Confused about charging in off-peak hours

[grmdl3]

I'd like to take advantage of off-peak hours for charging, obviously. But...

1. In the settings, there is only one time that you can set; for when the off-peak hours end. But there is no setting for when they start? How does it know when to start charging?
   
2. If you aren't going to leave until 2 hours after peak hours begin, there doesn't seem to be way to charge most of the way during off-hours, but have it continue to trickle charge or keep the battery warm so you can be ready to go.

It feels like you should have facility for telling the car when off-peak hours are, and then if you say a specific departure time is needed, it should do the work for you.

 

[Rocky_H]

The interface is confusing and clunky, but pretty straightforward if you know what it has.

There are only three choices, and you get to pick one:
1. Start time
or
2. Stop time
or
3. OFF (No scheduling, but it will charge whenever it's plugged in)

You don't get to set a time period or schedule weekdays versus weekends or other fancier options. I know that's not what you're looking for, but that's what it's got. So for your use, you know what time the cheaper rates start, so just set that as your start time, and that's it. I keep hearing about problems and glitches and difficulties with the "scheduled departure time" choice, so I just wouldn't recommend that one.

 

[grmdl3]

Interesting. Then why do they bother with the off-peak hours at all?

 

[Rocky_H]

Interesting. Then why do they bother with the off-peak hours at all?

"They"? Who is "they"? Are you talking about your electric company or Tesla?

Your electric company sets off peak hours, and the reason why is because that's away from the peak times, so they are trying to incentivize people toward times when they have excess grid capacity.

Tesla's "start charging time" feature lets you use that. Set it for when the cheap rates start--sorted.

 

[grmdl3]

"They"? Who is "they"? Are you talking about your electric company or Tesla?
.

The Tesla. If you tap the "Schedule" button on the charging screen, you get this:

 

[Watts_Up]

The Tesla. If you tap the "Schedule" button on the charging screen, you get this:

This might be fine with 'fast' L2 (240 V) DC charging,
but if you are using 'slow' L1 (120 V) DC charging lasting more than the duration of the 'off pic' rate,
it would be great to be able to black out not 'off pic' rate time from charging.

 

[Tam]

The Tesla. If you tap the "Schedule" button on the charging screen...

That's a great move that you include a picture because some may not know this Tesla feature.

Regardless of Tesla's reasons, ideally, it should allow us to set the duration of the peak time to avoid like from 4PM to 9PM so the car won't charge during that time.

 

[Rocky_H]

The Tesla. If you tap the "Schedule" button on the charging screen, you get this:

Oh, I had not seen that yet--must have been changed or renamed in a recent update then. That seems to be their rebranding of the "Scheduled Departure Time", which was kind of buggy. Don't know if it's still buggy or not.

 

[grmdl3]

Yeah, it feels like Tesla hasn't really thought this out. It should be pretty easy to

1. Tell the app when off-hours start and when they end by day of week
   
2. Request off-peak charging up to the limit set on the main charge screen
3. Ask for the app to reserve a "top off" time (30 minutes?) to be applied right before a scheduled departure to warm the battery and finish the charge

As it is, I don't know what it's trying to help with.

 

[Brock-WI]

In my opinion a simple fix, at least to the way it is setup now, would be like it was or had been before with a slider with off, start time and depart time. Why when you choose a start time it makes you unselect it to choose a depart time, it it were a slider it would be a LOT more obvious as to what it was doing with setting under each slider location. Also having all the depart setting then having to press SET after you do it is confusing. Not sure why they strayed so much from the way it had been, which I think is leading to a lot of the confusion, they should had added to it rather than rebuild it.

 

[slaTe329]

Yeah, it feels like Tesla hasn't really thought this out. It should be pretty easy to

1. Tell the app when off-hours start and when they end by day of week
   
2. Request off-peak charging up to the limit set on the main charge screen
3. Ask for the app to reserve a "top off" time (30 minutes?) to be applied right before a scheduled departure to warm the battery and finish the charge

As it is, I don't know what it's trying to help with.

I'd like to take advantage of off-peak hours for charging, obviously. But...

1. In the settings, there is only one time that you can set; for when the off-peak hours end. But there is no setting for when they start? How does it know when to start charging?
   
2. If you aren't going to leave until 2 hours after peak hours begin, there doesn't seem to be way to charge most of the way during off-hours, but have it continue to trickle charge or keep the battery warm so you can be ready to go.

It feels like you should have facility for telling the car when off-peak hours are, and then if you say a specific departure time is needed, it should do the work for you.

 

[slaTe329]

Glad it’s not just me - my off peak rate is between 00:30 and 04:30. I was hoping the upgrade for off-peak charging would enable me to schedule a start and finish time. Is there another way to do this?

 

[Tam]

Glad it’s not just me - my off peak rate is between 00:30 and 04:30. I was hoping the upgrade for off-peak charging would enable me to schedule a start and finish time. Is there another way to do this?

Hopefully, this will be fixed with an update soon.

In the meantime, you have an option to manually calculate your start time of charging to avoid charging between 00:30 and 04:30.

If you have time, please log in to your Tesla Support/Contact page and request an option for user inputting start and stop time to avoid sharing during the peak time.

 

[Rocky_H]

Glad it’s not just me - my off peak rate is between 00:30 and 04:30. I was hoping the upgrade for off-peak charging would enable me to schedule a start and finish time. Is there another way to do this?

You set it to start at 00:30. See? Most of the time, the car won't need to charge for more than 4 hours.

In the meantime, you have an option to manually calculate your start time of charging to avoid charging between 00:30 and 04:30.

It seems you misread that. That's not the "avoid" time. That is the cheaper time where he does want to charge. So there's no need to manually calculate anything. You set the start time at the beginning of the cheap rate window.

 

[Bare]

The Stats app has an option for Smart Charging. That lets you set an end time for charging and also specify days of the week.

 

[JCtx]

I"m confused why the heck Tesla changed that. You can only set what time 'cheap' charging ends, but how does the car know when the heck it starts??? Tesla should let us set the time window we want (time to begin charging, and time to end). How hard can that be?

 

[Mrbrock]

Tesla assumes that you are following their rule of keeping battery at 90% when plugged in. If you set a start time when your rates are cheapest you will be doing the majority of your charging during this time. They assume you will have the charging equipment to take the most advantage of TOU rates. At 32A my M3 will get about 12%/hr (6.6kw). I use about 40% per day so I can recharge my daily use within your 4 hour TOU window. If you are using 70% per day and you only want to charge for 4 hours per night then you will run out of charge on day 3 if you start at 100% and only charge 48% per night. Thus your needs do not fit with your car and regardless you will be doing some charging outside of your lowest TOU. Therefore Tesla simplifies this and allows you to start charging at your lowest TOU and finish when the car reaches your target full level. You can adjust when your car stops charging by setting capacity limits on charging.

 

[N2deep]

I just want to get home from work and plug the car in for it to start charging at 10pm and also have it ready at 7am depart time. But when I set the depart time it starts charging as soon as i plug it in at 6pm. It works if I set the charge start time at 10pm but can't have the depart time active at the same time. Only option is what time does off-peak end which is irrelevant since I leave before peak rates start. Tesla could do a much better job with charging schedules. I would also like to set it to 100% on Fridays since I need the extra range on Fridays and not during the week. Just a manual process now.

 

[grmdl3]

The goals expressed aren't uncommon, I don't think. There are basically two factors that influence when we want things to charge, but only one of them is allowed to be priority at any one time:

1. Charging to allow for some amount of driving - the bulk of this is what should happen during low-rate hours.
   
2. Charging to heat up the battery and allow for normal driving when it is time to start - I don't care so much when this happens

I'd like computer to know enough to allow me to set the threshold, then either leave a little left uncharged after item #1 to allow for item #2 to happen, or even just overcharge a little for the second priority there.

So let me set when off-peak hours are, then set when I'd like to leave and what battery % or mile range I'd like to leave with. Do the rest of the calculations for me, since in theory that is what computers with temperature sensors are good at doing.

 

[Mrbrock]

I just want to get home from work and plug the car in for it to start charging at 10pm and also have it ready at 7am depart time. But when I set the depart time it starts charging as soon as i plug it in at 6pm. It works if I set the charge start time at 10pm but can't have the depart time active at the same time. Only option is what time does off-peak end which is irrelevant since I leave before peak rates start. Tesla could do a much better job with charging schedules. I would also like to set it to 100% on Fridays since I need the extra range on Fridays and not during the week. Just a manual process now.

If you do some searching on the forum, this has been explained. When you plug in, it will charge a bit to see what power is available. Then it will shut down and calculate when to start charging based on finishing at 6am. That number is set in stone for some reason and can’t be changed no matter what you enter.

Scheduled Departure