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Tesla Sending New Wall-Charger Adapters After Garage Fire
JoeyRox writes "Tesla is sending its customers new home charging connectors after recent reports of chargers overheating in garages and one instance of a fire inside a wall socket that held one of the chargers. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the new charging adapter will contain a thermal fuse capable of terminating the charging process if it gets too hot. 'These are very rare events, but occasionally the wiring isn't done right. We want people to have absolute comfort, so we're going to be providing them with an upgraded adapter.' The company also issued a software update in December to address the overheating issue."
I'll get in before the nutjob Tesla detractors.
This is a very responsible move by Tesla which takes guts. They are changing the charger design to ameliorate a problem that has nothing to do with the car and nothing to do with the charger and everything to do with the house wiring. Obviously the nutjobs will point their skinny little fingers and accuse Tesla of papering over their own flaw, which is a lie.
Tesla cars are really expensive, but they keep doing things like this. "Worried about the battery catching on fire? Okay, we will insure you against that for no additional charge. Worried about your garage charger catching on fire? Okay, we will give you an upgraded charger for free."
Anyone with a Tesla car is an early adopter, and paying a lot for the privilege. But Tesla really is doing their part to take care of the early adopter customers.
And this is why their overall strategy is brilliant. Start at the high end of the market, make money while building technology and infrastructure, and then come out with a new-gen car that costs less. Meanwhile they have fewer customers to take care of when issues like this pop up, and they have the money to just deal with it.
I can't wait until Tesla hits the Ford/Honda price level.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
This is a 100% serious reply - Once upon a time, software developers selected beta testers, who used the software with the understanding that it was still in a beta version and bugs should be expected and documented.
Now, no such "testing" occurs in both the software and hardware realms. The developers or manufacturers simply develop something that compiles or doesn't collapse under its own weight and sells it as the release version to customers that expect all that testing to have been done already, so it works. Customers pay full price, the shit crashes or falls apart(or catches fire), they complain to the company describing what happened, and then the company documents what happened and gives the customer a "new" but equally faulty piece in exchange.
There is no more "beta" testing - the beta testers are now referred to as "early adopters."
-- Ethanol-fueled
Maybe nothing was really wrong. Maybe the wiring sucks, the charger draws too much RMS power due to a dirty wave (Fattened with harmonics), the excess current causes overheating, etc. So rather than putting in a current detector or whatever else to detect faults, he just ... stuck in a thermal fuse. If it gets too hot, it shuts off.
Most hardware doesn't constantly draw that much power. It's really hard to screw up a transformer--the wall charger would just be a transformer and maybe a MOSFET-based rectifier or something else that can pass that much power. Thermal fuse--even a current fuse--is really a "this will never happen, but if anything does happen that creates any kind of bad situation, this will stop it. Whatever it is."
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I bought a house. Yes, seriously. I opened the walls. There was buzzing, instability, etc. The wiring was fucking wrong, twisted the wrong way (it came loose when the screws on the fixtures were tightened, so was buzzing under load), 14ga on 20A circuits (12ga is required or it catches fire), etc. My 20A appliance loop in the kitchen has 15A receptacles because, heyyyyyyy, you're not really going to draw 20A out of these right? Those 2000 watt appliances don't go on a 20A loop that can pass 2200 watts... I use a Breville 1800W toaster oven drawing over 16A through one receptacle. One 15A receptacle on 20A wiring.
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Older houses from the mid 20th century may have aluminum wiring, which turned out to be a really bad idea. They tried it because the cost of copper was going up and the cost of aluminum was going down, but it turns out that the properties of the two metals are different and the aluminum wires performed really poorly over time.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
There is a man, lets call him Keith. Keith thinks that repair men and contractors are overpriced, and decides he can do it himself. He does this, and it works...for now.
People haven't stopped beta testing. Either in hardware or software. They have been quicker to release because the vast majority of software nowadays are done inside a sandbox (mobile apps, cloud servers, etc) rather than from scratch.
It's not like software or hardware back then was any more reliable. Office, OS9, Windows (all versions) have always been plagued with problems and one can argue they have fewer obvious bugs now than they did before - When's the last time you got a BSOD?
The counterbalance is that the consumer base is far far far larger now. Some of us who were at Intel at the height of the Pentium 4 were happy to have sold 40M units in a year. Mobile phone processors at qualcomm nowadays clear 400M/quarter.
If it seems like hardware and software bugs show up faster, it is because the userbase that uses and report such bugs (easy to do now via social media) is much much much larger.
Clearly, you have never purchased or rented a house that was rewired by a doctor.
... and this is why 230V is better ;)
This is a 100% serious reply - Once upon a time, software developers selected beta testers, who used the software with the understanding that it was still in a beta version and bugs should be expected and documented.
Now, no such "testing" occurs in both the software and hardware realms. The developers or manufacturers simply develop something that compiles or doesn't collapse under its own weight and sells it as the release version to customers that expect all that testing to have been done already, so it works. Customers pay full price, the shit crashes or falls apart(or catches fire), they complain to the company describing what happened, and then the company documents what happened and gives the customer a "new" but equally faulty piece in exchange.
There is no more "beta" testing - the beta testers are now referred to as "early adopters."
-- Ethanol-fueled
That sounds like an adequate description of pretty much all software development these days, roll it out on schedule, we'll deal with bugs (or deny there are any) later on. That or just ignore customer complaints as long as the software continues to sell: Windows is the most notorious example, but they are far from alone in this practice.
Suffice to say, I get the constant feeling of denying elementary physics (let alone chemistry) whenever there's talk of selling electric cars. It takes a certain and large amount of energy to propel something as heavy as an automobile around. Discharge of batteries is not 100% efficient (though very good compared to charging), charging is less efficient (using more power from the wall than is actually stored in the battery) and some loss of battery performance and capacity happens over time.
A friend bought a Nissan Leaf and became acutely aware of how wind strength and direction; hills and use of something as simple as the ventilation fan affected the range of the car on one charge. Also how terribly slow it charges off 120. Ideally a high current 240 outlet should be available for charging.
Perhaps that outlet in the garage the contractor wired up at the time of home construction or renovation was sufficient for a chest freezer or washing machine, which didn't continue to draw a high current for hours on end, like the charger for the Tesla does.
Anyone buying one of these cars would do well to make sure their wiring is up to the load and a proper circuit breaker and smoke alarm are handy.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
My house had 14ga on 30A circuit breakers, the guy I bought it from bragged it never popped a breaker.
My 20A appliance loop in the kitchen has 15A receptacles because, heyyyyyyy, you're not really going to draw 20A out of these right? Those 2000 watt appliances don't go on a 20A loop that can pass 2200 watts... I use a Breville 1800W toaster oven drawing over 16A through one receptacle. One 15A receptacle on 20A wiring.
Most 15A receptacles are rated for 20A pass-through, so they should be perfectly fine to use on a 20A line. The only time you should need a 20A receptacle is if you have a single device with a 20A T-shape plug.
I found some steel wire in ours. The conductors were about three times the thickness that copper ones usually are.
I was changing a switch and it took two of us, a jemmy and a car jack to bend the sodding wires to the right shape,
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
there was at one time a cafe here in Portland, that had lots of power sockets, with lots of people plugging their laptops in.
Most of their cover plates were missing.
Power sockets are contained in boxes that are fastened to wall studs. Most of the boxes their sockets were in had come loose, so they would pull out of the wall when one attempted to pull out one's plug.
they had a stage for live music. All the electronic instruments and loudspeakers were plugged into a single power strip that was connected via a long extension cord to the wall.
I repeatedly pointed out to the baristas that an electrical fire was bound to happen, and begged them to convince the cafe owner to have an electrician replace all the sockets, but no he never did.
I was quite shocked when they told me that the Portland fire inspector visited once a month, but only to ensure that they had adequate escape routes. The inspector never bothered with the sockets.
One fire? Out of how many, 30k cars?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Because he wants to put his customers' minds at ease? It's a smart move on the part of the company.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
It's really hard to screw up a transformer--the wall charger would just be a transformer and maybe a MOSFET-based rectifier or something else that can pass that much power.
Well I guess that solves it. After all, all you need to do is slap in MOSFET's that are below quality, or capacitors that are filled with gunk(instead of electrolyte), instead of solid state and watch it melt and ooze all over itself. Pretty good chance of either one happening, and it's a fairly good possibility with either knock-off components or recycled components being marked as new and put back into the supply chain. This issue has been haunting PSU's for computers for years now, especially mid-range and the very cheap jobs.
Thermal fuse--even a current fuse--is really a "this will never happen, but if anything does happen that creates any kind of bad situation, this will stop it. Whatever it is."
Well that's great, until you run into the "thermal fuse really isn't a fuse" or the "current fuse" is actually a chunk of metal that's simply bridging the two points. Again see the issues with PSU's.
Om, nomnomnom...
Hi Keith!
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
While I assert that the GMO wheat in my company's bread did not cause your child to born with 12 toes. It is worth $200,000 to us to not find out if a jury will be composed of my peers or yours.
Because all aspects of this settlement may also be found "interesting" by local and national news organizations, we will also make a lot of noise about researching the health risks of all ingredients that will result in 2 point font warnings on our product labels.
My God! It's full of eval()'s.
well, I am pretty sure they are not replicated atom-by-atom but manufactured, so there is a chance to screw up. Could be something simple like a screw not being tightened 100% in some rare cases (there could literally be a thousand reasons for causing this) -> does not show up during testing, but in bad circumstances it could happen that the connection heats up (because the contact point is small).
Actually I had a case like that, eventhough the socket was securely fixed in the wall with no wiggle room or anything and installed to the specs (I remember that I screwed everything in place extremely tightly and had it checked by a pro). Anyhow, I suddenly lost power on that one outlet. Upon investigating I discovered that the neutral wire had slipped out of the screwmount and I was like "dafuq? how could that happen?". I think the reason was that I run the outlet at high currents at times (toaster -> draw full / idle / repeat) which could have caused heat/cold cycles in turn loosening the screw (though that should only happen if the connection was bad in the first place - eg. because dirty contacts), which would also work out with the time of failure (15 minutes after using toaster).
When I bought my house, the home inspector found a couple of wiring issues, which were fixed by the previous owner prior to closing. Since then I have found several more that I corrected. It's not uncommon to find miswired circuits, incorrectly sized circuits or poor connections. Because of the way circuit breakers work and the way circuits are typically loaded, a wiring problem can go unnoticed for decades. Then you plug in a load on a 120V 15A circuit that draws 12 or 15 amps continuously for several hours and a bad connection makes itself known.
> Most 15A receptacles are rated for 20A pass-through, so they should be perfectly fine to use on a 20A line.
Really? Then why, pray tell, are they called 15A receptacles?
Perhaps that outlet in the garage the contractor wired up at the time of home construction or renovation was sufficient for a chest freezer or washing machine, which didn't continue to draw a high current for hours on end, like the charger for the Tesla does.
Yes, that was my first thought as well, that an electrician did a sub-par job that was good enough for most uses, but wasn't actually up to code, so could not handle a max-use case. So when a max-use case came along, it demonstrated perfectly the dangers of ignoring electrical code.
Reminds me of when some group complained that Apple created shitty CD drives because it broke their non-standard CDs. In that case, both Apple and the CD manufacturer were out of spec, so they both shared blame. But it has yet to be shown here that the blame lies anywhere else besides whoever did the wiring of that guy's house.
Alternatively... it could be exactly as he said, the car was not fire prone (as borne out by the stats showing it had lower fire rates than other cars, and better outcomes when they did happen), and that the fire department agree that it was not caused by the charger.
Instead, it could simply be that even though they're working fine, there's way to mitigate the risk of other faulty things causing problems, and it's nice to do something towards that.
Honestly, I hate this aspect of the modern world –no one is allowed to improve something without implying that something was broken before hand, or that it was their fault that something else was broken.
I was going to say, it's entirely possible the wiring in the wall was bad.
This is one possible scenario which has happened in the past. Maybe it was aluminum wiring, which has a much lower thermal expansion rate than copper. Back in the 70's it was really common for developers to use aluminum wiring in houses because it was cheaper than copper. My house had aluminum wiring. The previous owners of my house were really underhanded. They ran copper off the electrical box up in behind some insulation and connected it to the aluminum from junction hidden junction boxes, and because home inspectors don't do "destructive" inspections, meaning they don't even move insulation, we didn't find out until years after we had bought the house. We had a wall socket stop working and when I opened it up to see what was wrong I found the aluminum wire had completely detached from the terminals. Luckily my father-in-law, who doesn't live near by, is an electrician because we had to have the whole house rewired. It's still not illegal to use aluminum wiring, copper is recommended, but it's not requried. The higher temperature of the adapter could cause the aluminum wire to expand and pop off the plug terminals in the wall box, which can lead to arcing and fires.
It really wouldn't be Tesla's fault if developers were using cheap materials when building the house, but it is nice of them to do something to try and mitigate future issues after it becomes a known possibility. We can't account for every scenario that will ever occur, but we can learn as we go along.
Ah fuck, have all the engineers left Slashdot?
Hardly any major incident is the fault of an isolated piece of equipment - it's usually one or two things going wrong and then everything else reacting badly.
Like Postel said, Conservative in what you send - liberal in what you accept.
Any equipment which draws a large amount of current for a long time should be sensitive to the sort of things that can go wrong within the device, the load, and the source.
Tesla made an engineering error here. They won't ever admit to making a mistake, because Musk has the ego of a small planet - he thinks that just because he gets some things right (which he certainly does), he gets everything right.
Because you can pull 15A from one of them? The requirement for using 15A outlets on a 20A breaker is that there be more than one outlet.
Whats the incidence rate of this sort of thing again?
Can you point me to a specific hardware or software product from your "golden age" which had a 0% defect rate?
The math has been done in every previous thread. The fire rate for Teslas is something like 5x lower than normal cars -- but we'll see if that changes once they age.
Because the new ones protect against faults in house wiring, as well as working correctly like the old ones did, and because that gives him great publicity, and return customers?
Story says "about a half dozen". And these are not all fires. Smoldering, smoking chargers and wires; people getting burned when then touch molten insulation, etc.
If you're going to charge giant car batteries from your house wiring the house wiring needs to be 100%. Builder grade work is often not perfect. So buying a Tesla and plugging it in without getting a grown-up electrician to rework the wiring a Bad Idea, as some of these Tesla owners are discovering.
Next step; posh neighborhoods with multiple Teslas discover that neighborhood transformers do not have infinite capacity.
Its a crazy concept of doing right by your customers. I know this is insane to even consider, but shockingly some companies do this. If you RTFA you would see that Musk talks about home wiring not always being done properly, so in order to avoid leaving that variable up to chance, Tesla has sent out chargers that shut themselves off at a certain temperature. Its almost like he cares if his customers are happy and hes willing to do what it takes to alleviate as many issues as possible while using his product, even when not caused by his own product.
There is a man, lets call him Keith. Keith thinks that repair men and contractors are overpriced, and decides he can do it himself. He does this, and it works...for now.
Keith does good work. Sometimes he even has it inspected and passes. Mostly, it's not that hard.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
You obviosly didn't RTFA. And if you think the chargers are plugged into existing house wires, not a specially installed new circuit, now then you are just plain silly.
So if I have a single appliance that uses between 15A and 20A, I shouldn't plug it into my 20A circuit? Huh? How am I supposed to use my vacuum?
Frankly, those chargers should have ALREADY had these changes on revision one...
Who designs a car charger that is using 230V at 30+Amps for hours on end and leaves out a temp sensor and a mechanical mechanism that would shut it off if it overheats?
The temp sensor for statistics and monitoring (since these are still early generation) and the mechanism for safety.
And none the less what Keith did is illegal in many other countries. It was made illegal because while Keith had his wiring inspected he was only a 1 in 1000 who did so.
Wiring is not hard at all. Knowing all the codes and having the patience to do something properly without cutting corners is quite hard. If you're not electrically minded then a "she'll be right" can quickly turn into burning your house down.
"Why does the wire going to the Tesla need to be twice the size of every other wire in the house? I can run my entire house on those other wires!"
It's because your vacuum lies. That giant "18A" (or whatever) printed on the side is mostly marketing fluff. Also, even if it really does draw 18A, the duty cycle plays a big roll in the safety. Heating is a function of current and time. That's (one reason) why a lot of appliances say "household use only" -- the cord isn't sized heavy enough for high duty cycle use. That's part of why a 15A hair dryer can use 18 gauge lamp cord.
Plane manufacturer makes a small change to improve the reliability or performance. Some one with a 30 year old plane crashes and dies, and because small plane owners as a general class have a significant percentage of high income individuals (doctors and lawyers, etc.) their heirs and assigns lawyer up and go after the mfr and say "you KNEW that it was defective or substandard because you changed it 24 years later".. "pay us the value of our beloved spouse/father/patriarchs future earnings".
Eventually, the plane manufacturers say "screw this, we're not going to make planes any more". Or if they do stay in business, they don't change anything. There's a reason Lycoming and Continental are still making the same overgrown VW engines for 70 years, and it's not because they need bolt pattern compatibility for replacements.
1) 14ga wiring is allowed on 20A heating circuits. It's artificially derated for general purpose circuits for extra safety.
2) 20A circuits can have 15A receptacles as long as there is more than one receptacle (and a duplex outlet counts for this purpose).
3) Doesn't matter which way you wrap the wire around the screw, as long as it's tight. It shouldn't be loosening, period.
4) 1800W divided by 120V gives 15A, not "over 16A".
""Occasionally the wiring isn't done right" --- ?!?!?! Seriously?"
Residential wiring doesn't have rigorous quality control checks and is frequently as fucked up as a concrete bicycle.
Browse home inspector horror stories for pics of some of the worse examples, then remember very few homes are inspected by pros after construction.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
the real Tesla would have charged cars from remote, without sending the customer a mains charger!
There's another common denominator in the construction or remodeling process. Occasionally a competent electrician is used, one who understands load calcs, amp draw, and wire sizing. Many more times than you would want to know about, you get the other kind of electrician.
Apprentices training on the public, contractors who have perennial negative cash flow problems, and workers right in the middle of not giving a damn.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
No, I did RTFA, unlike you, who RTFS. The issue being pointed out here is with the house's wiring. The wiring that is custom installed for the car, but is not installed by Tesla. The charger is merely protecting against potential faults in that wiring.
For us, a request for the force multiplier will get a hammer in your hand.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Simple : It's not the fault of the charger, but the new charger protects against deficiencies in other areas... like shoddy house wiring.
This signature is false.
If you RTFA you would see that Musk talks about home wiring not always being done properly, so in order to avoid leaving that variable up to chance, Tesla has sent out chargers that shut themselves off at a certain temperature. Its almost like he cares if his customers are happy and hes willing to do what it takes to alleviate as many issues as possible while using his product, even when not caused by his own product.
As opposed to designing the charger to handle this not-particularly-outlandish possibility to begin with?
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Old house wiring can be... "interesting" is the word I'm looking for. Probably "done right" in 1930 or whenever it was installed, but not according to current standards.
And it can age badly.
For example: a house I once lived in had rubber insulated wiring. Over time, rubber goes hard and brittle and starts to crack. If it gets wet in this state - say, for example, near a bathroom fan that vents into the roof space - then it can begin to form a nice little short. So, whenever we showered for too long, a fuse would blow (literally an old fashioned black bakelite block with a fuse wire). Combine that with corroded brass (at least I think that's what it was: definitely not copper in any case) junction boxes that made the lights flicker at random times and bare-earth wiring (old Australian standard apparently) and you have a case of "wiring not done right for practical purposes".
"The charger connectors, which tether Tesla-issued cables to wall outlets, will be mailed out in the next two weeks, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said in an interview today. The replacements will be treated as a recall, though owners won’t be required to travel to service centers."
So it's a recall on the charger connectors. Not on the in house wiring.
The house wiring was not smoking or catching fire, it was the connectors.
So it was obviously a fault of the household wiring. But can be fixed by replacing the connectors.
Really?
You know what taking care of the customers is? Being honest. Like we are looking into it. And we found a possible issue, so we are sending a new connector. Not blaming it on the ghost in somebody else's work.
If there was a problem with in-house wiring, they would and should be fixing the issue there.
.
Nah, I RTFA.
So please. Do tell. What in house wiring issue makes the connector, not the in-house wires, overheat?
"You have some shitty wiring in your walls. It can set stuff on fire! But don't worry about the shit wiring job. Here's a new flameproof connector."
Geez. Yeah. Now that should make the customer sleep easier. In his house with the shit wiring.
.
My Dad did the wiring in our house. He also did wiring inspection for Boeing.
I don't fly.
House wiring is probable given the case....however, unlikely. As stated above, no one that actually enjoys their Tesla uses the house wiring to night charge. Might as well connect it to a USB charger.
The first thing I did was re-wire the place.
The charger itself resides in the car. The connector is simply a 240V, high current (30 Amp or more) special purpose plug.
Plugs overheat due to bad (high resistance) connections. And when they do so, they tend to draw less current, not more (like a short circuit would). A standard fuse is not what you want. A thermal sensor that would drop the charger load would seem to be more appropriate here. Possibly with arc fault sensing as well. If the fault was in the wall receptacle, it sounds like the electrician f*cked up installing it.
Have gnu, will travel.
There have been a number of problems with the UMC (cable in question). The cable has an adapter on the end to choose from a variety of plugs, i.e. NUMA 14-50, NUMA 14-30 standard 120v, NEMA 10-30, 6-50, etc.
I myself have seen issues where my NEMA 14-30 adapter would give a fault if the cable was bumped. The connection between the adapter and the cable is not all that solid and a number of owners have had issues with this.
About a foot away from this connector is a control box that contains a GFI and a relay and the circuitry to interface to the car.
The adapter has 5 pins on it. One for ground, one for each 240V leg (neutral is not used) and a pin that appears to go to a resistor to signal the amount of current supported by the adapter. I don't remember what the last pin does. Anyway, for the amount of current the NEMA 14-50 and 6-50 adapters carry the pins are rather small. The adapter also doesn't always securely latch to the cable which can lead to a bad connection causing the adapter and/or cable to melt.
I don't think this will be a big setback for Tesla. Tesla's retail price for this cable is $600.
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I own a Tesla model S and was never very fond of how the adapters connect to the UMC cable. The UMC cable has a 5-pin connector on the end that plugs into the wall where it plugs into one of numerous adapters. The adapters contain pins for ground and the two 240V legs (not neutral) or the hot, neutral and ground for the 115V adapters. There's also a resistor in it that signals the amount of current that can be drawn between one of the pins and ground. I don't recall what the last pin is for.
The connector between the adapter and the cable is a weak link. I myself have had intermittent issues with my NEMA 14-30 adapter and the cable where just wiggling it causes a fault to show up. The adapter connector is not all that tight nor is it particularly secure. The pins are also rather small considering how much current they can be carrying (up to 40A).
A number of owners have reported that this connection between the UMC cable and the plug adapter has overheated or melted. While it sounds like in the case of the garage fire it was likely the fault of substandard wiring of the NEMA 14-50 outlet the UMC cables have been a known problem.
About a foot from this adapter cable is a small box that has a relay, GFI and some signalling circuitry to interface with the Model S.
I've only used the NEMA 14-50 adapter a couple of times since I have a separate high power wall connector that's hard-wired into my home (100A feed). I'm a lot more comfortable using that over the UMC cable but Tesla has to fix the early HPWCs as well. The resettable fuses are too sensitive so they recommend not charging at the full 80A. I myself have not had any problems at 80A but normally they reduce it to 60 until they send someone out to replace the fuses.
I don't think this will be a major setback for Tesla. The retail price of the UMC is $600 which means it probably costs a lot less to manufacture. I just hope that if they change that connector that they replace all of my adapters since I bought a number of additional ones (at $45 each) to handle NEMA 14-30, 10-30, 6-50 and 120v/20A.
The UMC is basically the equivalent of a normal J1772 EV charger but with a switchable plug and in a much smaller form factor. Hell, my HPWC charger is a fraction the size of most J1772 EV chargers yet it handles a lot more power than most J1772 adapters (and it doesn't even get warm when pumping 80A through it).
The UMC is nice since it means I can charge my car at any RV park that has a 240V hookup or that an owner just needs to install a NEMA 14-50 outlet which is a lot less expensive than either a high-power wall connector ($1200) or a standard EV charger.
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Indeed.
There's another common denominator in the construction or remodeling process. Occasionally a competent electrician is used, one who understands load calcs, amp draw, and wire sizing. Many more times than you would want to know about, you get the other kind of electrician.
Apprentices training on the public, contractors who have perennial negative cash flow problems, and workers right in the middle of not giving a damn.
the issue Vanderhoth mentions is way beyond a matter of competency. It was extremely unethical and possibly criminal endangerment. The exposed junction boxes were rigged up with hidden junctions (which are not up to code) in an attempt to hide all traces of Aluminum wiring, while still having the entire house wired with Aluminum. The Aluminum wiring is not a problem per se, but any junction with copper wires (like in those hidden junction boxes) can cause galvanic corrosion. The fact that the copper wires just came loose here shows that improper connections were made. Aluminum wire connections have been implicated in fires and hazard insurance will either not cover a home with aluminum wiring or the rates will be higher. If there was a fire, his insurer would probably try to not pay any claims because the wiring was misrepresented to them.
The real issue is whether an electrician follows the building code or not. The building code specs out basic things like gauge of wire for circuit breaker size, number of outlets, types of connections, etc. If an electrician follows the code, they will never have to really do any calculations to ensure proper wiring is done.
An appliance that uses between 15A and 20A uses a different plug -- a 6-20P instead of a 6-15P. The neutral prong is rotated 90 degrees from what you're used to. It will only connect to a 20A outlet (a 6-20R).
Your vacuum, as another poster pointed out, does not draw between 15A and 20A. If it did, it would have a different plug than it does have.
Kid-proof tablet..
There's nothing wrong with the car that makes it fire prone... but we'll raise the clearance just because.
There's nothing wrong with the charger that caught fire... but we'll fix it anyway.
Seriously does anybody believe one word Musk says?
Engineers: People who, when finding out that their system might fail in your horrifically substandard conditions, attempt to address the problem present in your conditions and incorporate that knowledge of those conditions into the system, both in your version and the future.
I am not a crackpot.
Tribalism applied; it's actually basic Freud the same kind of stuff that gave birth to modern propaganda.
The tribal appeals work extremely well on primitive tribal minded people and is still somewhat effective on normal people. I would think the more extreme ones are the haters in these edge cases. It is not all that well hidden that there was an intentional strategy to attach traits to the tribal identity; denying global warming for example was actually planned. It is quite a brilliant way to control people; just as people wear, chant, and behave certain ways to be part of their "team" without much thought other than (I want to be in this group) people will tend to adopt positions of the group as well; the members indoctrinate each other but there is a strong pressure from the group identity underlying it all. You see it clearly in war propaganda, where the other tribe are baby eating inhuman monsters and merely doing something like them becomes unacceptable behavior. A recent example of how ridiculous (but effective) it can get is the "Freedom Fries" hate against our French ALLIES when the war propaganda machine turned against them.
Being a successful maverick/individualist businessman going against all odds etc, fits in well with the identity (as well as the tribal identity;) however, that doesn't have the level of propaganda behind it as these artificially appended traits which are also elevated to the level of it being taboo within the tribe. One can be in the tribe and be neutral on businessmen but if you are "green" that is a really huge taboo! It's as bad as taking a wife from an enemy tribe.
One could theorize... that these extra gullible tribal people are so easily gathered and controlled that all strongly cohesive groups form and thrive on this basis; therefore, such groups are tribal because non tribal groupings can't form that level of a monoculture (for lack of a better term.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Which is why I like New Zealand's approach (presuming it hasn't changed in the years since I read about it): You can wire your own home so long as you get it inspected, AND the government provides the information you need to know to do it right. Only if you want to do it for a profit (e.g. by wiring other people's homes) do you have to be a licensed electrician.
This is different to the Australian model, which is literally "if you want to replace even a broken light socket, even in your own home, you need to do an electrical apprenticeship with a registered authority, take a three year electrical course, obtain your electrician's license, and THEN you can replace the broken light socket in your own home as well as wiring homes and businesses for profit."
Guess which country had the higher electrical accident casualty rates? Hint: it wasn't the country they filmed Lord of the Rings in.
Nanny states have child citizens.
The real issue is whether an electrician follows the building code or not. The building code specs out basic things like gauge of wire for circuit breaker size, number of outlets, types of connections, etc. If an electrician follows the code, they will never have to really do any calculations to ensure proper wiring is done.
Sure. But. Calculations are still required for amp draw per circuit (which determines wire size and breaker ampacity), particularly when a specialty appliance has the unique demands of an electric car charger.
With regard to new construction, codes are followed religiously precisely because city inspections are required.
Remodels are a horse of another color.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It really wouldn't be Tesla's fault if developers were using cheap materials when building the house, but it is nice of them to do something to try and mitigate future issues after it becomes a known possibility. We can't account for every scenario that will ever occur, but we can learn as we go along.
And that is exactly what happened in this case, the problem was inside the junction box. (Not saying aluminum was used).
That Tesla can detect it in their charge adapter is great. I hope it sounds the car horn rather than simply stops charging. After all who knows how many upstream junction boxes were also over-heating from bad connections? Who knows what size breaker they decided to put in the main panel when the original one tripped?
Would it have been better if this had been thought of ahead of time? Probably.
But lets check all the other hybrid/electric cars and their chargers before we jealously hang Tesla out to dry.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The thing is that though the charger may not have initiated the house fire there have been a number of documented cases where the connector to the adapter on the UMC cable has overheated and in some cases melted. I have had intermittent connection problems with the 30A adapter I was using. The connector is not that great at making a solid connection and the conductors seem rather small considering that they could be carrying upwards of 40A.
I look forward to getting a new UMC cable though I hope they also replace all of the additional adapters I own. The car normally comes with the NEMA 14-50 and standard 120V adapters. I have all of the other adapters they make.
Now there have also been a number of fires caused by faulty home wiring with other cars as well such as the Leaf and Volt which draw far less current than the Tesla is capable of.
As the owner of a Tesla I think this is the right thing to do. Tesla has generally been very proactive at dealing with issues before some government agency tells them to and without fighting it. They generally treat the owners well.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
My problem is I've had more bad experiences with contractors than good. My first house (brand new) with a circuit in the kitchen where the GFI would constantly trip. I opened all of the outlets and switches to check the wires and everything was fine. I finally had enough and pulled off the fuse panel cover. Glad I did. The hot wire was just leaning against contacts. The set screw wasn't even close to being tight. Not only was this a professional but it also passed inspection. The wire had lots of arcing damage and needed to be replaced.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
In the USA, NFPA 70 code (NFPA 70 NEC 2014 Table 210.21(B)(3)) allows for a 15A outlets on a 20A breaker. The parallel prong outlets are rated at 15A (e.g. NEMA 5-15R), but there are 20A outlets, which have both regular (straight) prong and a T or perpendicular pong, which is rated at 20A (NEMA 5-20R).
Of course putting overheat protection in the charger plug only reduces the problem it doesn't solve it. It's perfectly possible for the wiring at the outlet to be just fine while further back in the circuit there is a bad connection or undersized wire.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I fully agree. It's one thing to wire a house and yet quite another to replace like for like something that is broken. It's not like it's complicated. Red wire goes to Red connector, Black goes to black, Green goes to green. Oh and god forbid you do that and then don't plug in a polarity checker to make sure you got it round correctly. But the laws in Australia go further. See it's not just a case of wiring a house. No, any LV work is effectively illegal. Build your own amplifier? Nope. Open a computer powersupply? Nope. Repair a power cable that is damaged? Nuh ah (though they still sell the plugs at Bunnings).
I do wish the AU laws were more like NZ's. However I don't wish they were any more lax than that. The DIY crowd can do some absolutely colossally stupid stuff in the name of ignorance or laziness, and electrical work is a fantastic way to burn down your house.
If it seems like hardware and software bugs show up faster, it is because the userbase that uses and report such bugs (easy to do now via social media) is much much much larger.
This. Let's say that Problem X is generally only going to be encountered by 1 out of 1k users per year. If you have a beta group of 1k users and have them test it for 1 year(incredibly large and long in today's environments) you may or may not have it pop up, I believe the odds are around 50-50 in this case of you getting at least 1 instance.
Now you release it to the public where it's sold to 100M users who proceed to use it for a decade. You're near certain to get a number of cases that rounds to 1M, which is a big problem...
I don't read AC A human right
I'm guessing those lines are bigger than 2mm thick.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
That sounds like an adequate description of pretty much all software development these days, roll it out on schedule, we'll deal with bugs (or deny there are any) later on.
The reason that companies can get away with this is because the Internet has made software distribution essentially free.
In the good/bad old days, releasing software meant pressing a few thousand (or a few hundred thousand) CDs and shipping them to stores. If there was a serious bug in the software, you'd probably have to do that process all over again, at a cost of thousands of dollars.
Now if you have a bug in your software, you just fix it and push the new version out to the customers via the software's self-update mechanism.
The advantage to the user is that they get to use the software sooner, and cheaper, and they get the (inevitable) bugs fixes quicker.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Sure. But. Calculations are still required for amp draw per circuit (which determines wire size and breaker ampacity), particularly when a specialty appliance has the unique demands of an electric car charger.
Not really any math above addition, and possibly even that if they're running a dedicated circuit for the specialty appliance like they're supposed to. The electrician memorizes some figures/looks at a chart. Heck, I've seen the figures printed on the boxes.
NEMA 5-15(standard outlet): 14 gauge minimum(copper), 15A* max, 12A design
NEMA 5-20(has the notch): 12 gauge minumum, 20A max, 16A design
NEMA 14-30(dryer, 240V): 10 gauge, 30A max, 24A design
NEMA 14-50(range, 240V): 6 gauge, 50A max, 40A design.
The 'formula' for simple installs is easy: Look at the amperage of the product you're using. round UP to the next breaker size. Use specified wire gauge. Manufacturers tend to make this even easier because they tend to not produce appliances that are close enough in amp ratings that you'd need to skip the next largest breaker - IE they don't make appliances that use 'exactly' 30A, they'll produce a <24A model then if you need heavier duty a 32-40A one.
Though I'll note that space heaters and hair dryers today tend to assume that you have a 20A circuit, but there's reasons why the heaters are limited to 1500 watts and dryers to 1875(but they're only this powerful if you feed them 125V, nice advertising guys! In reality they'll be closer to 1.6kw in homes with proper voltage).
*Though to meet code it has to be manufactured to be capable of safe operation at 20A+
I don't read AC A human right
You see, the problem with putting a 15A outlet on a 20A circuit is that it violates the cardinal rule in electrical wiring: You put a fuse wherever you go from thicker wire to thinner wire.
In both europe and america portable appliances frequently have cords that are too thin to carry the full rated current of the plug that is attatched to them and yet very few countries used fused plugs.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
As I understand it they put some logic in to detect power 'stutters' that are likely to come from an overheating, failing connection.
I don't read AC A human right
That would be, unusually high resistance in the socket that the connector plugged into. That is, exactly the fault that the fire service fingered in this case.
Yeah, Aluminum wiring really sucks, which is why all of the high voltage transmission lines in the US are made of it.
Like with anything "best" depends on what your criteria are.
For a given resistance an aluminium cable will be lighter and cheaper than a copper cable. IIRC witht he right alloys it also self-supports for longer distances. On the other hand aluminium (especially older alloys*) needs careful termination practices to avoid joints that fail over time.
For long overhead and underground cables which are maintained and altered by well trained jointers the advantages of aluminium outweigh the disadvantages. For house wiring which is often maintained and altered by householders or cowboy tradesmen and where joints are much more frequent things are the other way round.
* Pure aluminium is almost never used for anything because it's too soft, practical aluminum is nearly always alloyed and the details of the alloy can significantly affect eht properies of the material. This creates the further complication that different aluminium alloys have different termination requirements.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
(or without batteries) the thing is a toy.
this is a simple fact of life.
question for linus - who is git, and what is he objecting to?
Correct me if I'm wrong here but AIUI this is about the cable that tesla sells that has multiple adaptors so you can charge you car from your cooker circuit or your drier circuit or whatever. Not about the fixed chargers that are custom installed.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Jemmy: A short steel crowbar
Steel will conduct electricity fine; that's how your voltage returns in most cars - they use the frame.
I don't read AC A human right
I'd say that this is 20/20 hindsight in what's still a relatively new field. Do oven outlets normally have a temperature shutoff in them? It's the only other common household item that could be drawing over 30A on a routine basis that I can think of that actually has a plug, as opposed to being hardwired.
In-house testing problably got a most of the 1% stuff and almost all of the .1% problems., now they're working on the .01% problems with ~25k cars now in the field.
I don't read AC A human right
According to NEC, a standard 15 amp residential wall socket must be derated to 12 amps for any continuous load that lasts longer than 4 hours.
Incorrect in almost every way.
1. NEC doesn't 'derate' anything.
2. an up to code 15A wall socket is good for 15A, period. Probably 20A(they're rated for 20A passthrough; it's fairly common to run a 20A circuit with more 15A sockets). It's the wiring behind the socket that's the real concern...
3. The 12A is for 'dedicated load' use when designing a dedicated circuit(or deciding whether you need one). IE if you KNOW what an outlet is going to be used for before you install it. Maximum design load on a circuit is 80% of the Max. Because 15-20A circuits normally power multiple devices, there are more rules there, like how many outlets are allowed on a circuit. Due to the tendency to use heating appliances in kitchens(toasters, microwaves, etc..), there's fewer outlets allowed per circuit, and 20A is much more likely to be required. So if you're looking at a 14A device, you're required to install a 20A circuit, not a 15. This is partially to avoid having to redo work when the customer replaces said item with a 'heavy duty' one that draws just a touch more...
4. If you're putting an outlet on the circuit, the circuit must be rated for what can plug into said outlet.
5. Besides, Tesla Model S only draws 1.4kw when pluged into a NEMA5-15, 100 watts LESS than a common (US) space heater on 'high'.
I don't read AC A human right
There are plenty of (much smaller) battery chargers and battery packs out there that incorporate thermal fuses, enough to where people complain about them blowing and accuse the manufacturers of planned obsolescence. Yes, most electric ovens are thermally fused, and pretty much every household dryer has one as well.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I think the thing to consider here is that there's probably a bevy of thermal sensors, fuses, and cutoffs in Tesla's cars. Same deal with the ovens and dryers - the sensors are within the appliance itself, not the outlet as I specified.
Basically, putting thermal sensors in a dryer near the heating elements/air stream to prevent damage there makes sense. Having one in the oven to shut it down before it reaches combustion temperatures also makes senses. Putting one in the plug to try to detect that the outlet is overheating is non-standard.
I don't read AC A human right
It is also worth mentioning, with all this Tesla fire hype: Recalling parts for safety reasons in the automotive industry is the rule not the exception. Almost every model from every car manufacturer has had some parts or systems recalled. Fire is the cause of a significant percentage of recalls. It is hard to get exact numbers as each country has it's own database. I looked at the US one quickly for an example. Selected a random model and year (Aluma 2009), and sure enough there were three recalls for that year alone. The first one i clicked had the text "THIS DEFECT COULD RESULT IN A FIRE.".
Given the percentage of the vehicle fleet that is made of Teslas, this is not really relevant news.
I'm not certain what you're getting at or if you're trolling. Is it now Tesla's responsibility to make sure that the wiring in the home of ever Tesla owner is up to code? Frankly if the wiring is kludged any high-drain device runs the risk of sparking up a fire from a refridgerator to a massive Christmas light display.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
First, the OP's rant aside, NEC does define a "continuous load" as any load that is connected to a plug-and-socket connection for a period exceeding 3 hours. (article 100 definitions)
Second, the NEC requires that a circuit breaker be rated at 125% of any continuous load that may be connected to it (210.20A), which means that a branch circuit with a 15A breaker may only support a continuous load not exceeding 12A.
If a Tesla is plugged into a socket for more than three hours, then it may not draw more than 12A continuously, regardless of voltage or power factor. So, this calculation must be done at minimum grid voltage and actual power factor.
The US national power grid service specification is 120V +/- 5%. At the minimum voltage of 114V, and assuming perfect power factor, a 1.4kW load draws 12.28 amps, which exceeds the continuous load limit for a 15A branch circuit.
It is therefore a violation of the NEC to leave a Tesla plugged into a wall socket (dedicated or not) for longer than 3 hours if it is drawing 1.4kW that whole time. (It is also a violation to leave a space heater on 'high' for longer than three hours if it is drawing more than 12A).
Also keep in mind that the limit is 12A, regardless of power factor, so really if the Tesla is drawing 1.4kW and the power factor is not corrected, its current consumption may be considerably higher.
> Next step; posh neighborhoods with multiple Teslas discover that electric companies will eventually upgrade the grid to compensate for rising demand as there is money to be made from selling more power.
FTFY.
You are missing the point. When Elon said that the fault was in the house wiring, he was lying. Plain and simple. He should've just skipped the lie, said we found the issue, we are recalling the connectors (he actually _DID_ say that, google it), and sent out the replacement connectors (which he also did).
Resistance. In the socket. Which makes the connector overheat, start smoking and might set it on fire. Not the socket overheating. The connector. And the solution is to replace the connector, not the shitty socket that is mounted onto the wall. So you leave a crap socket in the house. That can set shit on fire. Wow dude.
my friend bought a home and we found knob and tube wiring in the basement, the inspector told him it was not live, my induction ammeter determined that was a lie
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Steel will conduct electricity fine; that's how your voltage returns in most cars - they use the frame.
Steel is occasionally used in wire for electrical transmission instead of copper (despite it's inferior conductivity) because it is less expensive and available in higher tensile strength(s).
Plus folks don't steal it near as often.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Engineers: People who, when finding out that their system might fail in your horrifically substandard conditions, attempt to address the problem present in your conditions and incorporate that knowledge of those conditions into the system, both in your version and the future.
Thank you. The engineer bashing in the rest of the thread is disturbing.
I would probably be doing much of the same if I were in Musk's shoes. I'm a mechanical engineer and I design fire engines. Our products can literally be the difference between life and death and are used and abused for 20+ years. When something like this happens, we usually go overboard to address the problem, even if it was completely the user's fault and unlikely to happen ever again.
Why? Because this is what the customer will remember. Especially in a market like the automotive industry where a customer can go buy a very similar product from a different brand (I know Tesla doesn't have many competitors, but it will at some point) you want to kiss the customer's ass so that they will buy another one.
Sounds like substandard house wiring. They probably designed the charger to max out the circuit. It's not their fault that someone else wired up the outlet improperly. It's nice that they are addressing the issue with both software and hardware changes, but these changes are in response to someone else's failure to meet spec.
1. NEC doesn't concern itself with users. It concerns itself with installers, inspectors, and professionals. The code is designed such that even if the user is clueless the worst that is supposed to happen is that the breaker trips.
2. Again, this is when the anticipated load is known during construction. NEC assumes users are idiots who can and will hook more things up in the future, thus the requirement for overhead. A 15A circuit with a 15A breaker is supposed to be safe even if you draw only 1 watt under the level at which the breaker would trip, with a 'worst case' situation being that the breaker fails open early.
3. UL Listed 1500 watt heaters are sold all the time, and they don't have timers. There's also no warnings about 'no more than 3 hours at a time'. If I was at home I'd grab my copy of the code book, but it's all about expected use when wiring, not use once the wires are in place. Breakers are always supposed to trip before damage in case of too much current draw. It's only when wiring isn't up to code - installed wrong or damaged that it's an issue.
4. You're assuming that the Model S, where the charging off a 5-15 port is listed at '110V, 12A, 1400W' is going to continue to draw 1.4kw, as opposed to using all it's fancy current limiting circuitry to limit it to 12A as opposed to 1.4kw.
5. Again, the NEC doesn't do JACK about consumers. Consumers aren't expected to know the NEC, about any 3 hour rule, etc... Now, if an electrician doing the wiring for a house is told that 'We expect to use outlet X for a space heater all night long' if he's doing it to code he'd have to run 12 gauge for a 20A breaker for that circuit, as opposed to 14 gauge/15A. For that matter, if they try it with a 'standard' 15A breaker as opposed to a 'full load' one, they'll probably get nuisance trips after a short period of time. A standard 15A breaker will start tripping if you draw more than 12A for over 3 hours. When it'll trip after that depends on the manufacturer, product line, and individual breaker.
6. Can't say about it's power factor level, other than given it's flexibility I think that it'd use a 'huge' switchmode power supply, and if's a power factor correcting one it should be quite good.
I don't read AC A human right
In this case though, it's dodgy house wiring in the wall socket that is caching fire, not able to handle a constant high current that it is supposed to be rated for.
210.20A says that, but you also have:
210.3 Rating. Branch circuits recognized by this article shall be rated in accordance with the maximum permitted ampere rating or setting of the overcurrent device. The rating for other than individual branch circuits shall be 15, 20, 30, 40, and 50 amperes. Where conductors of higher ampacity are used for any reason, the ampere rating or setting of the specified overcurrent device shall determine the circuit rating.
Not to mention the exception in 210.20A:
Exception: Where the assembly, including the overcurrent devices protecting the branch circuit(s), is listed for operation at 100 percent of its rating, the ampere rating of the overcurrent device shall be permitted to be not less than the sum of the continuous load plus the noncontinuous load.
From reviewing the code book, the concern isn't safety, it's that many circuit breakers will start popping below their rated capacity if pressed to over 80% for long periods of time(3+ hours). Oddly enough, the CH series breakers in my house are 100% rated, so I could safely pull 15A off a 15A breaker all day long. Good thing my wiring is up to code.
I don't read AC A human right
No, the socket overheated and smoked, and then set on fire, not the connector. The solution is to replace the wiring, and socket in the house. However, this solution can only be carried out if you actually know that it's faulty. Thus, by installing a heat sensor in the connector, detecting the fault, shutting down safely, and notifying the home owner, you improve the situation, even though the connector was not at any point at fault.
It's good to get on top of these things.
Although, I do wonder what changed their mind, since less than a month ago there was no way, nope, not a chance that the Tesla charger had anything whatsoever to do with that garage fire. Nope, not a chance in heck.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/18/us-autos-tesla-fire-idUSBRE9BH1J020131218
Perhaps you should talk to a few model S owners, ask them if they feel the car is beta quality.
Most will say it's the best car they have ever driven.
Just because the car has room for improvement in its software, and the first user's experience and feedback help in the process of improving the software, it doesn't make it beta quality.
It's amazing how many people try really hard to say bad things about a Tesla, without a single test drive.