Charging question

[WilberDaForce]

Hi,

If you have an off-peak tariff - and set the car to charge during it using the Tesla app - will it still use the Level 2 home charger (I have a Hypervolt) for things like Preconditioning if that is outside the off peak time?

Eg Peak is Midnight to 7am. Tesla app set to charge in off peak ending at 7am. Then Preconditioning on same page set to have car ready for 8am.

Thanks.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Forget preconditioning, that has nothing to do with charging. It’s a bit confusing in the car and app as the timers are in the same location.

You can either set a start or end time for charging (but not both), the end time is set by saying when if peak ends.

Set a start time and the car simply waits until then.

Set an end time and the car will calculate, based on the max charge rate you’re currently connected at, your state of charge, and your target state of charge, how long you need to charge for. It will then calculate when it needs to start (ie, if the car needs to charge for 6 hours and you say off peak ends at 7am, it will start at 1am, 6 hours earlier). It may do a short test charge to confirm the connection speed.

 

[WilberDaForce]

Forget preconditioning, that has nothing to do with charging. It’s a bit confusing in the car and app as the timers are in the same location.

You can either set a start or end time for charging (but not both), the end time is set by saying when if peak ends.

Set a start time and the car simply waits until then.

Set an end time and the car will calculate, based on the max charge rate you’re currently connected at, your state of charge, and your target state of charge, how long you need to charge for. It will then calculate when it needs to start (ie, if the car needs to charge for 6 hours and you say off peak ends at 7am, it will start at 1am, 6 hours earlier). It may do a short test charge to confirm the connection speed.

 

[WilberDaForce]

Hi yes I get that thanks - but what I mean is if you have set it to try to start or stop in off-peak - if the car then does want to use electricity - to say air condition itself on a hot day or to get to a warm temp on a cold day - or other function it might need power for - will it still use the Level 2 charger for that?

 

[MrBadger]

If the car is connected to an external power source it will use that (as a preference to losing range from battery) to cool/heat the cabin and/or battery.

If you don’t want to use external power, which will likely be peat rate at the times you want to cool/heat the cabin/battery, you either need to unplug the car or, if possible, disable the charge point at those times.

Preconditioning in winter will take a significant amount of energy so keep duration short.

 

[WilberDaForce]

Ah yes that’s what I was after. I don’t mind using a bit of power at peak times for those purposes I just want to do the big daily charge off peak. And from the manual if the advice is to leave it plugged in I just wanted to make sure it could actually draw down power on peak with those charging settings.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I’m not so sure but could be wrong.

It’s easy enough to check. Plug in with scheduled charging set, the car shouldn’t be charging, turn on the air con remotely and see what happens.

 

[MrBadger]

It’s easy enough to check. Plug in with scheduled charging set, the car shouldn’t be charging, turn on the air con remotely and see what happens.

Get in the car during the day and air con runs it draws the power from external charge point. Pre condition the car in winter, it draws power from external charge point. IHD’s and some charge points have shown this pretty obvious behaviour.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Get in the car during the day and air con runs it draws the power from external charge point. Pre condition the car in winter, it draws power from external charge point. IHD’s and some charge points have shown this pretty obvious behaviour.

I’m not disputing that a plugged in car that doesn’t otherwise need to charge will draw power when required such as cabin heaters, only that if the car is in a window and told not to change for other reasons, ie scheduled charging, then it might not.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Just been out, plugged in and set charging to start at 10am. Left car alone and remotely turned on the air con. Car heating bursts into life but no sign that I can see regarding pulling power from the wall charger. Different scenarios and software versions may have different outcomes

 

[MrBadger]

Just been out, plugged in and set charging to start at 10am. Left car alone and remotely turned on the air con. Car heating bursts into life but no sign that I can see regarding pulling power from the wall charger. Different scenarios and software versions may have different outcomes

So you are using schedule start for 10am (+1hr)? Did you try pre conditioning, ie full defrost, not that this might have much effect this time of year.

Our behaviour is scheduled start 23:xx/00:xx etc and power is drawn for morning pre condition and all day a/c. This a/c is triggered by sitting in the car rather than remotely. Also we see no external power use when cabin overheat protection is triggered.

I’ve never seen it documented but scheduled start seems to behave differently depending on how far off the scheduled start is away. I’ve plugged in in morning to have charge immediately start (ie as if no schedule was set) even though we had a scheduled start in early morning.