Charging is easy for anyone who has a garage or carport with electric service. I’ve been driving electrically for four years. My first electric car was a Chevy Volt. I got it in 2017. I could have bought the Bolt EV, but I was chicken so I went with the Volt plug-in hybrid. It was nice getting my first 50 miles on any given day by electricity. I used gas only after the battery ran down. Most days, I didn’t use any gasoline. My gas mileage, according to my app was around 200 miles per gallon. I never bothered to get a 220-volt level 2 charger for my garage. An ordinary 110-volt circuit worked fine with the charger that came with the Volt. Even when the battery was fully discharged at the end of the day, it would be full by morning.
When I bought the Tesla, since it was during the pandemic, I did the same thing. I just plug the Tesla into the 110-volt wall socket using the charger that came with the car. You gotta remember that if you don’t drive much, you don’t have to worry about not having enough time to fill the battery by morning. Once the pandemic ends, I’ll get an electrician to put in a 220-volt plug for the Tesla. The Volt can stay with its 110-volt circuit.
People who live in an apartment and who don’t have access to an outdoor electric socket probably shouldn’t get an electric car yet. Eventually, there will be infrastructure available for you, but not now. Once you start driving electric, you’ll never want to go back.
How Long Does it Take to Charge?
The time needed to charge depends on how much you drove during the day and how much you expect to drive the next day. If you didn’t drive at all, something that happens often during the pandemic, it doesn’t take any time at all to charge. Tesla recommends that you not charge to 100% unless you’re about to set out on a long trip. I set my car to charge to 80%. I have my charge cable plugged in to a 15 amp circuit, and the car is set to draw 12 amps. My screen tells me that the battery is gaining 6 miles of range for every hour of charging. So with the 110-volt circuit, the Tesla charges at about the same rate as the Volt. When the pandemic ends, I’ll get an electrician to wire up a 60 amp circuit to the circuit breaker box, and I’ll install a level 2 charger. That will allow me to gain around 30 miles of range for each hour of charging. The state of Maryland and the electric company will cooperate to give me a tax break that will save me about 30% of the cost of installing the level 2 charger.
What do you need?
What you need depends on what you already have. Remember, we’re talking about someone who lives in a house with either a garage or a carport. If you keep an electric dryer in or near the garage or carport, just use the charger that comes with your Tesla. It has the adapter for a 110 volt receptacle, If you have a dryer circuit close to or in your garage, just buy the proper adapter from the Tesla store and you’re in.
What does it cost?
Otherwise, you’ll need an electrician to install the proper circuit for a 220 volt receptacle near the place where you plan to park the car. Then you can still use the charger that comes with the car, or you can spend about six hundred dollars and buy a wall mounted charger. As far as what the electricity will cost, it’s less than gasoline. This website estimates the cost of electricity needed to charge a Tesla.
What it says is that it costs around $3.00 to get 100 miles of electricity for a Model 3 and around $4.24 to put 100 miles of electricity in a Model X. So if you’re not getting around a hundred miles to the gallon of gas, electricity is cheaper than gas, and you don’t need to go to a gas station. You don’t even need to bother with charging stations unless you’re on a road trip. You just plug in when you get home, and your car is charged to 80% in the morning.
Henry Farkas is a retired country doctor. He bought his Tesla Model 3 in the middle of the pandemic.
Tesla notified the NHTSA that it will update its automatic widnow system
Tesla will soon send an over-the-air update to address the Automatic Window Reversal System. During product testing in mid-August, the company's technicians detected the system varied in response to obstructions in the window path. After more testing, Tesla concluded that it would notify the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of a voluntary recall to address the issue.
The majority of Tesla's recalls are much different than traditional automotive recalls. Tesla owners don't have to schedule an appointment and bring the vehicle to a service department. Instead, the company will update nearly 1.1 million Teslas using an over-the-air update. However, several news organizations picked up the recall, some linking it to the lower stock price when the market closed. Elon Musk tweeted: The terminology is outdated & inaccurate. This is a tiny over-the-air software update. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no injuries.
The recall and Musk's tweet generated a lot of discussions on social media and in comments below articles on news websites. What Tesla is doing is not a recall in traditional terms. However, it is the only course of action available to the company in the current system to notify the government and owners of required changes.
With more of the automotive industry following Tesla's lead, the recall term will be misleading as most fixes to electric vehicles should be conducted through updates, not physically bringing the car to a service center to change parts. A more fitting term that should replace recall in this new EV world should be: update. The headlines would read, Tesla is Updating its Automatic Window Reversal System. That is much more accurate to what is happening. It should surprise no one that Tesla does not fit the archaic terminology used by the industry.
In a report filed with the NHTSA, Tesla states that it "is not aware of any warranty claims, field reports, crashed, injuries or deaths related to this condition." However, starting September 13, the company started updating vehicles' firmware in pre-delivery and one production line. This change came one day after notifying the federal authorities about the voluntary recall. The over-the-air update will go to Model Xs, and Model Ss built between 2021 and 2022; Model Ys produced from 2020 to 2022 and Model 3s dating back to when the car first hit the market in 2017.
Tesla's next update will be update 2022.36 instead of 2022.32. Tesla's version naming is based on the year and the week number. So update 2022.36 would have been started around the 36th week of 2022.
Tesla traditionally releases an update every four weeks, but sometimes updates can take longer to develop, test, or fix bugs, causing the version number to fall behind the calendar.
Although it doesn't happen too often, Tesla has skipped update version numbers in the past.
Given that we're now in the 39th week of the year, Tesla has chosen to skip version 2022.32 and jump directly to 2022.36.
Update 2022.36 is right around the corner and we're now having our first look at the features included in this update.
New Language
Tesla is adding support for a new language bringing its total to well beyond 20 now. Update 2022.36 introduces Lithuanian as a supported language for the vehicle's on-screen controls.
More Notifications
About two years ago Tesla added the ability to notify you via your mobile phone if the car doors, trunk or windows were left open.
With 2022.32 they're adding on to this feature and will now notify you if the car has been left unlocked.
If you have the walk-away lock feature turned on your vehicle automatically locks when you walk away if you're using a phone key or key fob. You also have the option to exclude locking when at home.
Supercharger Details
When tapping on a Supercharger icon on the vehicle's navigation system will reveal a pop-up that displays additional information about that Supercharger location.
Tesla already shows you the number of stalls available, the price and available amenities at the location.
With 2022.36 Tesla has redesigned the pop-up and will display historical usage for each Supercharger location.
It appears that Tesla will display typical usage for the location by providing an hourly analysis of how busy the Supercharger typically is at certain times of the day.
This feature should let us easily view the busiest times at Superchargers, letting us plan our charging stops a little better.
New Energy Graph
The biggest feature of 2022.36 is by far a new energy graph.
Tesla has made tremendous improvements around its energy predictions in the last few updates and although they haven't changed the UI of the energy graph, it has resulted in much more accurate predictions that now take wind, humidity, the number of occupants, phone charging and more into account when predicting energy usage.
With 2022.36 Tesla delivers a brand new energy app that shows much more detail on how the vehicle is using energy.
The new Model S and Model X haven't had the energy graph available and now this may explain why. Tesla has likely been working on this new energy graph for a while and didn't want to spend time adapting the old app to fit the new vehicles. The new vehicles may finally receive an energy app with this update.
The new energy graph will not only let you view the energy the vehicle is using while driving but also the amount of energy that was used while the vehicle was parked.
Whether the vehicle is driving or parked, you'll now be able to see a complete breakdown of all the different systems in the vehicle and how much energy they've used. Unfortunately, Tesla doesn't display energy used in kW, but in percentage.
The vehicle will also provide suggestions on how to improve efficiency.
At the top of the energy graph where you normally have Consumption and Trip, you'll now have a new option called Park which displays energy used while parked.
The consumption screen looks similar to the way it did before. It displays the vehicle's energy usage on a graph over a chosen distance.
However, the Park and Trip views have been completely revamped.
On the Park screen, the vehicle will display various vehicle components and their energy usage. For example, the vehicle will break down its energy usage over several categories including the vehicle's screen, vehicle pre-conditioning, cabin overheat protection, Sentry Mode and mobile app usage and more.
Next to each category, the vehicle will display the percentage of the energy used for the feature and how it compares to the rest of the fleet. This could be helpful to let you know whether the amount of energy used for that feature is in line with expectations.
You'll also be able to change the timeframe since the last departure or other periods.
Similar to the Park screen, the new Trip screen also displays a breakdown of energy used across different vehicle systems, although it also adds a graph at the top, similar to what's available in the vehicle today.
The graph will automatically change colors, not based on the battery state of charge, but dependent on whether the vehicle used more or less energy in the given segment of the route when compared to its predictions.
Underneath the graph, Tesla will display the amount of energy used for driving, climate, battery conditioning, altitude, and other systems.
In addition to displaying the percent of the energy used for each system, Tesla will also compare your usage to its prediction and the percentage difference above or below the prediction.
There could be other features in the 2022.36 update that aren't mentioned here and we'll have to wait a little longer to see whether there are any additional features.
The biggest update in this release appears to be the new energy app and many owners will be thrilled with its release.
We may start seeing 2022.36 going out to the public in the next couple of weeks. You can also view the release notes for 2022.36.
TeslaFi is a service that logs your drives and charging sessions so that you can later refer back to them. We highly recommend checking them out if you use your car for business trips and would like to keep track of reimbursements, if you like to see how much you spend on charging or if you just love statistics. View their about us page and see everything they have to offer!
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