[North American] - In case you're curious - Tesla Gen3 Wall Chargers EVSE Powersharing Setup

[daveo4EV]

this is for the curious - and not directly related to Porsche/Taycan - but we talk a lot about EVSE's and one of the best is the Tesla Gen3 Wall Chargers. And one of the things that make them the best choice is an advanced feature called "power sharing"

Summary: Powersharing for the multi-EV/PHEV household - that wants multiple EVSE's for charging family/friends/vistors - but lacks the ability, budget, or capacity to have dedicated EVSE circuits.

If you want 3 EVSE's for example and you want each of them to be 60 amps (48 amp charge rate) then you'd need 180 amps of dedicated EV circuits to support 3 separate EVSE's - that is simply beyond the capacity of 98% of North American households - it's also wasteful - in that while you might have to charge 1, 2, or 3 EV's they may not all be charging at the same time, for the same duration, or even all at once. So while all 3 EVs/PHEV's could be charging at a full 60/48 amps at the same time - it's unlikely

rather you simply want to be able to plug in 3 EVs/PHEV's and have them charge when they can at what ever capacity is available at the time - this is where power sharing comes in. If only one EV is plugged in that sole EV gets "full capacity" charge, but if you have two EV's plugged in the EVSE's will split the load and share the overall budget with each EV, until one stops/finishses, and then redirect the unused Amp budget to the remaining EV… this allows you to have a much more reasonable 60/80/100 amp EV circuit, but and have the EVSE's split the overall available load based dynamically on demand…

the ability to do this with an EVSE is one aspect of EV ownership happiness in my opinion , and while we've talk a lot about it - I don't think we've shared what an actual setup looks like…

my setup

1. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - J-1772 [Blue faceplate] - PowerShare "master" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
2. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - J-1772 [Red faceplate] - PowerShare "slave" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
3. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - Universal NACS/J-1772 - PowerShare "slave" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
4. 100 amp subpanel w/100 amp dedicated EV circuit feeding the sub panel
5. Powersharing configured for a 'shared' 80 amp charging "budget" (100 amp breaker)
   1. the 3 units can each do 48 amps max - but will never exceed a total draw/capacity of 80 amps while charging multiple EV's

Personally this setup is slick and I've used it to charge up to 3 EV's at the same time overnight - plug&play -fire&forget - "it just works"

once you have the "physical" setup complete and the 3 separate Wall Chargers setup/configured/powered - you pick one of them (doesn't matter which one) to be the "power sharing" master unit - you then "add" up to another 5 Wall Chargers (NACS, J-1772, Universal) to the "main" unit by entering their Wifi network SSID/passwords - this "joins" the units to the "PowerShare network" and they from that point forward will co-operate when charging to make sure max budget is not exceeded, but provide maximum power for each unit when they can and not go over budget…

as I said - it works slick…

below I have included two screen shots that show the basic configuration pages for Powersharing so you can get an idea what it looks like. You setup Powersharing by having a phone/table/comptuer "join" the main-unit's wifi hotspot, and then use a web-browser to configure the unit - 192.168.92.1 is the IP address to connect to any Tesla Wall Charger once you've joined it's wifi hotspot…the screen shots below were taken from MacOS/Safari, but should look the same on most any device and show the specifics of the Powersharing setup

questions/comments are welcome - again this is posted for curiosity - but if you think there is more EV/PHEV in your future rather than less - I highly recommend considering this type of setup for multiple EV/PHEV ownership happiness - there are other vendors that provide similar functionality for their EVSE's but I think Tesla's happens to be one of the best and most easily available EVSE for this exact application.

enjoy!!!


1st Screen this is the "main" menu and shows overall status of your Tesla Wall Charger and it's Powerharing status…see below

this 2nd screen is the actual Powersharing configuration enable/disable screen and you can see the details of of my configuration with 3 Wall Charger units, each configured for 48 amps max, sharing an 80 amp overall budget and their current status - two unplugged, one plugged in…

 

[daveo4EV]

here is the "view" of the configuration page from one of the "slave" units - where it clearly shows it's under control of the main unit for PowerShare…

 

[4thPcar]

this is for the curious - and not directly related to Porsche/Taycan - but we talk a lot about EVSE's and one of the best is the Tesla Gen3 Wall Chargers. And one of the things that make them the best choice is an advanced feature called "power sharing"

Summary: Powersharing for the multi-EV/PHEV household - that wants multiple EVSE's for charging family/friends/vistors - but lacks the ability, budget, or capacity to have dedicated EVSE circuits.

If you want 3 EVSE's for example and you want each of them to be 60 amps (48 amp charge rate) then you'd need 180 amps of dedicated EV circuits to support 3 separate EVSE's - that is simply beyond the capacity of 98% of North American households - it's also wasteful - in that while you might have to charge 1, 2, or 3 EV's they may not all be charging at the same time, for the same duration, or even all at once. So while all 3 EVs/PHEV's could be charging at a full 60/48 amps at the same time - it's unlikely

rather you simply want to be able to plug in 3 EVs/PHEV's and have them charge when they can at what ever capacity is available at the time - this is where power sharing comes in. If only one EV is plugged in that sole EV gets "full capacity" charge, but if you have two EV's plugged in the EVSE's will split the load and share the overall budget with each EV, until one stops/finishses, and then redirect the unused Amp budget to the remaining EV… this allows you to have a much more reasonable 60/80/100 amp EV circuit, but and have the EVSE's split the overall available load based dynamically on demand…

the ability to do this with an EVSE is one aspect of EV ownership happiness in my opinion , and while we've talk a lot about it - I don't think we've shared what an actual setup looks like…

my setup

1. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - J-1772 [Blue faceplate] - PowerShare "master" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
2. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - J-1772 [Red faceplate] - PowerShare "slave" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
3. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - Universal NACS/J-1772 - PowerShare "slave" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
4. 100 amp subpanel w/100 amp dedicated EV circuit feeding the sub panel
5. Powersharing configured for a 'shared' 80 amp charging "budget" (100 amp breaker)
   1. the 3 units can each do 48 amps max - but will never exceed a total draw/capacity of 80 amps while charging multiple EV's

Personally this setup is slick and I've used it to charge up to 3 EV's at the same time overnight - plug&play -fire&forget - "it just works"

once you have the "physical" setup complete and the 3 separate Wall Chargers setup/configured/powered - you pick one of them (doesn't matter which one) to be the "power sharing" master unit - you then "add" up to another 5 Wall Chargers (NACS, J-1772, Universal) to the "main" unit by entering their Wifi network SSID/passwords - this "joins" the units to the "PowerShare network" and they from that point forward will co-operate when charging to make sure max budget is not exceeded, but provide maximum power for each unit when they can and not go over budget…

as I said - it works slick…

below I have included two screen shots that show the basic configuration pages for Powersharing so you can get an idea what it looks like. You setup Powersharing by having a phone/table/comptuer "join" the main-unit's wifi hotspot, and then use a web-browser to configure the unit - 192.168.92.1 is the IP address to connect to any Tesla Wall Charger once you've joined it's wifi hotspot…the screen shots below were taken from MacOS/Safari, but should look the same on most any device and show the specifics of the Powersharing setup

questions/comments are welcome - again this is posted for curiosity - but if you think there is more EV/PHEV in your future rather than less - I highly recommend considering this type of setup for multiple EV/PHEV ownership happiness - there are other vendors that provide similar functionality for their EVSE's but I think Tesla's happens to be one of the best and most easily available EVSE for this exact application.

enjoy!!!


1st Screen this is the "main" menu and shows overall status of your Tesla Wall Charger and it's Powerharing status…see below

this 2nd screen is the actual Powersharing configuration enable/disable screen and you can see the details of of my configuration with 3 Wall Charger units, each configured for 48 amps max, sharing an 80 amp overall budget and their current status - two unplugged, one plugged in…

@daveo4EV as you see elsewhere I am considering your approach to installing the Tesla Universal Charger. I have my wife's Tesla on the other side of the garage with a dedicated charger. Clear on the other side is my charger. Can I benefit from this universal setup to have it charge both vehicles? I am not clear on how a second charge cord would come from the universal unit, and I guess it would have to travel across the garage to reach my wife's car?

 

[daveo4EV]

@daveo4EV as you see elsewhere I am considering your approach to installing the Tesla Universal Charger. I have my wife's Tesla on the other side of the garage with a dedicated charger. Clear on the other side is my charger. Can I benefit from this universal setup to have it charge both vehicles? I am not clear on how a second charge cord would come from the universal unit, and I guess it would have to travel across the garage to reach my wife's car?

I'm confused by this question

but here are some facts

the universal charger comes with one 25ft cord from the wall unit to the vehicle
it has a built-in J-1772 adapter
you either pull the cord off the unit and it comes "out" with a NACS/Tesla plug

_OR_

you pull the cord out by pressing a differnt button to release the cord and it comes "out" of the charger holster with a J-1772 adapter on the end of the cord

so depending on how you remove the cord from the holster it's either a Tesla/NACS plug _OR_ a J-1772 plug - so it can plug into either a TEsla or J-1772 EV - but it's still only one cord - and can only charge one vehicle at a time - but is universal in that is has the physical plug type for both types of North American EV's.

I hope this helps.

 

[4thPcar]

It was difficult to image all this until I re-read it. In my case, I am considering to install the Tesla Universal charger (which you know by now as you've answered most of my questions about it). Meanwhile my wife has the Tesla charger for her model 3 on the other side. I was thinking that maybe this power sharing could be achieved via your set up. But maybe not if her charger is the basic out-of-the-box unit that came with the car.

 

[daveo4EV]

It was difficult to image all this until I re-read it. In my case, I am considering to install the Tesla Universal charger (which you know by now as you've answered most of my questions about it). Meanwhile my wife has the Tesla charger for her model 3 on the other side. I was thinking that maybe this power sharing could be achieved via your set up. But maybe not if her charger is the basic out-of-the-box unit that came with the car.

you are correct you can PowerShare the following units:

• Tesla Wall Charger (NACS) - Gen3
• Tesla Wall Charger J-1772 - Gen3
• Tesla Wall Charger Universal - Gen3

you can NOT PowerShare with any of Tesla "mobile" EVSE's - they don't have the necessary support.

you can "mix/match" these unit as you see fit - Powersharing supports up to 6 separate gen3 units sharing a single allocated "budget" of AMP's

you do not _NEED_ to PowerShare your unit if you have already installed dedicated separate breakers/circuits for your multiple EVSE's - the only reason to PowerShare is to share a single AMP budget where you would not normally have sufficient total amps for each unit to have it's own dedicated allocation of AMPs.

 

[Marmolata]

nope. not buying anything that gives a single penny to that lunatic.

 

[arijaycomet]

GREAT write up, thanks for sharing. Sounds like you/I are cut of the same fabric, my friend.

When I finish tonight, my home setup will be 3x chargers, across 2x 60A breakers, with 2x on a power share line. So similar to yours except that instead of a single sub panel, my Tesla Universal stands alone (driveway, 60A dedicated) and then my garage has 2x units (one NACS, one J1772) that power share (60A breaker).

At this point I'm waiting for some splice/splitters that are insulated that I got special order that should arrive today, to finish my garage setup. Funniest part about my setup is we only have 2x cars/EVs right now. But a teen who will be driving soon, so preparations

 

[ender21]

this is for the curious - and not directly related to Porsche/Taycan - but we talk a lot about EVSE's and one of the best is the Tesla Gen3 Wall Chargers. And one of the things that make them the best choice is an advanced feature called "power sharing"

Summary: Powersharing for the multi-EV/PHEV household - that wants multiple EVSE's for charging family/friends/vistors - but lacks the ability, budget, or capacity to have dedicated EVSE circuits.

If you want 3 EVSE's for example and you want each of them to be 60 amps (48 amp charge rate) then you'd need 180 amps of dedicated EV circuits to support 3 separate EVSE's - that is simply beyond the capacity of 98% of North American households - it's also wasteful - in that while you might have to charge 1, 2, or 3 EV's they may not all be charging at the same time, for the same duration, or even all at once. So while all 3 EVs/PHEV's could be charging at a full 60/48 amps at the same time - it's unlikely

rather you simply want to be able to plug in 3 EVs/PHEV's and have them charge when they can at what ever capacity is available at the time - this is where power sharing comes in. If only one EV is plugged in that sole EV gets "full capacity" charge, but if you have two EV's plugged in the EVSE's will split the load and share the overall budget with each EV, until one stops/finishses, and then redirect the unused Amp budget to the remaining EV… this allows you to have a much more reasonable 60/80/100 amp EV circuit, but and have the EVSE's split the overall available load based dynamically on demand…

the ability to do this with an EVSE is one aspect of EV ownership happiness in my opinion , and while we've talk a lot about it - I don't think we've shared what an actual setup looks like…

my setup

1. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - J-1772 [Blue faceplate] - PowerShare "master" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
2. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - J-1772 [Red faceplate] - PowerShare "slave" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
3. Tesla Gen3 Wall Charger - Universal NACS/J-1772 - PowerShare "slave" unit - 48 amp max charge rate [60 amp breaker]
4. 100 amp subpanel w/100 amp dedicated EV circuit feeding the sub panel
5. Powersharing configured for a 'shared' 80 amp charging "budget" (100 amp breaker)
   1. the 3 units can each do 48 amps max - but will never exceed a total draw/capacity of 80 amps while charging multiple EV's

Personally this setup is slick and I've used it to charge up to 3 EV's at the same time overnight - plug&play -fire&forget - "it just works"

once you have the "physical" setup complete and the 3 separate Wall Chargers setup/configured/powered - you pick one of them (doesn't matter which one) to be the "power sharing" master unit - you then "add" up to another 5 Wall Chargers (NACS, J-1772, Universal) to the "main" unit by entering their Wifi network SSID/passwords - this "joins" the units to the "PowerShare network" and they from that point forward will co-operate when charging to make sure max budget is not exceeded, but provide maximum power for each unit when they can and not go over budget…

as I said - it works slick…

below I have included two screen shots that show the basic configuration pages for Powersharing so you can get an idea what it looks like. You setup Powersharing by having a phone/table/comptuer "join" the main-unit's wifi hotspot, and then use a web-browser to configure the unit - 192.168.92.1 is the IP address to connect to any Tesla Wall Charger once you've joined it's wifi hotspot…the screen shots below were taken from MacOS/Safari, but should look the same on most any device and show the specifics of the Powersharing setup

questions/comments are welcome - again this is posted for curiosity - but if you think there is more EV/PHEV in your future rather than less - I highly recommend considering this type of setup for multiple EV/PHEV ownership happiness - there are other vendors that provide similar functionality for their EVSE's but I think Tesla's happens to be one of the best and most easily available EVSE for this exact application.

enjoy!!!

This is a dream setup for charging. Well done!

Do all of the units need to be connected to max out at 48A or could they be connected to a lower-amerpage breaker - or configured - to max out at 40A, or 32A?

Did you need to have an electrician install them all for you? Do the units only come prepared for hardwiring?

And I assume these are all manage through the Tesla app?

Thanks!

 

[daveo4EV]

This is a dream setup for charging. Well done!

Do all of the units need to be connected to max out at 48A or could they be connected to a lower-amerpage breaker - or configured - to max out at 40A, or 32A?

Did you need to have an electrician install them all for you? Do the units only come prepared for hardwiring?

And I assume these are all manage through the Tesla app?

Thanks!

Units can be on any size "breaker" you want - all the units are hardwired (normally) - in my case 2 units are hardwired, and the 3rd unit is NEMA 14-50 plug based via a heavy duty NEMA 14-50 "oven" electrical pig-tail sold on amazon - units from Tesla only come as hardwired - but other posts detail how you can convert any hardwired unit to plug-based

NOTE: in a setup like this the "illusion" of a breaker per-unit starts to fade - in reality most people assume the breakers protect the "device" - this is wrong - the breaker size is meant to protect the wire from the breaker to the devices - in any conforming installation (passes inspect/code) the wire gauge/material is properly matched for the maximum current load as indicated by the associated breaker - correct breaker size ==== correct wire gauge for the anticipated load - depending on building codes and your electrician there could be a variety of wire topologies where 1 to 6 Tesla units are wired to all share an over all AMP budget - since each unit is maximum draw/currrent/load of 60/48 amps - appropriate wire gauge for 60/48 amp for each unit would cover the maximum current loads even when sharing an overall 200 amp capacity - it's best to consult your licenced/bonded elecrtician for your situation/home/building-codes - but the main safetey feature is that the breaker prevents the wire from overheating/melting/failing when it's over capacity.

you configure the units via built-in Webportal on each unit's local Wifi hotspot _OR_ the Tesla ONE app (not the Tesla app). I've used both the webportal and hte Tesla One app - I find the webportal more straight forward and less fussy vs. the Tesla One app - YMMV

 

[snstevens]

Well done Dave.

Always excellent insights.

 

[andrewket]

Nice setup! I have a similar config but I am using three Gen 2 Tesla HPWCs. They also load balance but require a 4-pair cable for communication between them. The wifi capability of the gen 3’s make it much simpler, not to mention the reporting capabilities. When these fail I’ll likely replace them with gen 3, although i do have a spare NIB gen 2. When the gen 3’s were released I snagged a gen 2 on sale knowing that if one failed I would have to replace all three. The two generations are not compatible with each other.

 

[agility65]

I have two unit setups like this. Works great. It allows me to charge from solar at much cheaper rates and only charge during off-peak times when not charging from my solar panels, unlike the broken app profiles that charge to 100% when you setup timers or preferred charging periods.

 

[ZenicaNC]

I installed two dedicated EVSE circuits, one 30 amp and one 60 amp, both using the same 4 gauge wire so I could swap the 30 amp breaker if I swap the EVGo charger for something stronger. The other is the Porsche EVSE which can go to 100 amps but my Taycan lacks the higher AC charging ability so no need for anything better than 4 gauge.

I can charge both concurrently without issue from a 200 amp panel. A lot of homes we looked at in the area, to my surprise, had 400 amp panels so I inquired with Duke. They said it would require a change in the meter to up my main from 200 to 400 but that's it from them and best of all, their work is free. An electrician would then either add a 200 sub or replace the existing. I think the cost would be higher with a 400 amp panel over using the Tesla system but comes with the freedom to use more amperage hungry devices without as much regard to an upper limit. The Tesla Universal Wall EVSE lists at $620 but requires you to use an electrician from their list or can you use a local electrician you've used before?

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