It does make a difference. White seats reflect that light energy, which is why the seats appear white even when the windows are closed. Dark seats absorb that light energy and convert it into heat.
except that is step 1. Once those white seats “reflect the light energy” where does it go, except back to inside of the glass where it bounces right back, no?
For white seats, the light energy exited the vehicle and some of that later struck your retina, which is why you see the seats as white.
I have a charging questions (for Teslas and EVs/PHEVs more generally). Assuming we don’t routinely go on long trips, has 110v charging been ok for folks?
In order to have the ability to do 240v charging, we would need to do a panel upgrade for our home. I am not necessarily against doing the panel upgrade, but I’d like to wait to do it until we have a large remodeling project in the house, as I understand we might have to re-wire our house, which can be messy.
We have some Tesla supercharging sites around us, and living in the Bay Area means we have charging stations all over the place.
So, it’s not like we are lacking for options. This is National Electric Car Week, so there are EV car fairs around the area. I went to one today, and I spoke to a Bolt driver who was one of the fair organizers. He said that he is perfectly fine with 110v chargers, as he merely charges overnight. He said he has a good friend who has a Tesla, but the friend decided not to do a switch to a 240v system, as he didn’t think it was worth the price.
As usual, the CC community’s guidance is very welcome! TIA.
Absolutely. 
Have been charging our Tesla X from a 110 outlet for 3 years now… occasionally supplement this with a stop at a local brewery that has a supercharger nearby. Mr. mostly uses the car to commute 30-mile RT to work. 110 is sufficient to replenish that overnight.
ETA - even though we have a 400 amp panel, we have not installed a 220 outlet in the garage yet for the same reason: waiting for other issues to accumulate so we can do everything at once.
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Thank you very much! That hopefully saves us hassle and cash!
The Tesla (much like our refrigerator) is woefully behind its delivery date. We placed the order in June 2021, and, right now, the Tesla website is showing delivery in December 2021/January 2022. I also have a PHEV that I’ve only recently started to charge. At some stage, we will have two cars charging, so perhaps then we’ll do the panel upgrade.
But it’s very helpful to know that we don’t need to rush this for the time being.
Thank you again for the sage advice.
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We have driven electric about 6 years now. I would definitely spring for the 240volt charger. Ours was a super simple install in our garage on outside of the wall that our stove sits on in the kitchen, so the 220/240 was already right there. I hate having to go back to 110v charging if we are traveling and staying somewhere w/o a charger. Our level 2 charges the car completely in a few hours (so easily overnight). If we had to trickle charge on 110v it would not charge overnight and then you have to go find a charger somewhere to finish up. I never use local chargers. Just plug in the car at night and for a few pennies it’s charged up and ready to go anywhere in the morning.
If you poll more people who have a level 2 in their garage at home I doubt if you’d get many people saying that trickle charging is great. It is certainly doable in a pinch if you’re not planning on doing any driving any time soon, but overall it’s a pain in the butt, IMO. You might like to read this: Tesla charging speed on a 110 volt outlet | Plugless Power
I drive a lot (regularly about 70+ miles a day during the week) so if you don’t drive very much you might be ok with trickle charging, but, personally, we certainly would make installing a level 2 charger one of our highest priorities if we moved.
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Points are all well taken. But it will cost us around $5000 to do a panel upgrade just to be able to get us to 240v anywhere except for our dryer. While the panel in our house is not terrifically old, it’s not very modern either. Adding the load of 240v for car charging would really cause issues unless we did the upgrade. If I could do it relatively easily, I would do it in a heartbeat, but it’s not easy for us given the house’s proximity to the driveway.
I don’t mind doing the upgrade, but I understand that our internal wiring would also need to be changed (at least according to one electrician) with a panel upgrade. I think that’s going to mean a lot of holes in the walls, work, etc, which I would dearly like to avoid now. If we do a remodel, we will do the rewiring then.
I found tons of videos on YouTube talking about this very issue. Most people are pointing out that at 110v, with overnight charging, that would get us something like 21,000 miles/year which is WAY over what we would drive in an average year. We don’t drive the same daily distance you do, but I do (at least before the pandemic) drive down to Silicon Valley from time to time. That’s why I got a PHEV originally, and now the Tesla is on order. For those kinds of long day trips or longer pleasure trips, we have tons of superchargers around here.
It is VERY clear to me that we (meaning the US and the RoW) are moving to EVs now, so I will definitely move to 240v car charging over time. I just don’t want to rush at the moment on the panel upgrade.
120V 12A charging (on a 120V 15A outlet) is 1.44 kW. So at most 1.44 kWh per hour (a little less due to charging losses).
If you get a 240V 50A outlet, you can charge up to 40A, but 32A charging equipment is more common (like the included charging equipment with Tesla cars, if you add the matching plug). 240V 32A charging is up to 7.68 kW, so a little less than 7.68 kWh per hour.
Multiply that by your economy (commonly 3-4 miles per kWh) to get how many miles of range added per hour of charging. Comparing that to your typical use, that will tell you if you need a 240V 50A outlet.
Even if you do not need the 240V 50A outlet, it can be convenient if you have an unexpected longer trip and need to add more charge in a shorter time at home.
Also, if your garage 120V 15A outlet is on a circuit with other stuff on it, it may not be safe to use 12A charging on it when there is other stuff plugged into other outlets on the circuit.
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I have a tesla charger in my garage, @ucbalumnus for my model 3, and I get 48A in charging. I thought I could only get 32A b/c i was getting an error message, but it turned out to be an issue with the onboard power converter. And we had the electrician install a dedicated 50A cable for it. Didnt cost anywhere near $5k.
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This is a good point. You don’t want to constantly reset the breaker. We just don’t plug anything into that circuit. Works well for our current needs. The long term plan is to charge the car off the roof. 
My current breaker box is something like 100-120 amps. There is no way we can add a 240v car charging outlet without spending thousands of dollars to upgrade the panel/box to 200 amps plus.
As I said, if we were already in a situation where we could easily add the 240v charging option, it’s a no-brainer. At $5000 for a panel upgrade, it’s a “brainer”…
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It is doable to trickle charge, if you have to wait. Any point in asking a second opinion from another electrician? Does your employer have a charger at the office if you are going to the office?
This thread might be useful: Model 3 Owners: Who Here Has Trickle-Charging Only/No Home Charging? | Tesla Motors Club
A huge plus of driving an EV is all those gas station stops are gone. When you replace them with having to find a charger that is unoccupied it’s not nearly as satisfying as when you can just plug in the car at night and it’s all charged up and ready to go in the morning.
Looks like you get something like 2-4 miles of charge in an hour plugged into 110v.
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Is there a shortage of electricians in your area? Seems that a few years ago, a panel upgrade was about half of that in an expensive area.
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Continuous current (like for charging an electric vehicle) should only be up to 80% of the circuit’s rating. For 48A charging (like with the Tesla wall connector), the circuit should be 60A. If your circuit is 50A, the safe maximum charging current is 40A.
The Tesla mobile connector (included with Tesla cars) only goes up to 32A.
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It could be @ucbalumnus…this is based on a single electrician coming here a few times…
We’re in the Bay Area, so things are going to be expensive here…but a more reasonable rate for a panel upgrade would surely make things more palatable.
Let me get more quotes and will advise.
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My husband wanted to extend the existing 220v circuit (previous owner planned a hot tub) into our detached garage… piece of cake project for him… except he priced out the copper wire rated for that project at HD - it would have cost $500 (!) back in 2018. I can only imagine how much that wire would cost today. Hence 110v charging.
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Ah, @BunsenBurner…it’s a close call between the hot tub and the Tesla! Seriously, am dealing with both at the moment. I call it a push and say we need both!
ETA: Seriously, I am truly being “first world” but sometimes I feel like the fellas in “Apollo 13” when they are trying to figure out how much power they need need to get back to Earth…we’re to the point where our normal electrician strongly suggested we change all our light bulbs from incandescent to LED, which we’ve done…unless we change the panel, we won’t be able to do much more. I am truly envious about a 400 amp panel!
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suggest you obtain several quotes from local, licensed and bonded electricians, as prices can vary greatly. Ask if you have the space for a sub-panel to feed the garage. (We have a 100 amp panel and instead upgrading to a 200 amp panel (for $3500), the electrician added a sub-panel for a 60 amp circuit to charge the Tesla for 1/3rd the cost.)
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You haven’t done that already?