manufacturer). The additional hardware/firmware required for the second port would be minimal and any solution that charges faster than 48A is going to required the extra charger modules anyway. This extra port would be a paid option and add extra flexibility in how one parks. Will they do anything like this? As a said at the outset you might as well ask me what the stock price will be.

For future proofing I'd say, as the others have, either wait or put a big subpanel in the charging area.

 

[braddibbnd]

[/QUOTE]
It isn't actually the size of the battery that matters but rather how far you drive in a day and what the vehicle's consumption turns out to be. That's probably going to be about 420 Wh/mi. If you drive 100 mi per day then you will have to load 42 kWh meaning you'll need 42/0.9 = 46.7 from the wall (90% charger efficiency0 which, at 11.5 kW (48A) would require 4.1 hr. That's not too bad. The other number to look at assumes that you keep it at 60% normally and an unexpected trip such comes up such that you want to get it to 90% for departure. That means adding 30%. If the battery is (TriMotor) 220 kWh (a reasonable estimate) that means 66 kWh which will take 66/(.9*11.5) = 6.4 hours more for a total of 10.5. Thus 48 A seems quite manageable for most cases. But will the market want faster than that? No question it would be a "nice to have". How would Tesla implement it?

As has been mentioned here Tesla has, in the past, sold cars that charged at 80 and 72A. Both of these required branch circuits of more than 60A and such a circuit requires a separate, lockable disconnect. Is it a coincidence that the manufacturers stopped offering EVSE that required feeders over 60A? I don't know. But how were those cars built? They had multiple chargers in them. The S's and X's had two 24 Amp chargers and with the fast charging option you got 3 for a total of 72. What is a DC fast charger? An assemblage of these chargers in an external cabinet. Thus for faster charging more charging modules are required but do they go in the car or in an external unit. We also have to look at the competition. Ford is evidently going to offer an EVSE that does V2H and charges at 80A. So it's obvious they have decided to put the modules in the EVSE and make them bi directional. Except that isn't what they have decided to do. They will apparently have the rectifiers in the truck and feed them 80A AC. Rivian is also talking about externally mouted EVSE that will do V2H. Again its obvious that this could be used as a DC charger but then who knows what they will come up with?

About a year ago I thought I knew the answer for Tesla. They would do for the CT what they do with the Semi and that is have multiple charge ports each with its own rectifier module(s). This neatly accommodates the customer with more than one Gen 3 HPWC (or any other 48A or 30A pair of EVSE by another manufacturer). The additional hardware/firmware required for the second port would be minimal and any solution that charges faster than 48A is going to required the extra charger modules anyway. This extra port would be a paid option and add extra flexibility in how one parks. Will they do anything like this? As a said at the outset you might as well ask me what the stock price will be.

For future proofing I'd say, as the others have, either wait or put a big subpanel in the charging area.
[/QUOTE]

All the numbers you've anticipated for the Cybertruck look like good assumptions(I'm hoping it might do a little better than 420 Wh/mi). And it will probably work for 70-80% of CT customers, but some of us will be using it as a truck constantly hauling and towing loads. Mine won't be a busy or long range hauler so looking at a 9.6kW charging setup. Of course those customers that do heavy work will easily save enough on fuel/maintenance that they can afford to install some sort of EVSE charging system. Just hoping Tesla will give a little guidance when they start production to get an idea of what might work best.

 

[Carlos Thomas]

This is a picture of my sub panel in the garage. Looks like I have some options to get a proper charge on the CT3. Any comments, much appreciated.

 

[Bigvbear]

Couple of things. First off the wall connector is not a charger. Its a connection to the AC of the house. The charger is onboard the vehicle.

This may sound like semantics, but its not.

The Gen 2 wall connector was capable of 80 amp output, but only a few models of teslas could use that to it's full potential, the onboard charger kicked the amps down to what the vehicle was capable of using.

The gen 3 is (most likely) software limited to 48 amps right now and would most likely be able to deliver more after a firmware modification (odiously depending on your wiring feeding it)

last, most residential electrical service is 200 amps or less. So you are going to be limited by how many amps you can pump into the vehicle anyway. unless you want to brown out while charging your car.

 

[Bigvbear]

This is a picture of my sub panel in the garage. Looks like I have some options to get a proper charge on the CT3. Any comments, much appreciated.

the breaker on the far left of the picture says 50 amps, this appears to be a 100 amp capable subpanel but they only put a 50 amp breaker, probably due to the underlying wiring being used.

you can only do 80% of the rating of the circuit without risking overload and i see you already have four 20 amp and 1 15 amp 110 breaker using this. So appears to be maxed out.

You will need to upgrade it, get a certified electrician to give you a quote. Most likely you may have to upgrade the wiring coming to this subpanel (unknown what gage it is from the pic)

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

the breaker on the far left of the picture says 50 amps, this appears to be a 100 amp capable subpanel but they only put a 50 amp breaker, probably due to the underlying wiring being used.

you can only do 80% of the rating of the circuit without risking overload and i see you already have four 20 amp and 1 15 amp 110 breaker using this. So appears to be maxed out.

You will need to upgrade it, get a certified electrician to give you a quote. Most likely you may have to upgrade the wiring coming to this subpanel (unknown what gage it is from the pic)

The panel label says 100 amps. We are in the midst of increasing our service from 100 to 200 amps for the CT charger. We started the project last spring with the expectation that the CT would show up in about a year. We might have it all done before the rains come at which point all work will stop. Our driveway is over 200’ which has made things much more complicated and expensive. Point is, if you have to increase your service start the process now.

 

[ajdelange]

Couple of things. First off the wall connector is not a charger. Its a connection to the AC of the house. The charger is onboard the vehicle.

The wall connector is Electric Vehicle Support Equipment as described in section 625 of the NEC. It's job is to safely interface the charger in the vehicle to the mains which supply it.

The Gen 2 wall connector was capable of 80 amp output, but only a few models of teslas could use that to it's full potential, the onboard charger kicked the amps down to what the vehicle was capable of using.

The Gen 2 was capable of supporting up to 80 A charging from up to 4 HPWC on a single 100 A circuit. It had lugs big enough to accept No 3 (or maybe No. 2 - don't remember) and a charging cable capable of passing 80 A to a car (but it did get warm). It had a contactor capable of 80A and, most significantly, it communicated to the car that it could take up to 80A or less if it was commissioned for a smaller feeder or if there were multiple loads (more than 1 HPWC charging). Commissioning was by setting a small rotary switch.

The gen 3 is (most likely) software limited to 48 amps right now and would most likely be able to deliver more after a firmware modification (odiously depending on your wiring feeding it)

The Gen 3 HPWC is a less robust unit limited to 48A. It's terminal block is limited to No. 6. It's charging cable is substantially smaller than the Gen 2 cable consistent with 48A max vs 80. Its contactor is smaller. It to can be commissioned to 48A (or below). The max current limit signal it will send to the car is 48A provided that it has been commissioned for 48A and that there is only one car in the sharing pool. Commissioning and sharing are managed over WiFi rather than with hardware in the Gen2.

last, most residential electrical service is 200 amps or less. So you are going to be limited by how many amps you can pump into the vehicle anyway. unless you want to brown out while charging your car.

The limitation on what you can put into your panel is limited by what the inspector says you can put in there. Usually no eyebrows will be raised if the pole amperes are only a little over twice the panel rating e.g. a 200A panel (400 pole a,mperes) will generally get the thumbs up with less than 1000 pole amperes of breakers in it. An inspector may allow more or less depending on his assessment of the situation.

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