Tesla Destination Charging

[Innkeep]

Tesla is a totally electric car. The company is in California and has been building cars since about 2010, but the factory has been ramping up production for the past couple of years and there are well over 80,000 on the road now and the goal is to produce 50k or more each year. The factory is building a network of high voltage "Superchargers" along many of the interstates. I drove to Mary's in Bridgewater using the supercharger network. However, once you get to where you're going, it's helpful to know how to keep your car charged up if you drive away from the interstates.
So, the Tesla factory also has a program called Destination Charging. The factory will send the hardware for Tesla charging stations to hotels, B&B's and the like (which will only charge Teslas) for free. The cost of the electrician to install the charger will vary, and is not paid for by the factory. You may recall that Arks installed his own. My guesstimate is that proper installation by an electrician might cost as much as $1,500... BUT by participating in this program, your property is listed on the Tesla website. Although the audience is small now, it is growing. You don't have to pay an annual fee to be listed on the Tesla website, so the cost of the electrician might be more of a marketing expense. There are a few Sel ect Registry properties already on the site
The recommendation is that this charger be hooked up to a 100 amp circuit breaker, but I know that some places are using just a 50 amp breaker, and delivering less juice, which might be easier for those of you who have older properties. The "wall charger" is weather proof and can be installed outdoors. Since the majority of the cost of installation is getting the wires pulled out to the parking area, A second suggestion is to look into buying a second electric car charger that works for other electric cars. It is called a J1772 plug. Those of you who are in destinations, like MtnKeeper or Beachy or JB might want to look into this a bit more.
There is a website that lists all sorts of electric car charging options and you can sign up your property there for free even if all you have access to is a basic 120v plug.
Anyone who is more interested can email me or Arks off the forum.
Edited to say that you're going to all this trouble in order to attract guests who drive electric cars

 

[Madeleine]

Neighbors had one installed. Brand new breaker box, third heavy duty line into the property. NOT a small job. For whatever reason it was not as simple as it sounds here. Does not mean it shouldn't be looked into.

 

[happykeeper]

I love Tesla because it delivered the mugs we drink our coffee from. No one has actually asked me about them yet, but I expect someone will eventually take a minute to look at the picture and name.

 

[Madeleine]

Do you have the link info for how to get into the program? Other than being an SR property?

 

[Morticia]

Do you have the link info for how to get into the program? Other than being an SR property?.

Do you have the link info for how to get into the program? Other than being an SR property?

Request form:

 

[Arks]

I've ordered both my free Tesla charger and a J1772 box that charges all the other cars on the road. My electrician said as long as he was pulling wires to power the Tesla charger, it would only cost me about $100 more to also power a J1772 box.
So I'll soon be able to charge 2 electric cars at once at my place.Let me point out that a Tesla can charge at a J1772 box just like all other electric cars, but the Tesla charges MUCH faster at a dedicated Tesla high power wall connector.
So you could just install a J1772 and serve every model of electric car sold in North America. But with the $750 Tesla charger being free to inns, it's hard to pass up a deal like that, especially since, as innkeep mentions, it gets your inn listed not just at their website, but also it would be built into the navigation system of every Tesla car. The navigation system (built in GPS) automatically plans road trips to take you to chargers along the way so you're never in danger of driving out of range of a known charging location.
One final factor is that you're allowed to specify on the Tesla website that your charger is only for use by your registered guests, so having it might cause them to stay at your place so they can use your charger as they take their road trip. It can take several hours to charge some cars, so that can make an overnight stay logical.
You can charge people to use your charger, but I'll be giving it free. It costs a few dollars, $1 to $6 worth of electricity, depending on how much power they need, to top off their car, but if that brings me a customer at the inn, that's fine with me!

 

[Arks]

Do you have the link info for how to get into the program? Other than being an SR property?.

Do you have the link info for how to get into the program? Other than being an SR property?

Request form:
.

Do you have the link info for how to get into the program? Other than being an SR property?

Request form:

Yep, that's the one I filled out last Tuesday, and I got the word Wednesday that they'll send me my free charger as soon as my electrician provides an installation estimate for me to forward to them. I guess that's just to help make sure you're serious about installing it.
The also ask you to acknowledge your understand that the inn pays for the installation, and that you will let them include your inn as a Tesla charging location (you can limit it to registered guests).

 

[Morticia]

I've ordered both my free Tesla charger and a J1772 box that charges all the other cars on the road. My electrician said as long as he was pulling wires to power the Tesla charger, it would only cost me about $100 more to also power a J1772 box.
So I'll soon be able to charge 2 electric cars at once at my place.Let me point out that a Tesla can charge at a J1772 box just like all other electric cars, but the Tesla charges MUCH faster at a dedicated Tesla high power wall connector.
So you could just install a J1772 and serve every model of electric car sold in North America. But with the $750 Tesla charger being free to inns, it's hard to pass up a deal like that, especially since, as innkeep mentions, it gets your inn listed not just at their website, but also it would be built into the navigation system of every Tesla car. The navigation system (built in GPS) automatically plans road trips to take you to chargers along the way so you're never in danger of driving out of range of a known charging location.
One final factor is that you're allowed to specify on the Tesla website that your charger is only for use by your registered guests, so having it might cause them to stay at your place so they can use your charger as they take their road trip. It can take several hours to charge some cars, so that can make an overnight stay logical.
You can charge people to use your charger, but I'll be giving it free. It costs a few dollars, $1 to $6 worth of electricity, depending on how much power they need, to top off their car, but if that brings me a customer at the inn, that's fine with me!.

I checked a few in this area. Half and half on whether they're allowing 'the public' or just guests. No one says they're charging for it on the website but I did ask and some people are. We're filling out the form. There may be enough in this area already (2).

 

[Breakfast Diva]

How long does it take to charge with a super charger, and how long does it take to charge with a J1772.
Can you stipulate that the charger can only be used by overnight guests or does it need to be offered to the general public?

 

[Arks]

Neighbors had one installed. Brand new breaker box, third heavy duty line into the property. NOT a small job. For whatever reason it was not as simple as it sounds here. Does not mean it shouldn't be looked into..

Neighbors had one installed. Brand new breaker box, third heavy duty line into the property. NOT a small job. For whatever reason it was not as simple as it sounds here. Does not mean it shouldn't be looked into.

I've done the installation myself, so I know what it takes. If you want to power it to the max, you need to hook it to an 100 amp breaker. If your breaker box can't supply that much, your choices are to power it at less than the max, or install an additional breaker box dedicated to the Tesla.
Three heavy wires have to run from the breaker to the charger. (For those who get into this stuff, it's two size 3 wires and one size 4 wire.) For an average installation, that's about 100 feet of wire (times 3) to ruin from the breaker box to your charging location, and would total about $300.
Then there's the 100 feet of 1 inch flexible plastic conduit to run the wires through. That's about $80 more.
Finally, there's the electrician's charges, unless you do your own install like I did. That's why innkeep mentioned above that it could run as much as $1,500 to do this. But that's the upper end. It would probably be less than that.

 

[Arks]

How long does it take to charge with a super charger, and how long does it take to charge with a J1772.
Can you stipulate that the charger can only be used by overnight guests or does it need to be offered to the general public?.

How long does it take to charge with a super charger, and how long does it take to charge with a J1772.
Can you stipulate that the charger can only be used by overnight guests or does it need to be offered to the general public?

Yes you can stipulate that the charger is for overnight guests only.
How long it takes to charge depends on a LOT of factors, like how "empty" is the car being charged? How powerful is the charger being used?
My Tesla has "dual onboard chargers" meaning it can charge twice as fast as the single charger models. My high power wall connector draws 80 amps of power and will charge my car fully in 4 hours (but I've never had it "empty" enough to need 4 hours).
On the other hand, a lot of J1772 chargers only deliver 25 to 35 amps of power, so they'd probably take overnight to fully charge it.
The Tesla comes with an adapter that will even charge it from a standard 120V wall outlet, but that would probably take 12 hours or more. I haven't calculated.
My car will go 300 miles on a charge. Some other electric vehicles only have a 70 mile range, so they would charge pretty fast, but then can only go 1/4 as far as I can drive.
So as you see, LOTS of variables involved and hard to give a specific answer.

 

[Morticia]

How long does it take to charge with a super charger, and how long does it take to charge with a J1772.
Can you stipulate that the charger can only be used by overnight guests or does it need to be offered to the general public?.

How long does it take to charge with a super charger, and how long does it take to charge with a J1772.
Can you stipulate that the charger can only be used by overnight guests or does it need to be offered to the general public?

Yes you can stipulate that the charger is for overnight guests only.
How long it takes to charge depends on a LOT of factors, like how "empty" is the car being charged? How powerful is the charger being used?
My Tesla has "dual onboard chargers" meaning it can charge twice as fast as the single charger models. My high power wall connector draws 80 amps of power and will charge my car fully in 4 hours (but I've never had it "empty" enough to need 4 hours).
On the other hand, a lot of J1772 chargers only deliver 25 to 35 amps of power, so they'd probably take overnight to fully charge it.
The Tesla comes with an adapter that will even charge it from a standard 120V wall outlet, but that would probably take 12 hours or more. I haven't calculated.
My car will go 300 miles on a charge. Some other electric vehicles only have a 70 mile range, so they would charge pretty fast, but then can only go 1/4 as far as I can drive.
So as you see, LOTS of variables involved and hard to give a specific answer.
.

The Tesla site also states how many amps the charging station is at each property.

 

[Morticia]

Neighbors had one installed. Brand new breaker box, third heavy duty line into the property. NOT a small job. For whatever reason it was not as simple as it sounds here. Does not mean it shouldn't be looked into..

Neighbors had one installed. Brand new breaker box, third heavy duty line into the property. NOT a small job. For whatever reason it was not as simple as it sounds here. Does not mean it shouldn't be looked into.

I've done the installation myself, so I know what it takes. If you want to power it to the max, you need to hook it to an 100 amp breaker. If your breaker box can't supply that much, your choices are to power it at less than the max, or install an additional breaker box dedicated to the Tesla.
Three heavy wires have to run from the breaker to the charger. (For those who get into this stuff, it's two size 3 wires and one size 4 wire.) For an average installation, that's about 100 feet of wire (times 3) to ruin from the breaker box to your charging location, and would total about $300.
Then there's the 100 feet of 1 inch flexible plastic conduit to run the wires through. That's about $80 more.
Finally, there's the electrician's charges, unless you do your own install like I did. That's why innkeep mentioned above that it could run as much as $1,500 to do this. But that's the upper end. It would probably be less than that.
.

Neighbors had one installed. Brand new breaker box, third heavy duty line into the property. NOT a small job. For whatever reason it was not as simple as it sounds here. Does not mean it shouldn't be looked into.

I've done the installation myself, so I know what it takes. If you want to power it to the max, you need to hook it to an 100 amp breaker. If your breaker box can't supply that much, your choices are to power it at less than the max, or install an additional breaker box dedicated to the Tesla.
Three heavy wires have to run from the breaker to the charger. (For those who get into this stuff, it's two size 3 wires and one size 4 wire.) For an average installation, that's about 100 feet of wire (times 3) to ruin from the breaker box to your charging location, and would total about $300.
Then there's the 100 feet of 1 inch flexible plastic conduit to run the wires through. That's about $80 more.
Finally, there's the electrician's charges, unless you do your own install like I did. That's why innkeep mentioned above that it could run as much as $1,500 to do this. But that's the upper end. It would probably be less than that.

The tricky bit for a lot of states is that businesses can't run wiring themselves, even if they know how. The theory is - you can fry yourself at your own home, but not your customers. That applies to rental units and inns. Here at least. We're calling an electrician next week to get an idea of the price. This is one of those states where even tho Gomez knows how, he's not allowed. Trying to figure out the shortest distance between the breaker boxes (5 separate boxes in random locations) and an easily accessible area outside.

 

[Arks]

The Tesla charger comes with a 25 foot cable. So it can reach a car at quite a distance from where you mount the charger. This is handy if somebody else is parked in the spot closest to the charger.
Many of the J1772 charger cables will only reach 14 to 18 feet.

 

[Arks]

How long does it take to charge with a super charger, and how long does it take to charge with a J1772.
Can you stipulate that the charger can only be used by overnight guests or does it need to be offered to the general public?.

How long does it take to charge with a super charger...

Just realized I didn't answer this question. While my "high power wall connector" will charge my fully depleted car in about 4 hours, a supercharger will charge it in just 40 minutes! But the superchargers are not for home use. They are Tesla built and maintained company stations across the country.
That's what innkeep used to make her trip to the recent innkeeper gathering. The car's navigation system will plot your travel route to take you from supercharge to supercharger as you cross the country. And it's always FREE to charge your Tesla at a company supercharger.
In the case of my home charger, it delivers AC power to the car, then the car has to convert that to DC to charge the batteries. But the Tesla superchargers deliver DC power directly to the batteries, bypassing the need for conversion, so they can do the job much faster.
The ultimate it battery swapping. Tesla has opened one test swapping station in California. You drive up, the "thing" pulls all your depleted batteries out and inserts full ones, and you're back on the road in a few minutes. It's actually faster than filling a regular car with gasoline!

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Is there somewhere I can find out how many Tesla's are registered in my state?

 

[Ice]

The hubby can do this. I put in for one.

 

[Innkeep]

Is there somewhere I can find out how many Tesla's are registered in my state?.

Is there somewhere I can find out how many Tesla's are registered in my state?

Go to the first website I mentioned, find the Tesla Store (Gallery) closest to you, call, tell them you're interested in destination charging and ask how many they think are in your state, or try emailing your department of motor vehicles.
I'm out in the middle of the midwest in a town of 60,000 and was surprised that I was the second Tesla in town. I know of at least one additional car since I got mine last fall. There are lots more Teslas on the west coast.

 

[Arks]

Is there somewhere I can find out how many Tesla's are registered in my state?.

Is there somewhere I can find out how many Tesla's are registered in my state?

Not that I know of. Tesla doesn't release the information, and the state motor vehicle dept. doesn't tell.
But the locations of the superchargers gives a good hint. They invest in the chargers where there are a lot of cars to serve. Most of the cars are along the west coast (where they are made) and the east coast, and around Chicago. The rest of the superchargers are just located along the Interstate highways to create a coast-to-coast network so people can make long road trips.
Regarding my own neighborhood, the supercharger in St. Louis just opened last week. Memphis and Little Rock are due to get one later this year. My car has the range to make any of those cities, so once those chargers are all open, I can drive anywhere in the country FREE!
See the supercharger location map halfway down the page here: http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

 

[Innkeep]

I love Tesla because it delivered the mugs we drink our coffee from. No one has actually asked me about them yet, but I expect someone will eventually take a minute to look at the picture and name..

I love Tesla because it delivered the mugs we drink our coffee from. No one has actually asked me about them yet, but I expect someone will eventually take a minute to look at the picture and name.