We are going again on a cross country trip with my 7-year old and we usually camp/sleep in our model S a lot since it is such a perfect combination of destination charging, enjoying the outdoors, while saving a few bucks to be later spent on "greener" hotels like Indigo in Athens, GA (with Tesla chargers). I am aware of the existing options to run the climate controls by placing the weight in the driver seat. I usually have difficult time finding anything heavy enough as we tend to travel light. Any fresh suggestions out there?
I could be wrong as I don't do this, but instead of putting the car in park, can't you go to the E-Brake page to apply the parking brake? As I recall, this leaves the car in neutral but applies the parking brake, effectively leaving the car "on".
Yes but you can't charge like that. The car must be in park to charge. So if you were on a trip somewhere and found yourself sleeping in your car in a campground or RV park that had charging capabilities you wouldn't be able to do both at once that way.
I believe RemoteS is the best way to go. A fantastic app. Bjorn has a video on camper mode before RemoteS came out. You might want to check that out too. I haven't had the opportunity to camp out, except in my garage because I'm a loooooser. Though it's been a long time since I did it. I think I may grown back into an adult after a year and a half.
It appears that you are NOT aware of the existing options, as a weight on the seat has NEVER worked for this purpose. There are only 2 ways to keep the climate control on longer than half an hour, and both have their drawbacks. 1) put the vehicle in neutral, and engage the parking brake from the controls on the 17" screen. - drawback: can't charge while doing this, and if you're in a jurisdiction with mandatory daytime running lights, they stay on the whole time 2) use a 3rd party app to re-engage climate control automatically every 30 minutes - drawback: requires cellular service for the car, and an internet connection for whatever device is running the app, is also finicky and error prone. Generally 2 is the lesser of two evils, but it requires something like remote S, which requires an iphone, which the majority of people do not own, or visible Tesla, or some scripting knowledge, both of which require a computer to be powered on and connected to the internet the whole time.
Yes, it seems to. I had my S parked outdoors while I was working in the garage. It was plugged in (although not charging as it was already charged to the set limit). Every few minutes, I could hear the contactors on my HPWC click as the car's A/C turned on and started to draw power. I walked out to the car once to check, and the AC was on. I suppose this doesn't exactly match your "while it's charging" condition, but I'd be shocked if the new mode works while not plugged in, plugged in but either charged or waiting for a timed charge, but no while the car is actually charging.
