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Comment by Vysero | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps I am in the minority but my home is an apartment complex so I park in the parking lot. There are no chargers in the parking lot.

Either way (I could be wrong) I don't think you can just plug it into a 120V outlet to get a charge.

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No thats the biggest problem for most buyers living in apartment buildings in urban areas. It's still quite rare to find chargers in underground parking lots.

That's what prevented me from buying one as well. I didn't want to have to go wait in line at one of the few public chargers in my city.

> I don't think you can just plug it into a 120V outlet to get a charge.

A 120V/15A outlet will deliver 1.8 kW. Assuming "overnight" means 12 hours, you can charge ~21 kWh, about 80 miles in a Model 3. Probably enough to keep it topped off after your daily commute/driving. (Edit: apparently 15A means 12A, so a bit less)

Some employers also offer EV charging spots.

I think that there will be a shift in the provided capabilities of places like apartments in the near-ish future that will address this problem. More people will own electric cars, and either charge them at parking garages at work, and their homes/apartments will be retro-fitted. Probably won't be free, but the removed gas cost should well offset it on an individual level.

I use my 120v outlet in my garage and it keeps the battery charged up enough - granted I'm not maxing out the range every day either. Takes about 13 hours to charge from half way.

Interesting, I didn't know that. WELL perhaps I just need to search for a lot with a 120V outlet and browse for a used electric car. If I can find a lot which I can walk to in a relatively short amount of time from my home, I would be alright with that.

And you're right with not maxing out the range daily - it's bad for the battery. Something like 30/40% to 70/80% SoC range is the best

You can top up using a 120v wall outlet. People using Tesla cars report around 40-50 km for an 8 hour charge.

You can but with a standard 120V (12/15A) outlet you'd spend days charging an EV with a large battery. Anything that takes more than 8-10 hours is not really a feasible option. A 240V outlet can be 32A which would be a lot more reasonable in terms of charging time.

it adds about 5 miles per hour for model 3. So after charging overnight it would be at least 50 miles of range added. And this is enough for many.

Which is still very slow, as I said above. The fact that you can get a tenth of the battery charge after a full night is not fast by any measure. Consider that our driving habits have been formed around getting hundreds of Km/mi worth of range in minutes. And if a gas pump would only fill 6 liters at a time nobody in the world would say “well it’s still more than most people need”.

The conversation completely changes as you're not going to a gas station to fill up, you're parking your car at home or plugging it in while you shop. You have fast charging on the highway which, at least for the more powerful ones, can fill you up to 80% in 40 minutes.

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