Expert Advice on Charging Behavior Requested

[JenkinsEar]

Our Model X 100D is fairly new - just 6 weeks or so. Our typical charging practice is to plug in the Wall Connector before we go to bed and unplug in AM when we go out. Car is set to charge to 80%.

Normally, I'll plug in the cable and start the charge, and when I walk away, the car will lock itself. In the AM, when I go to garage, the car will wake up as I approach (fob in pocket) but the port remains dark. When I unlock the car, the port will then show solid green, and I will unplug and away we go.

Last night was a little different: I plugged cable in, but had to manually (3 fob clicks) close all doors and lock the car when I left garage (wife left passenger door open). This morning, when I went to garage, I did NOT have a fob in my pocket (it was safely far away in house). The car appeared to be locked, but the port was showing solid green. Also, the charging progress screen was visible, and it showed 79%. (Normally, after a night where top-off charging to 80% takes place early in the evening, the vampires will have eaten 2% by the morning.)

I left things as they were, and walked the dog. When we came back (20 minutes later) the charging port light was off. We went into the house, and while there, I heard what I would describe in other circumstances as a relay "chattering" - it lasted 2-3 seconds, I'd estimate. I grabbed the fob and went outside. Now the port light was flashing green. I unlocked the car and saw that there was an error notification saying that the center console was unresponsive, and to reboot. I did that, and system came up ok. I unhooked cable without incident, and that's where it now stands.

Any words of wisdom from the group as to what might have been going on? I am especially concerned about the relay chatter - is that a condition others have experienced? Don't know if it came from the car itself or the Wall Connector.

This is long, I know - thanks for hanging in there and reading this far.

 

[JasJ]

How the power in general in your area?

Also living in the Houston area, I'm the 3rd from last our our power circuit and trees are always causing issues 'upstream' with the power lines. Power flickers will cause all sorts of noise... I routinely see my car with a green light going when it should be well dark after several hours left alone on the HPWC. Clicking is a fact of life with Tesla's - unless the car is in sleep mode.

Another possibility - where do you keep the key fob in the house? If somewhat near to it, the car might be sensing the fob from time to time and the clicking can start as the car thinks you may want to go for a drive. Like a dog when you touch the leash.

If it were me and the chattering continues with console errors, that's worthy of a call to Tesla. In the last year, I've manually rebooted the console once. Console errors are not the norm.

 

[JenkinsEar]

How the power in general in your area?

Also living in the Houston area, I'm the 3rd from last our our power circuit and trees are always causing issues 'upstream' with the power lines. Power flickers will cause all sorts of noise... I routinely see my car with a green light going when it should be well dark after several hours left alone on the HPWC. Clicking is a fact of life with Tesla's - unless the car is in sleep mode.

Another possibility - where do you keep the key fob in the house? If somewhat near to it, the car might be sensing the fob from time to time and the clicking can start as the car thinks you may want to go for a drive. Like a dog when you touch the leash.

If it were me and the chattering continues with console errors, that's worthy of a call to Tesla. In the last year, I've manually rebooted the console once. Console errors are not the norm.

Thanks for your input!

I think our power is pretty stable. We also have a generator that provides pretty smooth power (except as the transfer switch throws), but that not in play in this instance.

Thinking back, I heard the relay chattering when I was walking around the house. At that time, the fob was probably in my pocket instead of its normal resting place. So that could have been causing the system some confusion. Not sure where the wife's fob was at that time of morning, either.

Question: If I triple-click fob roof and leave the area of the car, is the car then in "sleep" mode? What constitutes sleep mode, anyway? And if there's another level "off" mode, how does one invoke it? And why would one?

 

[JasJ]

I doubt triple click will put the car to sleep. The car first goes into 'idle' and after a period of time will go to sleep. After 24 hours of completely being left along it goes into a deeper sleep. It goes from sleep mode to ready to drive, 95% of the time by the time I get close enough to the car with the fob to start the 'wake' cycle to sitting in the car belt on ready to go. About 5% of the time, I have to wait less than 5 seconds for the car to be ready to go (I suspect this is when the car has been in the deeper sleep). The always connected setting will prevent the car from sleeping unless the battery gets quite low. With always connected off, you have to wait 30-45 seconds for the Tesla app to start talking to the car then it works normally (and quickly).

For my car it 'sleeps' if 1. key fobs are not nearby (20+ ft), 2. about 60-90 minutes has passed since last drive, 3. Don't have any apps or websites ping it 'enough' to wake the car back up. 4. always connected off 5. preconditioning off 6. energy saving on.

Then it goes into a sleep using minimal energy.

I only have the Tesla App and Teslafi.com that ping my car. I don't open the Tesla app generally unless I am preconditioning the car or otherwise checking on it. Teslafi is set to allow the car to go into sleep mode after 30 minutes of idle.

Here are the stats on my car from last night (didn't have it plugged in to charge). My wife walked by the car with her fob at 6:14 am.

 

[lymex2018]

Sleep mode.
Here is the power chart of the main battery (in Watts) I recorded about two months ago after I locked the car.

It consumed about 140W power from the main battery for about 40 minutes before shutdown the CAN bus. I also "woke" the car twice using the app during that time, and one or more times afterward but not recorded because Scan my Tesla was halted.

Here is another chart I recorded Yesterday:

At time A and earlier, I was in the car, heating the ambient and the battery using Tesla app.
At B, I stopped the heating and exit the app. After that, the power of the main battery dropped to 250W.
At C, I went outside and shut the door (the fob was in my pocket all the time), but I can see the big screen and the panel were all out, and the DC-DC current dropped to 10A. I continued standing by the car for another minute or two, the DC-DC current drop again at D.
At E, I stopped recording of Scan my Tesla, by which time the current of the main battery was 0.3A.

 

[yrekabaker]

I have similar experiences with my X P90DL. It is apparently random as to what color will appear when i open the port and plug it in to my wall connector. Sometimes, blue, green, white, blinking green. But if i leave it alone, it is charged up in the morning. Sometimes when it is blinking green, it takes several minutes of low-amp charging for it to remember that it is supposed to start charging later. I have had occasions when, once plugged in, i could not lock it with the fob. But it always seems to sort itself out. Maybe it check in with headquarters.