Charge topping off every hour?

[dewhite04]

I picked up my LR RWD on Wednesday and plugged its UMC into the 14-50r in my garage last night for the first time. The car wasn't terribly depleted, so charging was complete within a couple of hours. When I woke up this morning, I noticed a string of notifications from the Tesla app showing a brief charging session initiated just about each hour after the initial charge was complete.

Is this normal behavior?

I've attached a screenshot of the message notifications and can provide any other info requested.

Sorry if this is a dumb newbie question - I did a quick search and didn't find any pertinent threads. Thanks in advance for any info!

 

[swaltner]

No, that’s not normal, but it’s also a common complaint.

I think that was corrected by one of the firmware updates. What firmware is your car on? Do you have it logged into your wi-if network at home? While wi-fi isn’t required to get an update, it definitely helps. And no, you can’t force the update other than to put it on your home wi-fi and hope you’re targeted for an update.

 

[dewhite04]

No, that’s not normal, but it’s also a common complaint.

I think that was corrected by one of the firmware updates. What firmware is your car on? Do you have it logged into your wi-if network at home? While wi-fi isn’t required to get an update, it definitely helps. And no, you can’t force the update other than to put it on your home wi-fi and hope you’re targeted for an update.

Thanks for your reply. I got 5.15 Wednesday afternoon when I got home from the delivery center and then 8.3 later that night. I did connect to my home WiFi on Wednesday evening after finishing the update to 5.15 in the hopes that 8.3 would come, as it indeed did.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Gee, I never like to charge to almost 100% and just leave the car sitting for long periods of time like that. It's not like your smart phone. There are other threads about charging to high levels and leaving it that way.

 

[JPP]

I have seen the hourly 'top-off' recently-but have not charged at home on 8.3. So will check tonight.

 

[Suds]

Hi all, I too received version 2019.8.3 Wednesday evening (March 27) and noticed what seemed to be the same hourly top-up behavior throughout the night after that. Unfortunately I didn't save any screenshots of the messages from my phone. However, prior to the new release, typically after a top-up it would not charge again until the charge had dropped by about 20 km's (about 4%), which could be a couple of days. I have it set to charge to 400 km's (80%), so while I was away this winter it would always fluctuate between about 380 km and 400 km of charge (100% would be 500 km).

I have it charging tonight and will check it's status tomorrow. I'm not sure if charging is actually engaging repetitively or whether it's really an issue with the notification mechanism getting stuck or out of sync. The reason being, I have never had an hourly top-up scenario before, but, there were a couple other times when the started or completed notification seemed to come late. I'm not sure I remember the exact sequence, but I would notice that my car was recently charged when checking the app, before getting any notification. It wasn't until afterward when I may have rebooted my phone that I then got the charging complete message. The odd thing was that the message would erroneously state the charging had completed at whatever level my battery was currently at, such as 398 km, instead of what I knew it had charged to (400 km).

 

[dewhite04]

Gee, I never like to charge to almost 100% and just leave the car sitting for long periods of time like that. It's not like your smart phone. There are other threads about charging to high levels and leaving it that way.

I genuinely appreciate your concern! A few thoughts/questions on this:

1. Mine is a LR RWD, so this charge level represents 90%. My understanding had been that 70% was most ideal set-point for nightly charging, but 80 or 90% were only marginally "less good." Indeed, when I picked the car up on Wednesday the DC had it charged to 90% and that's also the set-point that was programmed into the car.

2. Charging completed last night at around 3 or 4am and I was in the car this morning at 9am driving. I put in about a 100 miles of driving today and finished just over 60%. Would that really qualify as leaving the car to sit for a "long period of time?" I'm not being pedantic - I'm really curious to know if leaving the car charged to 90% for ~6 hours is thought to be bad practice?

3. My plan, as of now, is to try to operate between 30% and 80% most of the time. Given my regular driving habits, that should mean plugging in about every 4 days. Does that sound prudent and reasonable?

On the matter of the hourly top-ups - I have the car plugged in tonight, set to charge to 70%. It just completed about 30 minutes ago, so I'll check-in again tomorrow to report back if the same behavior repeats overnight.

 

[jjrandorin]

My opinion is, you are over thinking it, like most new tesla drivers do. Just set it to 80 or 90% and plug in when you get home. There is no advantage to plugging in every 3-4 days or whatever. You can read about charging here for days, but if you are interested in what Tesla itself has to say about charging, plugging in, etc it can be found in the manual on page 122 (I actually remember the page number from re posting this a few times here). Here is the text directly from the manual.

==========================

About the Battery

Model 3 has one of the most sophisticated

battery systems in the world. The most

important way to preserve the Battery is to

LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE PLUGGED IN when

you are not using it. This is particularly

important if you are not planning to drive

Model 3 for several weeks. When plugged in,

Model 3 wakes up when needed to

automatically maintain a charge level that

maximizes the lifetime of the Battery.

Note: When left idle and unplugged, your

vehicle periodically uses energy from the

Battery for system tests and recharging the

12V battery when necessary.

There is no advantage to waiting until the

Battery’s level is low before charging. In fact,

the Battery performs best when charged

regularly.

Note: If the Model 3 Battery becomes

completely discharged in a situation in which

towing is required, the owner is responsible

for towing expenses. Discharge-related towing

expenses are not covered under the Roadside

Assistance policy

 

[dewhite04]

Same as last night, but at 70%

Unless someone thinks this a big deal, I guess I'll just roll along with it for now?

 

[jjrandorin]

View attachment 391850

Same as last night, but at 70%

Unless someone thinks this a big deal, I guess I'll just roll along with it for now?

I have noticed this as well, and it seems to me that this might be different APP behavior or reporting. At each of those times in your screenshot, did you open the app?

 

[dewhite04]

I have noticed this as well, and it seems to me that this might be different APP behavior or reporting. At each of those times in your screenshot, did you open the app?

No. After plugging in I just went on about my business and found these alerts waiting for me in the morning.

 

[jjrandorin]

No. After plugging in I just went on about my business and found these alerts waiting for me in the morning.

Hmm.. I doubt its an issue, its just likely reporting every time the car wakes up to "check in" vs previously when it did not do this. Just to verify, you do NOT have ANY third party apps that provide tesla information, right? the only app you have installed is the official tesla app?

Note:I am NOT throwing shade at any of the third party apps, many of which are quite good. When there is any unusual behavior with charging however, many times its due to incorrect configuration of these apps. If you DID install / setup any non tesla app (which would have required you to log into your tesla account for the app to provide it a software token for your account), change your tesla account password, and see if the behavior continues.

If you have no other apps other than the official tesla app, and this continues for longer than another week, you might want to check in with tesla about it. From your phone screenshot you have an android phone, and I use my iOS phone instead of my android for my tesla (work phone = ios, personal phone = android). I am not aware if android has any issues with keeping the car alive etc.

 

[dewhite04]

Hmm.. I doubt its an issue, its just likely reporting every time the car wakes up to "check in" vs previously when it did not do this. Just to verify, you do NOT have ANY third party apps that provide tesla information, right? the only app you have installed is the official tesla app?

Note:I am NOT throwing shade at any of the third party apps, many of which are quite good. When there is any unusual behavior with charging however, many times its due to incorrect configuration of these apps. If you DID install / setup any non tesla app (which would have required you to log into your tesla account for the app to provide it a software token for your account), change your tesla account password, and see if the behavior continues.

If you have no other apps other than the official tesla app, and this continues for longer than another week, you might want to check in with tesla about it. From your phone screenshot you have an android phone, and I use my iOS phone instead of my android for my tesla (work phone = ios, personal phone = android). I am not aware if android has any issues with keeping the car alive etc.

Insightful.

I did setup Teslafi on Thursday afternoon. That could well be "pinging" the car regularly. I could imagine the car waking up to feed data to them and starting a quick charge each time.

I'd bet this is what's going on. I might continue this way for a couple more days, then suspend Teslafi for a night as an experimental control, just to be sure. Although, if this is what's going on, I wouldn't see any harm in it.

Thanks!

 

[hugh_jassol]

Insightful.

I did setup Teslafi on Thursday afternoon. That could well be "pinging" the car regularly. I could imagine the car waking up to feed data to them and starting a quick charge each time.

I'd bet this is what's going on. I might continue this way for a couple more days, then suspend Teslafi for a night as an experimental control, just to be sure. Although, if this is what's going on, I wouldn't see any harm in it.

Thanks!

Shouldn't be TeslaFi - I signed up for TeslaFi the second week I had my car and have never seen this.

BTW: TeslaFi is just awesome. I geek out daily.

 

[Silicon Desert]

I did setup Teslafi on Thursday afternoon. That could well be "pinging" the car regularly. I could imagine the car waking up to feed data to them...

I'm not so sure. If you didn't change the TeslaFi settings from the default, then pinging should not wake up the car. Some people misunderstand that there are 2 modes of checking the car status. Pinging to get quick status does not wake up the car, but a more in-depth query does. If you want to confirm, just go into your TeslaFi account settings and unchecked the "logging enabled" check box for a day or so.

And by the way, every time you open the Tesla app, it will wake up the car.

 

[eprosenx]

This topping off behavior seems to be new with a more recent firmware rev.

I previously started a thread on this with graphs from my Sense Home Energy Monitor.

My Model 3 has gotten more aggressive about "topping off" the battery

I have noticed it may seem to correspond to when my phone or my wife’s phone is in proximity to the car (or perhaps when it is woken up remotely).

I kind or like the car topping off more frequently as it annoys me to come to the car and have it down a couple percentage points from where I set it, but this does feel like a bug of some kind.

 

[jjrandorin]

Insightful.

I did setup Teslafi on Thursday afternoon. That could well be "pinging" the car regularly. I could imagine the car waking up to feed data to them and starting a quick charge each time.

I'd bet this is what's going on. I might continue this way for a couple more days, then suspend Teslafi for a night as an experimental control, just to be sure. Although, if this is what's going on, I wouldn't see any harm in it.

Thanks!

The easiest way to check this would be to change your tesla account password (invalidating your teslafi token) and then going a couple of days and seeing if the behavior continues. If it DOES, you know its not teslafi. If it DOESNT then you know it is, and you need to check your teslafi settings. I dont use teslafi (or any other 3rd party app) as of yet, but many people use either teslafi or stats for tesla.

I want to be clear that I am not saying teslafi is doing something "wrong".. just that you may need to configure it a certain way. I also think its a combination of teslafi and the new reporting on "wake" that the latest firmware seems to do.

Easy to test by the above for OP though.

 

[Suds]

This topping off behavior seems to be new with a more recent firmware rev.

I previously started a thread on this with graphs from my Sense Home Energy Monitor.

My Model 3 has gotten more aggressive about "topping off" the battery

I have noticed it may seem to correspond to when my phone or my wife’s phone is in proximity to the car (or perhaps when it is woken up remotely).

I kind or like the car topping off more frequently as it annoys me to come to the car and have it down a couple percentage points from where I set it, but this does feel like a bug of some kind.

Interesting info.

Perhaps as you say there are multiple factors affecting it: firmware level, connectivity, temp, app. etc.

I was watching my charging last night with the following result and noticed what appears as odd/inconsistent behavior with unexpected charging sessions and possibly skipped notifications. My Model 3 (software version 2019.8.3) is currently set to charge to 80% (~400 km's). My phone is a Blackberry Motion Android 8.1.0. It makes me wonder if it may be better to put my car on a narrow timeframe evening charging schedule just for the time being.

Charging started at 9:33 pm with battery at 349 km.
Charging completed at 10:17 pm with battery at 402 km. - as expected
Charging started at 11:13 pm with battery at 401 km. - unexpected and I had not touched the app
Charging completed at 12:57 am with battery at 402 km. - the msg was not received until I opened the app because I was wondering why it was taking so long to complete for such a small charge. Perhaps a delayed msg.
Charging completed at 2:50 am with battery at 402 km. - I opened the app again at 2:50 am and subsequently received another completion msg, but the start msg appeared to be skipped ... or the completed msg duplicated.
Charging started at 3:11 am with battery at 400 km. - I opened the app a few times after this msg but did not receive additional msgs until much later when I opened the app at the below two times.
Charging completed at 1:34 pm with battery at 398 km. - interesting that the completed value is less than the previously reported start value.
Charging started 1:48 pm with battery at 398 km. - value is the same is the previous completed value.

 

[woodguyatl]

View attachment 391850

Same as last night, but at 70%

Unless someone thinks this a big deal, I guess I'll just roll along with it for now?

This problems seems to come and go for me. I just ignore it. I just chalked it up to the battery cooling at night when we had some big temperature drops at night. I don’t know if that is the actual reason or not.

 

[SWUtah]

I was updated to 8.3 4-5 days ago. Car sits much of the day & all night in the garage plugged in at 85% SOC = 262 miles. I always log in & check the SOC when I get up in the morning & I’m used to seeing 2-3 miles lost overnight. Now, since 8.3 I’m seeing that it’s still at 262 in the morning. The car/BMS is apparently more vigilant in maintaining the SOC st 85% than it used to be.

Or, could there possibly (?!) have been a significant improvement in vampire loss? Guess I can check that by unplugging before going to bed.