Charging for road trip - what am I doing wrong?

[Robocheme]

I've had my Y nearly two years (and I had a 2017 Model 3) and I thought that I knew how to charge the battery so that it starts charging in the middle of the night and stops charging right before I leave early in the morning. Now I'm not sure what is happening.

On normal days I use the Schedule Charge Start setting to start charging at 9 pm when rates drop. When I go on a road trip, I switch the charging from Schedule Charge Start to Scheduled Departure. I then set the time to 6 AM. ( Based on the SOC, it should have taken only 2-3 hours of charging to reach the set battery limit.) When I did this yesterday, the charging still started at 9 pm, which tells me that it was ignoring the Scheduled Departure setting. However, this morning when I got a notice at 6 am saying "Your car cabin is at the desired temperature." This seems to indicate that the Schedule Departure setting WAS NOT ignored.

So how do I get the Schedule Departure setting to start the charging a few hours before I leave (and not at 9 pm) so that it reaches 100% when I want to leave? Of course, I'm doing all this to minimize the amount of time the battery is at 100%.

Thanks for your help,

Cliff

 

[GtiMart]

I manually estimate the time it will take my car to reach 100% and set a charge time accordingly. I know my car charges 13% per hour on my 11kW charger, and I leave 1 hour for the last percent or two.

 

[jcanoe]

Scheduled Departure - Charging is a separate setting from Scheduled Departure - Preconditioning. When you changed from Scheduled Charging (starts charging soonest) to Scheduled Departure - Charging (starts charging as late as possible so charging will complete by your departure time) but did not remove Scheduled Departure Preconditioning the Scheduled Charging setting was still followed.

Scheduled Charging and Scheduled Departure are flakey. I would pick one, preferably Scheduled Departure - Charging with or without Scheduled Departure - Preconditioning and stick with it. Also, you can now set Scheduled Departure - Charging and Preconditioning via the Tesla app. The app settings may further confuse the Tesla vehicle as far as Scheduled Departure.

To fix the settings turn off Scheduled Charging, Scheduled Departure from the Charging screen. You can access the Scheduled Departure Preconditioning from the Charging Screen settings or the Climate Control settings. Also turn off any Scheduled Departure settings you may have set in the Tesla app. This is the way.

 

[Johnny Vector]

Scheduled Departure - Charging is a separate setting from Scheduled Departure - Preconditioning. When you changed from Scheduled Charging (starts charging soonest) to Scheduled Departure - Charging (starts charging as late as possible so charging will complete by your departure time) but did not remove Scheduled Departure Preconditioning the Scheduled Charging setting was still followed.

Scheduled Charging and Scheduled Departure are flakey. I would pick one, preferably Scheduled Departure - Charging with or without Scheduled Departure - Preconditioning and stick with it. Also, you can now set Scheduled Departure - Charging and Preconditioning via the Tesla app. The app settings may further confuse the Tesla vehicle as far as Scheduled Departure.

To fix the settings turn off Scheduled Charging, Scheduled Departure from the Charging screen. You can access the Scheduled Departure Preconditioning from the Charging Screen settings or the Climate Control settings. Also turn off any Scheduled Departure settings you may have set in the Tesla app. This is the way.

Sounds like somebody at Tesla needs an intervention with a UI expert! Bruce Tognazzini, where are you?

 

[roblab]

I hope you really, really need to charge to 100%. Unless your very long trip is through a supercharger desert you shouldn't need to charge to anything more than 90%, and wouldn't need to worry about damaging the battery with excessive charge. You can top up at a supercharger for 15 minutes and have enough charge in most cases to safely make it to your destination without pushing your battery, or, heaven forbid!, slow down a little and get more miles on the charge you have.

 

[DanDi58]

Pics are worth a thousand words. Basically, you need to have the car set like these pics - you can also choose the 'Off Peak Charging' slider if you ONLY want it to charge during off-peak - but then you run the risk of it completing to 100% before your scheduled departure time, so I'd leave that deselected. I stopped charging to 100% as I don't like the feeling of no regeneration, so I only charge to 95% for trips now.

 

[Johnny Vector]

I hope you really, really need to charge to 100%. Unless your very long trip is through a supercharger desert you shouldn't need to charge to anything more than 90%, and wouldn't need to worry about damaging the battery with excessive charge. You can top up at a supercharger for 15 minutes and have enough charge in most cases to safely make it to your destination without pushing your battery, or, heaven forbid!, slow down a little and get more miles on the charge you have.

This is a good point. Because charging is so much faster at lower charge levels, the difference between starting at 95% and at 100% is only a couple minutes in most cases. I don't even bother to charge above 90% before road trips any more, myself. The time difference is literally in the noise (of how bad traffic will be), and at 90% I don't have to suffer with reduced regen for the first 30 miles.

Now, if you're towing a trailer and you live in New Mexico, you might actually need 100% to be sure you'll get where you're going. In which case sure, get that 100% in there. But us regular folks don't even need to.

 

[jcanoe]

Pics are worth a thousand words. Basically, you need to have the car set like these pics - you can also choose the 'Off Peak Charging' slider if you ONLY want it to charge during off-peak - but then you run the risk of it completing to 100% before your scheduled departure time, so I'd leave that deselected. I stopped charging to 100% as I don't like the feeling of no regeneration, so I only charge to 95% for trips now.

View attachment 777859View attachment 777860

The UI for Scheduled Departure - Charging (complete charging as late as possible), Scheduled Charging (start charging soonest) and Preconditioning settings on the latest Tesla app are a huge improvement over the Tesla in-vehicle Charging Screen settings (hopefully these settings will work reliably for you). Don't make the mistake of setting Scheduled Departure - Charging or Scheduled Charging both in the Tesla vehicle and on the Tesla app as the Scheduled Departure/Charging settings will not work. (You can however use the Tesla app to set a second Scheduled Departure Preconditioning time, i.e. for when you leave your workplace at the end of the day.)

 

[GtiMart]

Yep. I've had trips to a "home in the woods" that took 96% battery for the round-trip and where I only had access to a 120V plug for the 8 hours I was there. I charged to 100% in that case. Granted I could have slowed down, but I have a big battery and I use it when I need to. In that case, there was no supercharger on the road, going to one would have been an additional 1 hour /100 km added to the trip just for that, plus the charging time.

I agree that if you are not in this situation and there are superchargers on the road, it's probably good enough to target 90-95%.

If Tesla had released their CCS adapter, I could have done this trip with less than 100% and use CCS chargers. I don't have a CHAdeMO adapter and find it charges too slow so it would be a last reasort thing. CCS has the potential of charging fast enough to be a real replacement for supercharging.

 

[Robocheme]

The UI for Scheduled Departure - Charging (complete charging as late as possible), Scheduled Charging (start charging soonest) and Preconditioning settings on the latest Tesla app are a huge improvement over the Tesla in-vehicle Charging Screen settings (hopefully these settings will work reliably for you). Don't make the mistake of setting Scheduled Departure - Charging or Scheduled Charging both in the Tesla vehicle and on the Tesla app as the Scheduled Departure/Charging settings will not work. (You can however use the Tesla app to set a second Scheduled Departure Preconditioning time, i.e. for when you leave your workplace at the end of the day.)

Thanks!! I went to the app and disabled Scheduled Charging, but I didn't see an option to enable Scheduled Departure - Charging. Under Departure there was an option to Precondition (Set climate and preheat battery). That doesn't sound like it's going to charge the battery so I disabled it.

In the car, I've got it set up for Scheduled Departure. We'll see if that actually works.

Thanks again, everyone

 

[Undecided_2]

I hope you really, really need to charge to 100%.

Why? The Tesla manual says charge to 100% for a trip. I’m charging to 100% for a 500 mile trip tomorrow as the first supercharger is 240 miles away. The battery can’t be that delicate it can’t cope with a 100% soc for 10-hours before I leave and then being hammered by super chargers during the trip.

I’m sure that charging at home is far more gentle compared to a supercharger and that 10% could make a big difference for me tomorrow as it will be around 3c (37f) when I leave in the morning.

 

[jcanoe]

Why? The Tesla manual says charge to 100% for a trip. I’m charging to 100% for a 500 mile trip tomorrow as the first supercharger is 240 miles away. The battery can’t be that delicate it can’t cope with a 100% soc for 10-hours before I leave and then being hammered by super chargers during the trip.

I’m sure that charging at home is far more gentle compared to a supercharger and that 10% could make a big difference for me tomorrow as it will be around 3c (37f) when I leave in the morning.

You will find that if you repeatedly, regularly charge to 100% the Tesla Model Y will display a warning that regularly charging to 100% is not good for the health of the battery. For your trip, charging to 100% ~12 hours before will not be an issue.

I just completed a road trip where I charged to 100% shortly before leaving. I could have charged to 90% (even 80%) and made it to the first charging stop (117 miles.) This was the first road trip and I was determined to fully charge the battery before heading out.

 

[Undecided_2]

You will find that if you repeatedly, regularly charge to 100% the Tesla Model Y will display a warning that regularly charging to 100% is not good for the health of the battery.

I didn’t see any posts about repeatedly charging to 100% and the OP didn’t post that. Not did I. In my post I stated that I’m doing a 100% SOC for a trip as per Teslas guidelines. Then came the freaked out people who warn that it’s the worse thing that someone could do.

If that were the case why does it have a 100% level for a trip? Why does it state in the manual that’s what that last % is for?

 

[DanDi58]

I didn’t see any posts about repeatedly charging to 100% and the OP didn’t post that. Not did I. In my post I stated that I’m doing a 100% SOC for a trip as per Teslas guidelines. Then came the freaked out people who warn that it’s the worse thing that someone could do.

If that were the case why does it have a 100% level for a trip? Why does it state in the manual that’s what that last % is for?

I think you misunderstood - charging to 100% isn't the issue, it's charging to that level and then leaving the car to sit. That's what Tesla recommends you don't do. Will it hurt the car if you do this once? No. But they recommend you don't make a habit out of it. That's all.

Personally, I charge to 95% for trips. I don't like the zero-regen feel of 100%. With 95%, you still get some regen and I don't find that the extra 5% really impacts my charging stops.

 

[jcanoe]

There are degrees of bad.

Charging to 100% before taking a road trip if you feel you need the range to reach your destination or 1st SC stop is not bad.

Charging to 100% routinely is not good for the long term health of the battery. Don't take our word for it, the Tesla Model Y will display a warning if the vehicle detects that you are routinely charging to 100%.

Charging to 100% and leaving the battery at 100% state of charge (SOC) for a prolonged period (insert whatever is your longest comfort interval) is not good for the battery, even worse if the battery is left at at 100% SOC in warm temperatures.

 

[Undecided_2]

I think you misunderstood - charging to 100% isn't the issue, it's charging to that level and then leaving the car to sit.

I didn’t mean for my post to sound like I’m a horses rear end. However, maintaining a 100% SOC is different to repeatedly charging to 100% although its clear that both are bad for battery health/longevity.

I couldn’t get the schedule/departure charge before leaving to work. It wants to charge 30% in 30 minutes on 32amps before I leave… (it will take ~ 4 hours)

That’s good advice about the <95% SOC. I’ve changed mine to that as I like the regen and researching on here’s its clear that last 5% doesn’t make a lot of difference.