question on Scheduled Departure charging

[Robocheme]

I'm on my third Tesla and I've yet to figure out Scheduled Departure charging. I set my battery limit to 100% (for a trip) and the departure time to 6 AM. When I plug my level 2 plug in the night before it immediately starts charging, regardless of the state of charge. For example, the SOC is at 83% and I plugged it in at 8 pm and it started charging even though it'll only take two hours to get to 100%.

This seems to happen regardless whether I have the preconditioning enabled or not. I have off-peak charging turned off.

Any suggestions to getting it to finish charging at 6 AM?

Thanks,

Cliff

 

[jddaigle]

I am not a Tesla tech docs writer but here’s what I’ve gleaned from usage:

You can use the “Schedule Charging” feature to tell the car when to start charging. If you have off-peak electricity charges you can tell it when that period starts, so it will wait to start charging until that period starts. Once you reach your set maximum charge point it will keep it there, within 1-2%. It won’t do anything with regards to cabin temperature.

Or you can use the “Scheduled Departure” to tell the car when to be all ready to go (charged to your limit, cabin conditioned to your set temp). If you have off-peak electricity charges you can tell it when that period ends, so it will fill the car before then. It will wait to start charging so that it reaches your set maximum charge right before your off-peak time ends, and then it will keep it topped off until your departure time.

Subtle differences, hope that helps!

 

[Robocheme]

I am not a Tesla tech docs writer but here’s what I’ve gleaned from usage:

You can use the “Schedule Charging” feature to tell the car when to start charging. If you have off-peak electricity charges you can tell it when that period starts, so it will wait to start charging until that period starts. Once you reach your set maximum charge point it will keep it there, within 1-2%. It won’t do anything with regards to cabin temperature.

Or you can use the “Scheduled Departure” to tell the car when to be all ready to go (charged to your limit, cabin conditioned to your set temp). If you have off-peak electricity charges you can tell it when that period ends, so it will fill the car before then. It will wait to start charging so that it reaches your set maximum charge right before your off-peak time ends, and then it will keep it topped off until your departure time.

Subtle differences, hope that helps!

Yes, I'm trying to get Scheduled Departure to work. Right now, it just starts charging when I plug it in.

 

[jddaigle]

Yes, I'm trying to get Scheduled Departure to work. Right now, it just starts charging when I plug it in.

My guess is you don’t have a peak charge time set in the Scheduled Departure settings. If you don’t it will just get you to your set max charge right away and then maintain it until your set departure time.

 

[UoMDeacon]

The below settings work for me if I want my car to get up to 100% right before I leave. I have Schedule Charging set to off as well.

 

[Rocky_H]

I'm on my third Tesla and I've yet to figure out Scheduled Departure charging.

It's because Tesla's wording on those sucks and is confusing. Scheduled departure is not a charging setting. It's for cabin warming.

I have off-peak charging turned off.

Then you have the setting disabled for setting an end time for charging. That's what the badly named "off peak" setting is.

Yes, I'm trying to get Scheduled Departure to work. Right now, it just starts charging when I plug it in.

The charge settings you get to choose from are EITHER picking a start time or an end time.
The start time setting is sensibly named start charging.
The end time setting is the one that says "off peak", where you set the cheaper off peak times for your electricity, and it will try to finish charging at the end of that window.

Departure time is just warming the cabin to make you comfortable when you are ready to get in the car.

I use the charging start time, because it's obvious what it does, and it always does exactly what it says.

 

[gtae07]

The end time setting is the one that says "off peak", where you set the cheaper off peak times for your electricity, and it will try to finish charging at the end of that window.

Departure time is just warming the cabin to make you comfortable when you are ready to get in the car.

Actually, if departure time is a little earlier than the off-peak end time, it will finish by the departure time. I tested it out; as an example my off peak is set at at 0700 but I typically have departure set for 0430 and it is ready by then every day.

 

[Rocky_H]

Actually, if departure time is a little earlier than the off-peak end time, it will finish by the departure time. I tested it out; as an example my off peak is set at at 0700 but I typically have departure set for 0430 and it is ready by then every day.

...which is even more confusing.

 

[gtae07]

...which is even more confusing.

Meh, sort of.

I think the app is written with the idea/assumption that your off-peak hours are overnight, ending at some point in the morning, and you are able to charge sufficiently fast (L2) that you don't need to be actively charging all the time. The car will therefore start charging such that it is finished by the earlier of the specified departure or off-peak times. If you have "odd" off-peak times (e.g. middle of afternoon due to solar production or something) and/oror a strange schedule like third shift, all bets are off.

I agree, this could be done better, but this is what it seems to work by.

 

[VeloSteve]

Just tried this overnight. (sorry for also replying on an older thread)

We have a long off-peak period from midnight to 3 PM. Our trip starts at 11 AM, so I tried to choose settings so it would finish by the departure time. Some here have apparently seen that work.

Instead, it charged at full rate starting at midnight. This correctly used the low rate, but charged the car to 100% about 8 hours early.

Is there a way to make this work other than faking the peak rate schedule? I don't want to mess with that since my solar panels and power walls make good use of the correct information.

I'll probably just charge manually before trips from now on, unless we are leaving very early.

Model Y, new in April (days before the big price drop), software 2024.3.25.

 

[E90alex]

Can you not change only the “off peak end time” on the car charging screen in the app instead of changing the whole rate plan schedule?

I don’t have a TOU rate plan so I just set the off peak end time to the same as departure time and don’t have any issues.

 

[VeloSteve]

Separate peak settings for the car and power walls didn't occur to me since the power walls and car use the same app. Still, your suggestion seemed worth a shot.

Here's what happened:
- No peak time settings were visible so I attempted to turn Charge on Solar back on.
- the control was missing, so following forum suggestions I force stopped the app and deleted data
- I was prompted to set up the Phone Key again, so I got in the car using the card (it did not unlock for the phone)
- started the setup process for Phone Key
- It says I'm not close enough to the car! I'm in the car. Pair manually is offered but doesn't help.
- tried with and without the card on the console, after rebooting the screen, after reinstalling the app completely, after resetting the phone-car Bluetooth connection
- still can't set up the phone key
- still can't set up Charge on Solar because it forces me to the phone key process
- yet the car now opens for the phone and I can shift into Drive without the key card

I'm no longer worried about fine-tuning the charge time. I'm worried about our first long trip in the Tesla, which starts in one hour, 15 minutes (we have an appointment with a business along the way). This would not be the right time for and "erase everything and start over" approach.

Odd side effects of the original data and cache clearing on the app:
- A driver profile I attempted to create over a week ago suddenly appeared.
- The Bluetooth connection process worked smoothly, which it did not before.

 

[flai54]

Are people not going into their Tesla app and go to "Charge Stats" --> Settings --> Home and set your TOU plan? You need to define your TOU plan "off peak" hours so it knows when to start charging.

 

[VeloSteve]

I had already set up the TOU information on the "Home" tab because I had panels and a couple of Power Walls before getting the car. When I added the car I saw that it didn't automatically pick up my settings from Home, and told the Tesla part of the app to copy the TOU plan from Home, which worked fine.

The odd thing to me is that some people seem to think that entering a false rate plan is an acceptable way to trick the app into doing what you want. While it would work, and would do no harm if you don't forget to set it back, it certainly doesn't seem like a nice solution.

 

[TaylorJD]

I don't know why Tesla does not have a one-time - Trip Departure time setting, where you can say I am leaving at 7am and I want to charge to 100%. The app should calculate when charging needs to start and have everything ready to go at that time. They have had years to figure this out!

What I do, is set my charge to 100%, to see how long it will take to charge to that (let's say it says 2hrs). Then if I am leaving at 7am, I set preconditioning to 7am, and charging to "every day" at 5am. I just have to remember to change everything back after I start my trip.

 

[VeloSteve]

I agree that a one-time departure setting would be valuable. I see that in the 2024.8 software updates there is a "One-Time Charge Limit". Not exactly what we want, but probably useful. It's also not clear to me whether I have this, since my car jumped from 2024.3.25 to 2024.14.9 and I don't know how the software development branches work.

I'm actually pretty happy with my latest settings

• Charge on Solar set to 60% from any source and 80% on solar.
• TOU pricing set to the actual values from the power company. Slightly simplified, rates are highest from 3 PM to midnight.
• Departure set to 5:30 AM, no preconditioning, off-peak end time at 3 PM.

After returning from a long trip at about 11% SOC yesterday the car charged to 60% between about 2:45 AM and 5:15 AM. Then it got to 80% on solar during the middle of the day. What I like is:

• Normally I'll have at least 60% before I go anywhere near home.
• The 5:30 AM target is not excessively early for occasional 100% charges before trips.
• The car charging will rarely if ever overlap power wall charging, which starts at midnight.
• I can prepare for a trip by bumping the percentages up without changing timing or rate schedules.

We are in a mild climate where preconditioning before driving is less important.

 

[tga]

I don't know why Tesla does not have a one-time - Trip Departure time setting, where you can say I am leaving at 7am and I want to charge to 100%. The app should calculate when charging needs to start and have everything ready to go at that time. They have had years to figure this out!

Because they are too busy adding new fart sounds and video games to the toybox to add useful features.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

I agree that a one-time departure setting would be valuable. I see that in the 2024.8 software updates there is a "One-Time Charge Limit". Not exactly what we want, but probably useful. It's also not clear to me whether I have this, since my car jumped from 2024.3.25 to 2024.14.9 and I don't know how the software development branches work.

I'm actually pretty happy with my latest settings

• Charge on Solar set to 60% from any source and 80% on solar.
• TOU pricing set to the actual values from the power company. Slightly simplified, rates are highest from 3 PM to midnight.
• Departure set to 5:30 AM, no preconditioning, off-peak end time at 3 PM.

After returning from a long trip at about 11% SOC yesterday the car charged to 60% between about 2:45 AM and 5:15 AM. Then it got to 80% on solar during the middle of the day. What I like is:

• Normally I'll have at least 60% before I go anywhere near home.
• The 5:30 AM target is not excessively early for occasional 100% charges before trips.
• The car charging will rarely if ever overlap power wall charging, which starts at midnight.
• I can prepare for a trip by bumping the percentages up without changing timing or rate schedules.

We are in a mild climate where preconditioning before driving is less important.

View attachment 1053291

Can you get a breakdown of where the powerwall "usage" winds up?