Charge scheduling (again... sorry!)

[JonB]

Hi all, back with a bit of a rant...

Like many people, I want to be able to tell my Model 3 to charge during off peak hours - let's say 0300 - 0700 inclusive. I can set a start time, but not an end time (in the app and car UI). I can set an "off peak end time" but that is only available if I am pre-conditioning ("scheduled departure", at which point the start time is not relevant if the UI is to be believed). I did some forum searches and read some comment about how the car is assuming a 6:00am end time to off peak time, and maybe it will stop then?

Then read some workaround about trying to set the battery charge limit so it naturally ends at the end time.. errr.. the car has a flipping computer for that sort of drudgery. This is yet another example of how Tesla got the basics wrong. It needs a simple schedule: Start time, End time and (optionally) departure time so it can charge during specified hours and be ready to go at a certain time (not necessarily within the charge period). Preferably daily or every day of the week, preferably multiple charge windows. This sort of functionality isn't rocket science - it's GCSE Computing level.

How utterly confusing. They do say that assumption is the mother of all f*** ups and "they" are right. In this instance, I assumed you could set a charge window. (incidentally, I also assumed the auto wipe, headlights and voice commands would work too.. how wrong I was). As I have a dumb charging solution, I need the car to manage the schedule. The charger can't.

How can we get the message to Tesla that this simple stuff needs to be sorted, before they spend time on the more sexy self driving features?

 

[Dilly]

Fully agree. Try tweeting Elon.
I’ve never used the car settings, my charger does the timing
a stop/start scheduler isn’t rocket science!

 

[Jason71]

Santa Claus?

 

[JonB]

Santa Claus?

?

 

[Washout]

Unless there is already a "petition Elon" thread on the forums, link your tweet to Elon here and we can all then pile on to maybe raise its profile...

 

[JonB]

OK, I have tweeted Elon - please add your comments to my tweet and maybe he will notice...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1468230717561876488

 

[spdpsba]

OK, I have tweeted Elon - please add your comments to my tweet and maybe he will notice...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1468230717561876488

Great, Elon has a great team of twitter advisers so sure they will bring this to his attention. The only issue is whether his team understands the significance of this. I was told rightly or wrongly the whole charging set up (both app and car) is setup with American market in mind. They have weird charging tariffs - something like 7am-7pm or something along those lines when the electricity is charged at reduced rate, so you generally do not need to give a start and end time. They connect the car and it will be in charger till they disconnect and the battery will be full. We poor Britain does not have that luxury and we have a 4hr window and I do not think Elon's team took that into account when they initially set up the charging unit. It is not a hard job to tweak this but I think it is something that did not cross the beautiful American minds!

 

[Mrklaw]

Let me tell it cheap hours. Let me set the target % (eg 80%). Let it sort the rest out itself to make sure it hits that %, and prioritises the off peak window.

optional 'charge *only* during off peak' check box which limits charging to eg 4 hours octopus go no matter what you have the % set to

The scheduled deparature shouldn't even be a charging thing - its just 'heat my car and battery up ready to leave please'. just complicates things

 

[spdpsba]

Let me tell it cheap hours. Let me set the target % (eg 80%). Let it sort the rest out itself to make sure it hits that %, and prioritises the off peak window.

optional 'charge *only* during off peak' check box which limits charging to eg 4 hours octopus go no matter what you have the % set to

The scheduled deparature shouldn't even be a charging thing - its just 'heat my car and battery up ready to leave please'. just complicates things

You can also set for eg., 4.30AM as Scheduled departure time (usually the Octopus go cheap tariff ends) and then set up battery 80% This will charge the battery 80% from 1230-430 in a M3SR, 2021 Q1, Q2, Q3 versions i.e roughly 200miles. I am sure we can calculate for the LR and the P models.

But the fact is Tesla did not take other markets into account or just assumed reduced rates duration are same in Europe and UK.

 

[NewbieT]

There are time of use tariffs in parts of the USA too.

 

[HenryT]

You can also set for eg., 4.30AM as Scheduled departure time (usually the Octopus go cheap tariff ends) and then set up battery 80% This will charge the battery 80% from 1230-430 in a M3SR, 2021 Q1, Q2, Q3 versions i.e roughly 200miles. I am sure we can calculate for the LR and the P models.

But the fact is Tesla did not take other markets into account or just assumed reduced rates duration are same in Europe and UK.

Setting a departure time will also pre-heat the battery for that departure time, using more energy to do so.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

a stop/start scheduler isn’t rocket science!

Agree and there are a number of third party solutions that do it, all of which ironically use the Tesla API so it’s not as if the solution is close to hand. I’ve seen web based/URL type requests that can then be put into shortcuts and automated through to fully blown apps. The only caveat is taking care with how you get your Tesla token which they all need.

 

[spdpsba]

There are time of use tariffs in parts of the USA too.

I agree but most of them have around 8-12hrs of reduced rate timings. UK's reduced rates of 4hrs isn't good enough to charge even the M3SR+ to full. So it is not just Tesla at fault - even if they give start and end period we may have to charge on 2 separate days or run around with the capacity of 80% in SR+ that will equate roughly around 200miles in Summer but much lesser in Winter.

Are there better solutions, Yes, of course. Tesla can tweak its charging schedules or most of the third party chargers can have some scheduling facilities.

But for the time being if we do not have both then the only option not to exceed the reduced rate time is to set starting period around the time when reduced rates begin (with battery set around 80% in Model 3 SR+) or scheduled departure (around the time when the reduced rates end).

 

[kelvin 660]

I only charge within the cheap 4 hour window. If charging for 4 hours my SR+ LFP will get 50% boost. If it needs more then I have a "schedule" in TeslaFi that stops the charge at 4:30am and then will top up to 100%, if I don't drive to far the next day... It rarely kicks in but useful as you don't have to do anything extra... It will probably save my a few quid over the year too!

 

[JonB]

Quick update.

I visited the Gatwick showroom / Service Centre today to ask about the charging schedule. According to the not-a-salesman-I'm-just here-to-answer-your-questions guy, you achive the scheduled start / end time using the following procedure:-

• go into Scheduled Departure screen
• set departure time to end charge time
• deselect "Precondition"
• set "Off-peak charge" and set the end time of the off peak period
• switch to Scheduled charging and enable it
• set the charging start time

The problem with this is it's counterintuitive and on my phone (iPhone 7) the app doesn't show the off-peak end selector as it is off the bottom of the screen (a bug, in other words). You can do all this on the car display, though. However, switching from Scheduled Departure to Scheduled Charging seems to disable settings in the other screen. I have tried to set a charge window but I do not know for sure if it really is stopping when I set it to. I have a dumb charging setup so there is no external timer.

Regarding use of 3rd party apps, I'm not sure I want to hand any control of my car to an unknown partner via the "Tesla token" (whatever that is)..

Tesla, please just add a "Stop charging at" time selection in the Scheduled charge screen, that is all I need.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Quick update.

I visited the Gatwick showroom / Service Centre today to ask about the charging schedule. According to the not-a-salesman-I'm-just here-to-answer-your-questions guy, you achive the scheduled start / end time using the following procedure:-

• go into Scheduled Departure screen
• set departure time to end charge time
• deselect "Precondition"
• set "Off-peak charge" and set the end time of the off peak period
• switch to Scheduled charging and enable it
• set the charging start time

The problem with this is it's counterintuitive and on my phone (iPhone 7) the app doesn't show the off-peak end selector as it is off the bottom of the screen (a bug, in other words). You can do all this on the car display, though. However, switching from Scheduled Departure to Scheduled Charging seems to disable settings in the other screen. I have tried to set a charge window but I do not know for sure if it really is stopping when I set it to. I have a dumb charging setup so there is no external timer.

Regarding use of 3rd party apps, I'm not sure I want to hand any control of my car to an unknown partner via the "Tesla token" (whatever that is)..

Tesla, please just add a "Stop charging at" time selection in the Scheduled charge screen, that is all I need.

It's a lot easier in the app than in the car and you don't particularily need to follow the steps above (so its a shame you can't see it).

Go to schedule in the app.

Under departure you set a departure time and toggle it on or off.

There is also a off peak charge - if you set that it cancels charge start if that is set.
If you switch to charge and set that it cancels off peak charging but doesn't cancel the preconditioning if set.
You can flick back and forth between the two tabs, just be mindful that setting one cancels the other.

The UI needs throwing away but the way I see it, not that I've tried all the permutations, it is simply

- you can set a departure time for preheating the car

and/or

- you can set either the start or the end of the charging time, but not both.

The car will try and work out whats best to do taking those into account.

It would be easier to have a "start charge", "end charge" and "be warm by" and we'd all know where we were.

 

[JonB]

Yeah, I thought the not-a-salesman-I'm-just here-to-answer-your-questions guy's expalantion was BS to be honest, but I was too polite to call him out.

It would be easier to have a "start charge", "end charge" and "be warm by" and we'd all know where we were.

Just so!

 

[Dilly]

Tesla have proved once more that taking the simplest option is not the Tesla way!

 

[JonB]

An update on the prcedure I oulined previously, care of my local Tesla SC.

I have a trip today so last night asked the app to charge to 90%, to be ready by 0700 (end of off peak time) with start time set to 0300 and "off peak charging" enabled. I turned on all the charging notifications in the Tesla app, and this morning it said (via notifications) that it had started charging at 22:14 and stopped at 06:50.

Or put another way, the idea of mixing settings in Scheduled Charge and Scheduled Departure tabs doesn't work.

 

[spdpsba]

An update on the prcedure I oulined previously, care of my local Tesla SC.

I have a trip today so last night asked the app to charge to 90%, to be ready by 0700 (end of off peak time) with start time set to 0300 and "off peak charging" enabled. I turned on all the charging notifications in the Tesla app, and this morning it said (via notifications) that it had started charging at 22:14 and stopped at 06:50.

Or put another way, the idea of mixing settings in Scheduled Charge and Scheduled Departure tabs doesn't work.

I have said this before, you can’t do that and it doesn’t work. The whole idea when this charging app was set up was keeping american market (7pm-7am) in mind. So you either set up start period at the beginning of your off peak (with battery adjusted to 80% in M3SR Q123) or departure time set at the end of off peak (with battery adjusted to 80% - some electricity wasted conditioning battery).

If not you have to use your home charger to set up if that is available.

If not third party apps like Teslafi.

Trying to make Tesla charging app either in car or phone work flexibly with starting and end of off peak isn’t going to work as Tesla do not see that as an issue in American market. The only analogy I can give is whatever we try we can’t customize the basic architecture of iphones like android. It would be great if iphone is customisable like android in every possible user options but will become more fragmented and lose the simplicity. What we do when we go to a petrol station is just lift the lid and fill up the petrol - just like that Tesla wanted to simplify charging. So just hook the power plug and forget it. Unfortuntely, Tesla or Elon never expected Model 3 to become such a big hit in Europe or UK markets where off peak is only around 4hrs.