Adjust charging to take advantage of night rates at a public charger?

[Caramel]

I have to use public charging (no off street parking, live in a terraced house).

There are new charg.y lamppost chargers installed locally. This has a 65p/kwh rate and a night rate of 28p/kWh between midnight and 7 am. This compares to the Source chargers that are 46p/kWh all the time.

It’s a 5.1kw charger.

Ideally I’d let it trickle charge in the evening and then max the amperage at midnight.

Does anyone know how to automate this? I’m usually in bed by 1030pm!

 

[Adopado]

I have to use public charging (no off street parking, live in a terraced house).

There are new charg.y lamppost chargers installed locally. This has a 65p/kwh rate and a night rate of 28p/kWh between midnight and 7 am. This compares to the Source chargers that are 46p/kWh all the time.

It’s a 5.1kw charger.

Ideally I’d let it trickle charge in the evening and then max the amperage at midnight.

Does anyone know how to automate this? I’m usually in bed by 1030pm!

Does this mean that you are on the charger all evening but not charging at full rate ... until midnight when you continue until complete charge? That looks like you are hogging a public charger, preventing someone else from charging earlier! Maybe I'm missing how the lamp post charging is supposed to work and people are normally plugged in from tea time until the next morning anyway ... so nobody missing out?

 

[WannabeOwner]

Ideally I’d let it trickle charge in the evening and then max the amperage at midnight.

Does anyone know how to automate this?

TeslaFi scheduler will do that - if that helps?

You can set SCHEDULE for a variety of things - one is to change the AMPS.

So you could set AMPS to e.g. 5/similar AMPs at 18:00 and 32AMPS at midnight, back to 5AMPs at 07:00. It will do this location-specific - not quite sure on this, as I think it only supports "home " and "work" (specific) locations [plus "anywhere"] for Schedules. Pretty sure you can draw a circle (on the map) to define Home / Work location, which should enable defining a circle that covered "whole street"

If you use a referral code the trial is extended from 14 days to a month (you can use my handle here if you don't have a mate / better offer - there's a thread where you can get one too)

 

[MrBadger]

Does anyone know how to automate this? I’m usually in bed by 1030pm!

TeslaFi will do what you want.

 

[WannabeOwner]

That looks like you are hogging a public charger, preventing someone else from charging earlier!

I think lamppost charging is intended to be used "all night", rather than charge-and-then-move?

 

[Caramel]

Thanks all.

In terms of hogging a lamppost - yes the cars are expected to be plugged in overnight. We have a local WhatsApp group to arrange moving to ensure the spot isn’t taken by an ice car. There are also about to have a further 3 lamppost chargers in the near vicinity. Which is helpful as there are already about 10 electric cars in the neighbourhood!

I’ll check out teslafi

 

[Bacon]

Would start charge at midnight work?

 

[WannabeOwner]

Would start charge at midnight work?

I think the car's idea of "home location" might not accommodate "anywhere in the street"

Would work for an API tool like TeslaFi of course ... unless also need the additional charge during period from 6PM to Midnight

 

[mnobleuk]

Park up, set your charge limit to where you want it to be next day and then set a "schedule departure by 7am" - the car will do the rest.

at 5.1kW unless you deplete the battery every day then 7 hours will be enough. If it takes more than 7 hours then you'll still pull the same kWh before midnight regardless of whether you are trickle charging or full charging.

Also check that its midnight to 7am all year round - some systems can't cope with BST and so become 1am to 8 am.

 

[WannabeOwner]

set a "schedule departure by 7am" - the car will do the rest.

Does it always charge "as late as possible" ? (IDK)

 

[mnobleuk]

Does it always charge "as late as possible" ? (IDK)

It has whenever I've used it (which is often as I'm on old school economy 7) - you can also set "off peak" times on the screen and tell it to prefer off peak so that should guarantee it starting as late as possible.

 

[ringi]

Park up, set your charge limit to where you want it to be next day and then set a "schedule departure by 7am" - the car will do the rest

Would that not also unnecessary heat car etc?

 

[mnobleuk]

Would that not also unnecessary heat car etc?

There's a button (at least in the app) for "precondition" - AFAIK having this on heats the car and battery - off doesn't. When I've done this in the winter the car has been cold when I got into it shortly after the departure time I had set (for charging)

(EDITED : It's funny - you assume something works the way it should and then someone asks a question and suddenly you wonder do you really know lol - so I checked here Model 3 Owner's Manual | Tesla and it seems to work as I indicated !)