Future owner. Charging question.

[Webeevdrivers]

So hypothetical situation. I plug my model 3 into a destination charger overnight. Max charge set for 90 percent. I wake up at 6 with the intention of being on the road at 8. Can I change max charge to 100 percent on the phone app when I wake up and have a fully charged car at 8?

Thank you.

Ordering first week of April.

 

[ucmndd]

Yes

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Yes

Thank you. That was easy..and fast. Great board.

 

[TW14 9LF]

The other thing you could do is set a departure time of 8 AM in your charging profile, set your limit at 100%, and let the car figure out when it needs to start charging for you.

Either way, though, you'd be occupying a charging stall while not charging, which depending on how busy the area is, could mean that somebody else couldn't charge. So, what I would likely do in this scenario is just charge to 100%. Leaving it overnight charged at that level won't do any harm to the battery. It's doing that all of the time, or leaving it charged at 100% for a long period of time that "may" do "slight" degradation to your battery (emphasis intended).

 

[Knightshade]

The other thing you could do is set a departure time of 8 AM in your charging profile, set your limit at 100%, and let the car figure out when it needs to start charging for you.

The problem is Teslas departure charge code sucks.

It ends at 5 AM, no matter when you're leaving- because apparently that's when the guy who wrote the codes personal electric rates go up.

Doing it the way he suggests instead has you leaving with a warmer battery that spent less time at 100%

 

[jjrandorin]

So hypothetical situation. I plug my model 3 into a destination charger overnight. Max charge set for 90 percent. I wake up at 6 with the intention of being on the road at 8. Can I change max charge to 100 percent on the phone app when I wake up and have a fully charged car at 8?

Thank you.

Ordering first week of April.

Did you change your mind on the non Tesla EV you were going to get (or am I remembering someone else who had decided on some other EV but was going to get the tesla "later"_?

 

[TW14 9LF]

The problem is Teslas departure charge code sucks.

It ends at 5 AM, no matter when you're leaving- because apparently that's when the guy who wrote the codes personal electric rates go up.

Doing it the way he suggests instead has you leaving with a warmer battery that spent less time at 100%

Really? Will have to check that, I use the departure time at home every night to charge, have it set to depart at 5:00 AM coincidentally. So I've been thinking this works exactly as I want it to.

 

[tga]

Leaving it overnight charged at that level won't do any harm to the battery.

Yes, it will. How much is debatable, but leaving the car sitting at 100% for hours is absolutely bad for the battery and, generally, unnecessary.

I do exactly what the OP describes before a long trip. Charge to 90% overnight, then bump to 100% on the phone 2 hours before departure. After almost 90k miles on my S, I've lost <4% capacity.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Did you change your mind on the non Tesla EV you were going to get (or am I remembering someone else who had decided on some other EV but was going to get the tesla "later"_?

Yep. Or rather my wife did. The new car (now going to be a Tesla model 3 AWD) will be my wife’s daily driver. After about 6 months of waiting our Nissan dealer got in touch with us and told us they would not be able to get the configuration for at least another 3 to 6 months past our “need by” date. Plus my wife who is an EV nerd saw the statement from the Nissan CEO that implied they needed to build more non plug in hybrids because women were to weak and stupid to be able to charge an electric vehicle. She is a retired career soldier/technician who is kinda handy in a bar fight. How do you think that went. .

Anyway, we are out of the country till mid March. As soon as we are back home she is ordering her Model 3. Red, sport rims, white interior. AWD.

My daily driver will continue to be our 2016 Leaf,

 

[TW14 9LF]

Yes, it will. How much is debatable, but leaving the car sitting at 100% for hours is absolutely bad for the battery and, generally, unnecessary.

Data......

 

[Watts_Up]

Yes, it will. How much is debatable, but leaving the car sitting at 100% for hours is absolutely bad for the battery and, generally, unnecessary.

I do exactly what the OP describes before a long trip. Charge to 90% overnight, then bump to 100% on the phone 2 hours before departure. After almost 90k miles on my S, I've lost <4% capacity.

Honestly, nobody know what 100% mean, because there are buffers on the Max and the Min to protect the batteries.

This is the kind of test that Bjørn Nyland performs, has he noticed that some cars continue to charge a little bit after reaching 100%.
(He was looking at the display provide by some CCS superchargers, but Tesla don't provide any information, but I read that they might have to.)
Then Bjørn Nyland started to drive the car, and the battery capacity display was still at 100% for a while before it started to drop.
So he was then estimated the real capacity of the car.

I guess, you might be referring to some phones who cannot really communicate with the charger and the battery might overheat.

In the case of Tesla, I would recommend charging at 95% just because you lose some of the braking generation benefices.
But if you are going for a long trip, just charge then at 100% if you are going on a freeway and would not really need to use your brake.
But for city driving commute, generative breaking is more comfortable.

 

[mreynolds767]

The answer to the original question is most definitely a Yes.
I often set my charge to 80% which starts when my battery is warm right when I pull it in the night before.

I then wake up in the morning and if really bad weather out or have a long drive ahead will with my phone at my bedside set the car to 85-90 range for the battery and also the benefit of this preheating the battery before driving which improves regen braking. Can also choose to preheat the cabin as well at this time from your phone, which I sometimes do as well. Can turn on the seat heaters ; all 5 of them too.
So that is simple stuff.

Telsa does have a departure feature made to take advantage of off hour charging but currently it needs work as it is not flexible on it's pre-determined times. I think that will be changed with future updates and if you don't live in a off hour charging lower cost area is not worth using anyway. is more efficient to start your battery charge when the car is still warm has just driven than at 2 AM after it has sat idle and cold for 6 hours.

Lastly for battery health it is not recommended to charge to 100%. If you have to for an occasional trip it will be fine. But not something you would want to do daily or even once a week.
Best to keep the car in a 30-80 kind of range as often as you can.
Factor that in when making the buying decision on SR+ or AWD model.

 

[TW14 9LF]

I stand by my statement that occasionally having your car sit for a few hours at 100% charge won't hurt anything. Doing it all the time "might" be bad, but data is mixed on that. So, good practice is don't do it on a regular basis.

As another data point, my previous EV only had 74 miles range. I charged it to 100% every day for almost 40,000 miles (I had to, or I didn't have enough range for my daily commute). When I traded that car in on my Tesla, the battery wasn't showing any appreciable difference in capacity from new.

 

[ellienovember]

Future owner. Another few charging questions I hope owners won't mind offering their advice on.

I only drive ~15m a day during the week and a bit more over the weekend. I've read around this forum and others and still not 100% sure about how often and when I should home charge. Should I still charge every night at home even if my usage is minimal? Also, it seems charging on a warm battery is better than on a cold. What detrimental effects would I be doing to my battery if I wait a few hours after getting home to start charging so it's off-peak electric hours?

 

[jjrandorin]

Future owner. Another few charging questions I hope owners won't mind offering their advice on.

I only drive ~15m a day during the week and a bit more over the weekend. I've read around this forum and others and still not 100% sure about how often and when I should home charge. Should I still charge every night at home even if my usage is minimal? Also, it seems charging on a warm battery is better than on a cold. What detrimental effects would I be doing to my battery if I wait a few hours after getting home to start charging so it's off-peak electric hours?

You are over thinking it (like a lot of new owners or prospective owners do). Tesla itself advises you to "just plug it in" when not using it. Whether you choose to listen is up to you, and you will get people here swearing that their "maintenance routine" is better. If that floats your boat, then go for it, but there is no NEED to do anything other than just plug it in when you get home if you have home charging and unplug when you are ready to go, rinse, repeat.

No, you dont need to worry about charging the battery when its warm, no you dont need to worry about scheduling it to charge in the middle of the night when electricity may be cheaper for you (like it is for many), if needed the car will warm the battery before charging it.

you simply do not need to think about any of that... but if you want to, you can.,... it wont get you anywhere but following hundreds of charging posts down a rabbit hole though, to end up back right with what I am saying above.

 

[Rocky_H]

As another data point, my previous EV

Entirely different brand, different battery, different battery management system, different charging limits, different buffers, etc. etc. This is apples and oranges. There would be some general principles that would be common about lithium ion batteries, but the setup differences between different brands of EVs play into this significantly, as mentioned below.

I charged it to 100% every day for almost 40,000 miles (I had to, or I didn't have enough range for my daily commute). When I traded that car in on my Tesla, the battery wasn't showing any appreciable difference in capacity from new.

Yes, and there is a good reason for that which is I would say almost certainly because of other electric cars except for Tesla being set up differently. Short range EVs have a different kind of scenario. They do not have those sections of charge limits like Tesla does, where there is the 50% to 90% for "Daily" use and then the 90% to 100% for "Trips". Tesla can do that because there is a really large battery there, so they really are letting you have access all the way to the top. They just give the appropriate warnings to make sure people don't always charge it completely full for no good reason.

But with most short range EVs, you correctly point out that people need them full every day, because they just don't have much to work with, and it's stressful enough as it is. They don't have a limit slider, where you can select to only go to 70% or 80% full. They generally just don't give you that choice--you put in the plug, and it goes to full. Period. Because they are going to be used that way, most of those other auto makers do leave a little bit of hidden unused buffer at the top end so you are not constantly shooting your battery in the head every day. So the displayed marking for "Full" is usually somewhere like 93% or 95% of the actual full capacity of the battery. So that is why a lot of those other EVs can supposedly (but not really) be charged to "Full" every day and show very little degradation.

 

[Dan123]

Future owner. Another few charging questions I hope owners won't mind offering their advice on.

I only drive ~15m a day during the week and a bit more over the weekend. I've read around this forum and others and still not 100% sure about how often and when I should home charge. Should I still charge every night at home even if my usage is minimal? Also, it seems charging on a warm battery is better than on a cold. What detrimental effects would I be doing to my battery if I wait a few hours after getting home to start charging so it's off-peak electric hours?

I drive around 20-25 miles per day. I only plug it in when it gets down to 30%. It's just a matter of convenience for me, I don't want to have to plug it in daily.

Warm vs Cold - it is unlikely to make a difference for you. I think the limitation on charging kicks it when you are supercharging, and not when you are charging at home at a relatively slow rate. If it is very cold (below freezing), you might see some energy go to the heating, but even in NJ that doesn't happen very often.

 

[ucmndd]

Should I still charge every night at home even if my usage is minimal?

Yes.

Also, it seems charging on a warm battery is better than on a cold. What detrimental effects would I be doing to my battery if I wait a few hours after getting home to start charging so it's off-peak electric hours?

None.

Set scheduled charging hours, plug in every night when you're done driving for the day, charge to 90%. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[TydalForce]

If you have the ability to plug it in, do so. The car will at a minimum use that power instead of its battery for maintenance tasks and stuff.

A vague recommendation is to charge it to somewhere in the 50-90 percent range (as indicated by the charge level slider). I have a <40 mile total commute most days; I set it to 70% which is plenty and gives me a good buffer in case I have to do something unexpected. I bump it up to 90 or 100 when I have a trip.