Tesla Wall Charger Review

Faceplate

The wall charger Gen 3 has got sleek white tempered glass faceplate, a really nice look. But it’s hard to see the Tesla name on that.

This new white tempered glass faceplate looks great, but it probably won’t be as durable as a plastic one. If you hit with something or drop it somehow by accident, you might crack this and need a replacement. 

Power Delivery

The previous generation, the Gen 2 was called the high power wall connector, delivering up to 80 amps to the vehicle. The new generation, the wall charger Gen 3, can only deliver a maximum of 48 amps.

The 80 amps are not required for the newer Tesla models because Tesla no longer sells any vehicles that can accept more than 48 amps.

Previously, customers had the option of ordering the car with what they called dual on-board chargers on Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X vehicles, and it could accept up to 80 amps.

It made sense that Tesla sold a wall connector that could deliver that much power, but Tesla discontinued that option, and now none of their vehicles can accept more than 48 amps.

The Gen 3 wall charger dropped the maximum output from 80 to 48 amps (11.5 kW). Up to 45 miles of range can be added per hour of charging by the Gen 3 wall charger to the EVs.

Cable Length

Previously, they offered high powered wall connector with either an 8.5-foot or a 24-foot cable. For the new Gen 3 one, you have the option of 14 feet and 24 feet.

A two-car garage in the US is averagely at least 22 feet by 22 feet for new constructions. On some occasions, you might need to park on one side, or you might need to park on another side.

The cable should reach almost any corner of your garage. Therefore, 18 feet is not long enough, and the 24-foot length would be better.

Hardwired or Plug-In

The Gen 3 wall charger only comes in a hardwired unit. Tesla previously offered a wall charger in a plug-in unit.

If you really wanted it to plug in, you could install a NEMA 14-60 plug on this and use a NEMA 14-60 outlet to make it a plug-in unit.

If you want this to deliver the full 48 amps, you can charge your Tesla at the full 48 amps it can accept. You will need to put this on a dedicated 60-amp circuit.

If you don’t have a 60-amp circuit, and you only have a 40-amp circuit or even lower 32-amp, 24-amp circuit available on your service panel, you can de-rate this charger, and it won’t exceed the maximum power supply that the circuit can handle.

Wi-Fi Connected

The wall charger Gen 3 is Wi-Fi connected. While it is Wi-Fi connected, Tesla hasn’t really released any of the features yet.

It’s probably going to be a smart charger, which is going to be able to load share to up to 16 units.

That’d be good for apartment buildings, condo complexes, areas where multiple residents live. 

If you want to have a bunch of chargers set up, and you don’t want to run a circuit for each one, which gets very expensive, having the ability to load share across multiple units is definitely a good feature to have and it saves money. 

Load sharing is also a very good feature to have if you have two chargers in the garage and want to run one circuit.

The two wall connectors will intelligently communicate with each other and distribute the power.

When you have one car fully charged, the other one will immediately start to charge. By the morning, you’ll have two nicely charged cars. 

They’re also promising that we’ll be able to have remote monitoring. There’ll be firmware updates over the air and the wall charger will also be able to communicate with other Tesla products. 

Tesla hasn’t allowed us to use any of these smart charging features yet. They will probably be released in the near future.

Power Output

In the case of the Tesla wall charger generation 3rd , it can maximally deliver 11.5 kilowatts.

It can adjust its power. You can have it deliver the full 48 amps and you can go all the way down to a much lower rating if you’re on a circuit that can’t support that extra power.

Connector Holster

The connector holster absolutely holsters the connector very easily.

You don’t have to hunt for the opening. You don’t have to land the connector in there perfectly. What you need to do is just slide it in that slot and let it go.

Cable Length and Pliability

The maximum length you can get on your cable for the Tesla wall charger is 24 feet. Under the cold weather, the cable did not perform very well.​ Outdoor installations in very cold weather areas are not recommended.

Resume Charging

It can automatically restart. If you have a power outage in the middle of a charging session, once power is restored, the charger will immediately start to re-engage the vehicle and continue the charging session.

Smart Charging Features

The smart charging features haven’t been released yet.

Weatherproof Rating

It’s NEMA 3 weatherproof rated.

Safety Certified

The wall charger  is safety certified. It’s UL listed.

Warranty

The Tesla wall charger has a very good four-year warranty. That’s better than the industry standard. Most of the chargers have a three-year warranty.

The Tesla wall charger comes with the Tesla connector.

Tesla uses a proprietary connector and no other electric vehicle manufacturers use this connector in North America.

Other electric vehicles use the J1772 connector.

If you have a Tesla wall charger and you want to charge your electric vehicle made by another brand, or if you have a a charging station that has the J1772 connector and you want to charge your Tesla, you will need adapters to get the charging job done.

Every Tesla comes with an adapter (J1772 to Tesla adapter). This allows you to charge your Tesla on a charging station made by any third-party brands and public charging stations, which generally use the J1772 if they’re not Tesla destination chargers.

What you basically do is you stick the supplied adapter that comes with every Tesla into the third-party EV charging stations, and then you plug the adapter into your Tesla. Then it starts to charge.

If it’s the other way around, that is, you’ve got a Tesla wall charger and you charge your non-Tesla electric vehicle, you will need to get a Tesla to J1772 adapter and what you basically do is you stick one side of your adapter into the Tesla wall charger and plug the other side into any non-Tesla electric vehicle in North America.

Click here for more information about Tesla charger adapters!

Every Tesla comes with a Tesla mobile charger, which delivers up to 32 amps of power. All Tesla vehicles except for the Standard Range Plus Model 3 can accept 48 amps. The Standard Range Plus Model 3 can only accept 32 amps.

If you get a Standard Range Plus Model 3 and use a wall charger to charge your car, it won’t get any faster than the mobile charger does.

Tesla designs this so that you can use different adapters for different plugs.

Tesla used to include a NEMA 14-50 240-volt adapter with their mobile charging connector, but they only give you the 120-volt adapter now.

The 120-volt plug could be used at a regular household outlet (110V in the US), but the charger charges very slowly, maybe four miles of range per hour.

If you only drive 10, 20 miles, maybe 30 miles a day, this might be enough, but it still might be inconvenient.

You can get a different adapter, like NEMA 14-50 adapter (The NEMA 14-50 outlet is the most popular outlet for electric car chargers and most electric car chargers come with the NEMA 14-50 plug).

You can then charge from a 240-volt outlet. Make sure you tell your electrician to ground up if you are getting a NEMA 14-50 outlet installed and plan to use it with your mobile charger.

The mobile charger will deliver 32 amps, and it needs to be on a 40-amp circuit. That’s good enough for about 30 miles of range per hour for a Tesla model 3.

But if you have the Long Range Model 3 or Model Y, for instance, it will charge the car a little bit quicker using the wall connector.

For most people, the cars sit in your garage for eight or ten hours a night, and you don’t fully deplete your battery every day, so you don’t need to recharge 300 miles of range every single day, and a higher-powered unit isn’t needed.

If you’re getting a new Tesla and you’re not sure if you need a wall connector or not, don’t invest the money in a Tesla wall connector or any charging station for your house; just install the outlet and get the NEMA 14-50 adapter; use your mobile connector for a while and see how it works out.

If you find that it’s inconvenient later on, you can upgrade and do something. You don’t have to rush out all at once.

When you’re getting your car work just fine, and you’ll probably find that you don’t need to even spend any more money, because what they provide you with works.