Receptacle, Single, 50A, 14-50R, 250V, Black

After spending more than $50K on your Tesla, do not trust your house and vehicle to a cheap Home Depot NEMA 14-50 outlet. The problem with the cheaper outlets is that the wire clamping is not as secure, and the plug connectors don't fully connect to the entire plug with. This means the cheaper outlets are subject to wearing down from plugging and unplugging, as well as to fires and melted parts due to the stress of fully loaded charging. Do yourself a huge favor, and protect your car and house with this Tesla approved, industrial quality outlet. I have it hooked up with 6 AWG wires. I only pull the plug out when I need the charger for trips, about once every month or two. But, it's super solid to unplug and plug the charger. Tip: The size of the outlet is larger than the cheap ones, so you'll an outlet cover with a larger hole. Look for the Hubbell SS701 or another with 2 31/64 inch hole diameter.

I bought this Hubbell 14-50 outlet after my Leviton melted after two years of charging. The pic of the melted outlet is the Leviton 14-50, the new one next to it is the replacement Hubbell 14-50. Some background. Semi-permanent new install, using a wall mount Leviton 40A 240V charging box (also branded as Bosch as I've noticed). Car is a Kia Soul EV+, which takes in max 6.6kW (almost 30A), and fully charges from zero to full (about 30 kWH) in four and a half hours. I usually charge the car for a two hours or less, since I don't drive that much. The 14-50 cable was plugged in only ONCE, and never unplugged, as it is a big wall unit. After two years of getting really hot the plastic part around one of the terminals melted, and the wire disconnected. I never saw or smelled, or felt any smoke, fire, or anything wrong. It was just one day the charger didn't turn on. Looked around, and saw what you see in the pics. Thankfully, house didn't catch on fire and the Leviton charging box is still OK. -The Leviton outlet is cheap. It uses just a single phillips head screw to tighten down the cable into a galvanized stamped U-shaped piece of steel, and I tightened down the 6 gauge wires as much as I possibly could. Can't put much torque on a phillips, as it just cams out. Also, the outlet prongs for the 14-50 plug are half length, galvanized steel. Very little contact, very cheap, and prone to overheating. -The Hubble uses a 5/16 allen head screw that tightens down a solid copper V-shaped block onto another copper block. Good conductive material, well thought out design. Much superior to the Leviton, but the price shows it. Seeing the melted plastic, I opted for the best possible because I didn't want to take chances on......my house/car. Sorry, but no amount of money saved is worth catastrophic risk. -The breaker never tripped, because it wasn't using that much current (not nearly the 50A needed to trip). Just got too hot, under the amount needed to trip the circuit, but way too hot, and slowly melted over time. -The wires were fine except for the part that plugged into the Leviton. I had to replace the wires because they had burnt plastic coating them. I took the time to replace all the wires because, might as well. -The Hubbell is about twice as heavy as the Leviton. -The Leviton was about $11.00 from the HarDware store. Hubbell was about eight times that from Amazon. -Using a temp sensor, the Hubbell got as much as 95 degrees F hot, but probably lower than the Leviton did. I didn't know it was melting until it was too late, but I imagine the temps were much hotter than 95. -Don't buy or use Leviton 14-50 outlets for your EV charging. It might work for a while, maybe even two years like mine, but eventually the plastic will melt and look like mine did. It probably works for ovens or dryers, which it was made for.

I had another brand of more residential outlet installed to charge my EV. After a couple of years my EVSE (“charger” for the lay person) started having faults, and would stop charging or slow significantly. I finally changed it out for this huge Hubbell beast and it is clearly a more appropriate tool for the charging loads of an EV. The old one actually had areas where the plastic had melted internally. The new one is super beefy, big sturdy V-groove contacts you crank down with a hex wrench and they really grip the wire. Cool as a cucumber. Just make sure you get the deeper box to put it in.

It’s unfortunate that the price on this is so high now. Demand has caused some of that. But just grin and buy it knowing you have bought the best, most reliable, plug for your level 2 charger plug. It is really well made and a solid piece of work.

This solved my Tesla "high temperature" alerts on a 5 yr old Leviton plug. The Leviton only have half coverage of the pins compared to this device with full coverage. It's a tight fit for a standard 4" box so I got the Hubbell 8257 4-11/16" box. But the ears on the 14-50 receptacle don't line up with the larger box. You'll need to get a "4-11/16 SQ COVER 2 DEVICE 1/2"RAISED" (both available at home centers) which will also give a little more depth. You can then attach the Hubbell 313292 faceplate (which you need because it's larger in diameter than standard plugs) with the 4 supplied screws but as others have reported, the screws don't have hardly any holding strength so don't tighten too much or you'll have to tap larger screws. In retrospect I could have gone with a RACO 888 4-11/16 coverplate which has the 2-5/8 hole which looks like should fit the 8257 box. You just don't get the fancy stainless steel cover plate. You need to torque wires to 75 lb-in / 8.5 N-m. Too little and you'll get high temps. Too much and you can crack the receptacle. You can get a torque screwdriver on Amazon. But I cobbled together a digital torque adapter and 3/16 hex bit which I already had - more expensive but more useful in the long run if you do automotive work.

I bought my first Tesla in 2018 and did not understand the importance of installing an industrial grade NEMA 14-50 plug. At the time, the issue seemed to be about inserting and extracting the plug, and since I did not plan on doing this often, I did not object to my electrician installing a Leviton plug. Fast forward to 2023 and I am on my 2nd Tesla. I started to get a warning from the mobile charging that the plug was overheating and the amperage was automatically reduced by the car to prevent a problem. I purchased this Hubbell 9450A plug and replaced the Leviton plug myself. The Leviton plug had obvious heat damage around one of the wire connections. This Hubbell 9450A plug has a different wire clamping mechanism. The Leviton clamps at 25 in/lb; the Hubbell clamps at 75 in/lb. I used a 1/4 inch socket torque wrench to make sure I had the wires clamped to spec. 75 in/lb was tighter than I would have expected if I had been just tightening by feel. This plug will also require a Hubbell wall plate since the socket is a little larger than a standard household NEMA 14-50. I am going to try a TayMac MM2420C 2 gang waterproof outlet cover to protect the plug further, even though my installation is in the garage and will not be exposed to the elements.

The Hubbell 240v outlets are MUCH more robust than almost all the other brands, because they are able to handle a CONTINUOUS LOAD. The other brands - almost to a model - can handle intermittent use only. EV charging is considered a continuous load, unlike ovens or dryers. And please use copper wire, NOT aluminum, even if aluminum satisfies code. Aluminum expands and contracts too much for this continuous, relatively high amperage circuit needed. (A high reliability circuit breaker such as Square D is recommended too.)

This receptacle is highly recommended among the EV community and I did my fair amount of research as well. You don't want to be cheap and buy a budget outlet, especially if you're using this with your electric vehicle. This is a high-grade, industrial quality NEMA 14-50 outlet that is simple for a professional electrician (that I hired) to install. It's heavy duty and supports unplugging far more than a cheaper option. Works perfectly with my Polestar 2.