Tesla Roadster takes 30 hours to charge from a standard wall socket
By Ryan Block 
posted July 7th 2008 1:21AM
posted July 7th 2008 1:21AM
If you've got the coin to roll deep enough to own a Tesla Roadster, we'd imagine that making sure the car gets its 8 (or fewer) hour charge from a 220v / 80A circuit (like what powers some larger home appliances) won't be a huge issue. But if not, think twice about your driving schedule with the all-electric sports car, because while you can technically power a Roadster from any standard wall outlet, the amount of draw a standard 110v / 15A plug delivers would mean a 30 hour wait to juice up your vehicle's thousand pound battery pack. Thankfully, Tesla owners have time to think over how to deal with these kinds of details, being that none of the customers who've pre-ordered a car have yet received theirs.[Via Autoblog Green]
How is that a big problem. If you can afford a Tesla, I would hope you can afford an electrician to rewire a standard outlet...
Couldn't agree more.
Or you could just alternate between the Tesla and a Bugatti chauffeured by Morgan Freeman while you're waiting for a charge.
eww Morgan Freeman
Or, you could rewire it yourself for free.
Zaaap.
I think they would end up buying a second one anyway, even if they rewire an outlet. They will however still alternate use to make sure that the car is fully charged.
Or move to Europe.
Or have a house in Europe specifically for charging your Tesla Roadster...
I must display a smug, rather condesending smile at the notion that the US could produce a sports car, yet alone one powered by electricity.
For those who don't RTFA its 8 hours on a larger circuit. You know, like the ones every house has in them for the refrigerator or wall mount air conditioner or electric dryer.
Nothing to see here, move along.. Just normal flamebait posting by Ryan. =)
Luckily only a few rich people will have these. Electricity is cheaper at current usages but if everyone had these the supply would increase and we would need to build more plants and increase the price.
Hell if you can afford a tesla you might aswell go all out and have solar roof panels and a frickin wind turbine farm in your backyard... or get a direct line to the power plant with a giant extension cord.
Now if only I could ride my washing machine to work. Then I wouldn't have to worry about getting a Tesla or another plug.
Is it weird that I just got an image of a businessman flying down the highway on a washing machine, tie flapping in the wind?
You could take care of two things at once! The morning commute, AND the day's wash! Then you just hang the wet clothes around your cubicle to dry during the day!
I got the same vision, black suit, red tie with stripes, flying down the highway
It's usually the dryer that's 220 not the washer
Now that image is going to be stuck in my head all day...
Although I do have a defunct lawnmower and washing machine in the garage... Perhaps it is time to marry the two?
All I need now is a suit and tie.
@ Ben Grimsbo
...And a marriage license.
this is going to be a really dumb comment but its late so i dont care i'm basically out of it from lack of sleep. I vote the car owners find way to supercharge their standard wall sockets and hope nothing goes wrong with the car. had i been in a state of mind to think this through i would see every error imaginable in this idea which clearly would never work
Couldn't have stopped after the 9th word, could you? How much more of a hint do you want?
You meant to say (as the article does) "like what powers your household electric dryer" Not washing machine. All washing machines run off 110, as do gas dryers. Electric dryers run off 220.
Funny to discover that the appliances are not on the same voltage.
In Europe we got pretty much everything on 240v (and some professional tools on 380v) for the AC.
Looks like this car will be best used on this side of the pond ;)) Keep them going to Europe !!
Funny that the car started there but had to come to here in order for you to want it
In the US our standard is 120v & we get 220v when you combine two 120v circuits.
I was wondering the same thing.. but 80A doesnt seem what you could usually draw from a socket without blowing fuses
But UK has a slower frequency than US (50Hz vs 60Hz). I think that's why Vista runs so slowly here.
You mean you actually *double* the voltage to 220V?
US: 120V, 208V between phases (that's x sqrt(3))
Europe: 230V, 400V between phases
rblock with the zing!
... can someone please tell me what this equates to in terms of tonnes of C02 produced by a standard coal burning power station.
This is great and all ... and it is early days ... but have we just replaced a fuel guzzling V8 engine with a coal burning (at least here in Australia it is) power station ?? What's the net gain in all of this?
I hate this arguement. That power plant will still be making power, regardless of a few extra Teslas. Also, if you go to the Tesla site there is a DR. who's entire house is solar powered. For the extreme side, the Tesla is the last piece from going completely off-grid.
In many places, you can choose to have your power come from green-only places. Here, it costs like 7 cents extra per kilawatt.
If nothing else is gained, centralization of a pollution source is. Instead of all the cars individually polluting, you have a few energy stations doing the pollution. Then, they can be replaced one by one with better power sources, or other pollution-reducing methods can be applied.
Well it's up to the government to change that end of the system. The average person can only do so much, and the rich average person gets Tesla.
It's a California company with mostly California buyers. California doesn't burn coal, it mostly uses a combination of Natural Gas, Nuclear, and Hoover Dam.
Well you should have just gone to their website! CA electrical energy generation chart for 2005...
Natural gas 37.7%
Coal 20%
Large Hydro 17%
Nuclear 14.5%
Geothermal 5%
Biomass 2.1%
Small Hydro 1.9%
Wind 1.5%
Solar 0.2%
So all in all you are getting 60% by burning stuff instead of 100% and it is much more affordable than gasoline.
Why does that matter.
Arent we going to slowly shift to wind and solar powered energy.
So why do idiots like you still keep bringing this argument up.
We havent shifted to green energy yet.
So let atleast the cars be green.
We can then eliminate coal power.
Also there already exists hydro electricity and nuclear power plants. So everything is not coal.
I dont what do with people like this.
I think either they want to have bath in the morning with clean water or else these people just rub shit all over themselves.
Will there be a USB version?
My USB port has a hard time powering my phone, let alone a vehicle...
It would only take 368 hours!
I hardly consider 8 hours to charge a car that does 0-60 in 3.9 and has a 220 mile range bad at all.
This headline is not news, and the text in this post is wrong.
It will take about 8 hours to charge from 220V, 30 Amps.
The Tesla home charger is 220V, 70 Amps and takes less than 4 hours. The math for calculating the charging time to first order is not difficult, try using some.
Finally, someone who knows about power.
If it really is pulling 80 amps of 220, it would use the same power during its 8 hour charge as my air conditioner would running non-stop for 20 hours straight.
I still think the big joke is that using this much power if you live in a part of the country that is powered by a coal or oil burning power plant, would pollute more than if the car ran on gas. However, if your power comes from a nuclear plant, you're helping the environment.
In response to the post above about the power plant not polluting more when someone uses more power, your nuts. Do you think rolling blackouts are done for fun? Or do you realize that when everyone has their AC running (which in an average house uses less power than this car) power plants have to increase their output.
Do some research before you rant.
holy crap, if this is right, then we're talking about 50KWh per day to charge the thing. in northern california, this is going to cost you about $16.50 a day to charge. that's a fortune.
you better have a PV solar system on your roof if you own one of these things. and even mid-sized PV systems only do about 40KWh on the best summer days... ouch.
16 dollars a day to go 220 miles.. that's better than my current car and with no added pollution.. Plus when the natural gas and coal run out you can still use this car.. and 16 dollars a day assumes that you fully drain it everyday as well and here's a tip.. (charge it at work)
@ Rob
that would be assuming you drive 220 miles a day...
now lets say you drove a honda fit...32 mpg (from experience) 220/32=6.875
6.875*4.09 (local gas price)=28.12 which is much more than 16.50 and the roadster is obviously much sportier.
Also, where are you getting your price/kwh? for me it would only cost 5 dollars to charge the roadster which is a hell of a lot cheaper than 28.12
@Alex
What I said was a COUPLE of Teslas were not going to have that much of an impact. Of couse I understand that that consumption causes blackouts. And where in my comment did you see a rant??? I believe yours to be more of a rant than mine...
Maybe these wont make an impact but they are coming out a new model this year and one under 30,000 within 5 years and they are building their own factory which should help... Maybe 3 wont make much difference but you've gotta start somewhere! They sold 100 at 109,000 a piece in the first month so.
If you were to use 1000 kWh (50kWh*5days*4weeks) in a month you would be in the highest tier of PG&E's usage calculator (Tier 5, >300% of baseline, $0.358/kWh) Although I'm sure better rates can be had with E-7 billing (time of day-based usage)
I know "math is hard" for a lot of people, but it's been publicly stated that the Tesla has a ~55kWh pack.
thats true, it does compare favorably to a regular car, even in N california.
i have 2 priuses and i guess it costs about the same to run 220 miles. i didnt do that math, it was late.
as others have pointed out the top PG&E tiers around here range from 0.30 to 0.38 $/kwh depending on the time of year. electricity is very expensive in N. california. i guess i have this very outdated bias of thinking that electricity is essentially free, and so the tesla numbers came as kind of a shock (ha ha) to me.