Is scheduled charging location based?

[Chris Engineer]

When charging at home, I have the charging start at 9:30 PM when the rates are lower. However, I travel a bit and when I go to a location where I need to plug in the car from a wall outlet (ORD - Chicago Offsite Airport Parking, no high speed charging) I do not want to have to worry about turning off the schedule.

Does the software in the car take into account where you are when setup scheduled charging?

I would think it would, but arriving at the ORD airport I am rushing and do not want to play with experiments and come back from my trip to a dead Tesla. Thanks!

 

[ajdelange]

I assume that when you set the car to use EST and tell it to charge at 23:30 it will start to charge at 23:30 EST even though you are at ORD or SFO but to be honest I have no idea.

Your post implies that you can park at an airport charger, fly off to wherever for a couple of days and leave your car connected to that charger the whole time you are gone. Am I reading that right?

 

[Rocky_H]

Does the software in the car take into account where you are when setup scheduled charging?

Yes, it does exactly that. It creates a GPS location tag for each place you charge, and the setting of scheduled or not is assigned to that location. So yes, that works out perfectly fine where you may have your home charging set up to start at midnight, but when you plug in at work or anywhere else, it starts right away.

I would think it would, but arriving at the ORD airport I am rushing and do not want to play with experiments and come back from my trip to a dead Tesla. Thanks!

That still wouldn't be any problem either way, because even after you have departed, on the mobile app on your phone, you can check on it and tell it to start or stop charging at any time.

 

[Rocky_H]

Your post implies that you can park at an airport charger, fly off to wherever for a couple of days and leave your car connected to that charger the whole time you are gone. Am I reading that right?

Oh boy. I can hear the righteous indignation already. If the charging stations are in the long term parking area at the airport, then that is exactly what they are intended for, and he is doing the right thing.

 

[ajdelange]

Yes, it does exactly that. It creates a GPS location tag for each place you charge, and the setting of scheduled or not is assigned to that location. So yes, that works out perfectly fine where you may have your home charging set up to start at midnight, but when you plug in at work, it starts right away.

I don't think that's what he is asking. I think what he wants to know is, if he tells it he wants it to charge at 11:30 when he is home and then moves a time zone west, whether it will start charging an hour later (Z) or put another way, will it start at 11:30 Local time wherever local may be.

 

[Rocky_H]

I don't think that's what he is asking. I think what he wants to know is, if he tells it he wants it to charge at 11:30 when he is home and then moves a time zone west, whether it will start charging an hour later (Z) or put another way, will it start at 11:30 Local time wherever local may be.

Doesn't sound like that. He never questioned about the accuracy of at what hour it starts. He says he hopes he doesn't have to specifically remember to turn off scheduled charging.

 

[Chris Engineer]

I live about 130 miles away from Chicago airport (in Madison, WI)--which is the same time zone.

There are not high-speed destination chargers where I park. They have spots for electric cars--but it is simply a 110 wall outlet. However, being gone for 2 to 3 days at a time, the car is charged up fairly well.

However, you could think of another use case: Charging at home and at work. At work I want to start charging upon arrival but at home only when the rates drop.

However, Rocky_H answered my question. The scheduled charging is location based. Thanks!

 

[ajdelange]

I'll leave it to OP to decide whether his question is answered. I'd like to know if scheduled start time is shifted for time zone.

 

[Rocky_H]

I'd like to know if scheduled start time is shifted for time zone.

That question seems kind of self-answering. You can't set it remotely for a different place while the car is somewhere else. It gets set when the car is at a certain location and is assigned to that location where the car is at that moment. That location can't move so will always be in that one time zone. The clock in the car reads its time online from seeing the GPS location of what time zone it's in, so it will also shift daylight savings time based on that position too.

If you drive the car to a different time zone and charge and change that setting, then that is creating a new separate charging entry with its own details and settings.

 

[gnuarm]

I live about 130 miles away from Chicago airport (in Madison, WI)--which is the same time zone.

There are not high-speed destination chargers where I park. They have spots for electric cars--but it is simply a 110 wall outlet. However, being gone for 2 to 3 days at a time, the car is charged up fairly well.

How comfortable are you with charging at a remote location like this using your mobile cable which I assume is what you are using. At $300 I can see these becoming a targeted item even though the connector can't be removed from the car. I'm sure they can be replaced. Heck, the cable can't be removed from the car, but the adapter can be removed from the main unit and the wall. That is a $45 item I believe. At some point there is going to be a market for these things and they will be stolen, resold and stolen again.

I so wish they had included a simple 120 volt connector in the car so a much lower priced 15 foot extension cable could be used instead of a $300 mobile cable.

 

[LordKelvin]

So I just found this post and it is happening to me right now. I am on vacation and where at is 12:30am. I got a notification the car started to charge. However, my Tesla is at home and it is only 10:30 there. Good thing I got the Stats app which I can adjust the schedule remotely. So I believe the charge time is based on where my phone is not where the car is. Unless there is a way to correct it.