Family of 4, two Model 3s, one NEMA 14-50 in the garage — sequential charging schedule?
Both of us drive Model 3s daily, my wife's is the commuter, mine does more weekend miles, and we've only got the one NEMA 14-50 wall unit in the garage from when we bought the first car. For the last year we've just been physically unplugging one car's cable and plugging in the other every night around 9pm and again around 3am so each car gets roughly 6 hours — one of us actually sets a phone alarm for the 3am swap, which is exactly as fun as it sounds.
Before I spend $1500-2000 on a second full install, is there a smarter way to coordinate this with what we already have? Curious if anyone's using Tesla's own scheduling, a smart plug, or literally anything that beats a 3am alarm to swap a cable.
Filed under: Home Charging & NEMA Outlets
8
7 answers
7 ANSWERS
@granthamjJuly 24, 2026
You can at least kill the 3am alarm without buying anything: set both cars' scheduled departure/charge start times in the Tesla app so whichever car is plugged in at a given time only draws power in its own window — car A set to charge 9pm-3am, car B set to only start after 3am. You'd still need to physically swap the plug at 3am, but you could set the swap window to whenever's actually convenient for you, not a fixed clock time forced on you.
That at least means I can pick a swap time that isn't 3am, which is honestly most of the win right there. Didn't realize the scheduling was that flexible.
@kmoore79July 24, 2026
A basic smart plug isn't the move here, for the record — almost none of them are rated for anywhere near a 14-50's 40-50A draw, they're built for 15A household stuff. If you want actual automation you'd need a purpose-built EV load-sharing or power-sharing charger setup, not a smart-home plug from Amazon.
@dutch_b74July 24, 2026
We ran a very similar swap setup for a few months with two vehicles on one circuit before adding a second one. Never automated it, just picked a swap time that fit our actual schedule instead of an arbitrary clock split and it worked fine — sometimes the low-tech answer really is just 'pick a better time.'
@orbit_snackJuly 24, 2026
If you eventually do the second install, look into whether your specific wall unit brand supports power sharing between two units on one circuit — some (mainly the pricier ones) split available amperage dynamically between two connected cars instead of needing two full dedicated circuits, cheaper than two totally separate 50A runs.
That's good to know for whenever we do pull the trigger on a second charger, appreciate it.
@duskravenJuly 31, 2026
We do a manual swap too honestly, two years running, and the phone alarm isn't that bad once it's routine. Sometimes the simplest fix really is just a fix, not a system.
Delete post?
Once you delete this post, it can't be restored.