Finish Charging at <Time> Mode?

[thelastdeadmouse]

Winter approaches, where I live its already starting to be below freezing at night, and during the winter it'll routinely be below freezing for the daily high temps let alone night time lows. I was thinking it'd be ideal to be able to schedule charging so that it finishes charging around the time I leave for work in the morning so that the battery will be warmer.

Does anything like this already exist?

 

[Zoomit]

Not yet in a Tesla. Other EVs yes.

 

[Need]

I think the battery pre-heat is now tied to cabin climate heating. So if you wake up and turn on cabin heating, the battery will probably be heated in 20/30 minutes...before you leave for work.... or so I read.

 

[bryan995]

Would also be cool to set a start and stop time, some of us have super-off-peak electric pricing only during the middle of the night (midnight-6am). I want to start charging at midnight, but don't want to continue charging post 6am should it need it.

 

[Kermee]

I think the battery pre-heat is now tied to cabin climate heating. So if you wake up and turn on cabin heating, the battery will probably be heated in 20/30 minutes...before you leave for work.... or so I read.

It depends on how "cold soaked" the battery is. So far, we don't have anyone here on TMC who has shown that battery pre-heating is turned on when cabin climate is turned on. Even when the battery is in the upper 40F to mid 50F's, we don't get the red "snowflake battery heating" icon when you turn on the climate controls, but the battery is cold enough where you have poorer efficiency and much reduced regen.

I've tried heating the cabin to 75F, an hour before departure where the battery sat overnight in the upper 40F's, and still had severely reduced regen and high Wh/mi with an SoC of under 70%. However, manually timing the "end of charge" to approximately where I want the SoC to be by scheduling charging time, effectively keeps the battery warm enough in 40F weather where no reduced regen dots appear and much better Wh/mi.

EDIT: Back to OP, this was a feature request of TeslaFi, but not sure if it was ever implemented: Schedule a charge that finishes at a specific time

 

[Saghost]

Winter approaches, where I live its already starting to be below freezing at night, and during the winter it'll routinely be below freezing for the daily high temps let alone night time lows. I was thinking it'd be ideal to be able to schedule charging so that it finishes charging around the time I leave for work in the morning so that the battery will be warmer.

Does anything like this already exist?

I keep hoping it'll show up in a firmware update, but it hasn't happened yet. GM has a great implementation of it on their EVs, one of the few things they're doing better.

 

[Sophias_dad]

Would also be cool to set a start and stop time, some of us have super-off-peak electric pricing only during the middle of the night (midnight-6am). I want to start charging at midnight, but don't want to continue charging post 6am should it need it.

Six hours of charge is likely to be all you need, unless you have a slow charger or a very long commute.

 

[Carotene]

Step 1: Sign up for a TeslaFi account
Step 2: Check your charging times each day for a few weeks to see your daily charge duration trend
Step 3: Schedule charging to begin X hours before you leave for work (use your estimated worst-case charge time)
Step 4: Use TeslaFi scheduler to turn on the HVAC 20 min before you leave work each day
profit!

 

[Sophias_dad]

Dashboard for Tesla allows you to schedule to charge to an end time, it seems. I'm not absolutely sure what the "smart charging" option costs on top of the $14.99 base-features-forever price, but the feature's there. It looks like it might be only a $2.99 upgrade(one-time-fee)

With the "Advanced controls" option, another $2.99, you can schedule HVAC. I haven't tried this, either.

I've got an old Droid Mini that won't run the official Tesla app, and Dashboard for Tesla works great.

 

[RDoc]

People have been asking for this feature for years. However, to do it would require a software change, so it can't happen.

 

[BerTX]

As @Sophias_dad says above, Dashboard for Tesla does this very well, as well as other thoughtful features and functions. You pay a reasonable fee for the basic app, then a tiny additional fee only for the additional functionality you will use, instead of paying for features you would never use.

Android phones only, sorry.
Vendor - Dashboard for Tesla - the better app for your Tesla

 

[jdmasters]

I don't understand why there isn't a native end time. I'm on TOU and want it to stop during peak hours.

 

[Glamisduner]

I was kind of shocked tesla does not have this feature. My 2013 volt had all kinds of crazy scheduling software and it only had a small battery.

It would help on setting the lowest charging amps required (no sense in charging faster than needed), and if you set maximum amps and your TOU is running out it would be nice to have a hard end time. It would not need to be perfect for the estimate, but at least have a hard shut-off time so we get more affordable home charging rates.

Right now I ill start charging , adjust amperage to what should meet my 6 hour window, adjust the maximum percentage to fill to the 6 hour window if necessary, then turn it back off and HOPE it will charge as scheduled (one time it failed to charge all weekend but still said it was scheduled to)

It would be nice to at least be able to customize for the 7 days of the week, but heck even these features for a nightly charge would be magnitudes better then what the car has now. I'm actually baffled they don't have this yet, it must be more complex to write than I am thinking?

 

[TexasEV]

I think it’s assumed that people with narrow a TOU window will install a circuit with sufficient amps to charge the car during that time. Then you wouldn’t be concerned about stopping charging before the limit you’ve set.

 

[wws]

I think it’s assumed that people with narrow a TOU window will install a circuit with sufficient amps to charge the car during that time. Then you wouldn’t be concerned about stopping charging before the limit you’ve set.

The annoyance is that the start time for off-peak rates varies by weekday/weekend, summer/winter, and so on. As several have noted, GMs charge scheduling is really well done. You can enter the entire TOU schedule - peak/part-peak/off-peak times for weekdays/weekends, and summer vs winter and so on. Once set up, you just plug in at any time and it will figure out when to start charging.

I was surprised that Tesla only offers a single delayed charge time setting. So depending on day, I often have to manually change it.

 

[Uncle Paul]

So many variable go into charging, that it may be difficule to predict.

The charger has no way to know in advance the current it will have available to finish off the charge to the minute.

At Superchargers you will receive a notice when you are about done, and again when you are done. When you start charging it will predict when your selected charge will be completed.

Tesla can do things like this when they have control of all the variables.

Maybe home units could have something like that .

 

[Glamisduner]

I think it’s assumed that people with narrow a TOU window will install a circuit with sufficient amps to charge the car during that time. Then you wouldn’t be concerned about stopping charging before the limit you’ve set.

The assumption that I have a wall connector is a bad one, because I am using the charger that comes with the car... Typically all my charging happens to fit my 6 hour window, but if one or two days it does not I would rather just not continue to charge.

What happens if I only get a 4 hour window next year etc? As it is I get an extra 8 hours to charge on saturday and sunday.

So many variable go into charging, that it may be difficule to predict.

The charger has no way to know in advance the current it will have available to finish off the charge to the minute.

At Superchargers you will receive a notice when you are about done, and again when you are done. When you start charging it will predict when your selected charge will be completed.

Tesla can do things like this when they have control of all the variables.

Maybe home units could have something like that .

Well the car will know the amount of current charge, and how many amps you have it set to charge it, that is all it should need for an estimate right? Now sure if it's cold and needs power to warm the battery etc then it could be off, but I think it would be nice to have a general estimate. They should at least have a turn off time...

 

[f8K37Sq31]

Winter approaches, where I live its already starting to be below freezing at night, and during the winter it'll routinely be below freezing for the daily high temps let alone night time lows. I was thinking it'd be ideal to be able to schedule charging so that it finishes charging around the time I leave for work in the morning so that the battery will be warmer.

Does anything like this already exist?

I have written two apps that may help you with this:

1. Smart Battery Prep: ‎Smart Battery Prep: For Tesla
2. Stats for Tesla (includes the above feature plus a lot of other features and stats): ‎Stats: For Tesla Model S/X/3

The app adds a top-off charge at the designated time so that your battery is conditioned by the time you intend to use the car.
Here is how it does it: https://www.maadotaa.com/batterycond