How Accurate is the depart at time?

[MrTuna]

I tell my Tesla to be ready to depart at 8:30. It seems like when I wake up at 7am it is already fully charged.

it’s the summer so who cares. But in the winter I would rather it finish charging right when I am pulling out. So my battery can be nice and warm.

do I need to manually set the start at charging time? I.e. if I need 2 hours to fill up and want to leave at 8:30, tell it to start charging at 6:30? Or is the charger somehow smarter in the winter with a depart at time?

 

[Nakk]

The car shoots for 6 AM to be fully charged no matter the time you put in. It pre-cools/heats the car to be at temperature a bit before your departure time.

 

[cdavis]

I really wish there was a way to start charging when plugged in, but also set a departure time to pre-heat the cabin.

As its stands now it seems to schedule charging to start and complete by around that depart time.

 

[rhumbliner]

The car shoots for 6 AM to be fully charged no matter the time you put in. It pre-cools/heats the car to be at temperature a bit before your departure time.

Really? How do you know this? I’ve noticed the same thing — car is fully charged long before departure time — but had no idea there was a fixed time to be fully charged.

 

[Nakk]

Really? How do you know this? I’ve noticed the same thing — car is fully charged long before departure time — but had no idea there was a fixed time to be fully charged.

The note at the top of page 157 of the owner's manual. It's a good note to read; I totally forgot that the Y also pre-warms the battery as well as conditions the cabin. The cabin/battery pre-condition aims to be done at departure time. Also, neither will pre-condition if not plugged in.

 

[Rocky_H]

Really? How do you know this? I’ve noticed the same thing — car is fully charged long before departure time — but had no idea there was a fixed time to be fully charged.

Yeah, it was one of those obvious indications that Tesla is so Cali-centric. They assigned this function to some young programmer to create, and he/she set it to stop at 6AM no matter what just because that's when the off peak electricity costs end in California!!
Yeah--they are not smart enough to realize some people live outside of California sometimes.

 

[KyleATMn]

This is disappointing news. I was hoping there was a way to charge to 100% by a certain time so I could leave and not have it be at max charge for longer than a half hour or so....

 

[Rocky_H]

This is disappointing news. I was hoping there was a way to charge to 100% by a certain time so I could leave and not have it be at max charge for longer than a half hour or so....

Well, there basically is (close enough for government work), but it's the manual workaround that a lot of long time Tesla owners use. Just set your overnight limit a bit higher than 90%. Then, when you wake up in the morning, open up the app on your phone, move the slider up to the top and start it charging again while you shower and get ready, and it'll be pretty close to 100% when you're ready to go. And if it's a couple % short, that's generally not a big deal.

 

[frankvb]

Yeah, it was one of those obvious indications that Tesla is so Cali-centric. They assigned this function to some young programmer to create, and he/she set it to stop at 6AM no matter what just because that's when the off peak electricity costs end in California!!
Yeah--they are not smart enough to realize some people live outside of California sometimes.

Even when you live here, on weekends the super off-peak lasts until 2pm. Why isn't there a simple setting for both charging start and end times as my Leaf has...

 

[MrTuna]

Okay so this matches what I see.

should I use start charging at instead and try to manually end at 830? Would love to have free battery heat from charging