Leaving for 2 Weeks, Should I leave my charger in even with regular thunderstorms?

[AM053]

Hi, is it ok that I leave my charger in my Tesla while I'm away for 2 weeks? I know it's recommended that we leave in the charger when possible, but the reason I ask is because there are frequent thunderstorms that occur once a week and I won't be able to unplug when they occur. Any information is helpful, thanks!

 

[OldPro]

Going on a 3 week vacation. Should I leave the car plugged in while away?
Thanks

I was gone for 10 days on an RV trip and left mine plugged in while gone. No issues when I returned.

 

[nitynity]

Flying out of town for seven days. Planning to fully charge the M3 and leave it unplugged in the garage during the duration. Don’t want to risk thunderstorms and lightning while away And plugged in. Once fully charged, it should easily retain the battery for seven days I believe without the need for plugging it in.
Any tips?

I’m in TX. The weather is going to be low 40s to low 80s for the next week.

 

[XPsionic]

7 days? Your car will probably last half a year if you charge it to 90% and let it sleep.
Mine only loses like 2-3% a week parked.

 

[Rottenapplr]

I try to not let my battery spend an extended time at either a high state of charge or a low state of charge. I would adjust to keep the battery in the nominal 50% SOC as much as possible. Keeping in mind that sentry will automatically turn off below 20% SOC.

If I were op put it at 70 and call it a day.

 

[johnny_cakes]

As a strategy to store at low SoC while away, what do people think about plugging the car in at say 20% SoC but stopping the charge through the app so it stays at 20% SoC? Then I can check on it occasionally through the app and if the SoC drops down to an uncomfortable level, then I can start the charge again through the app for about an hour or so to bring it back up to ~20% SoC.

 

[AAKEE]

0% displayed is around 4.5% so that fits.

I would guess even lower before the 12V stops getting topped of.
This because the 12v get damaged by low SOC (lead acid batteries does not like being below about 50% SOC).
The HV batt shut of anyway before reaching dangerously low SOC. (Well below 0% indicated).

As a strategy to store at low SoC while away, what do people think about plugging the car in at say 20% SoC but stopping the charge through the app so it stays at 20% SoC? Then I can check on it occasionally through the app and if the SoC drops down to an uncomfortable level, then I can start the charge again through the app for about an hour or so to bring it back up to ~20% SoC.

I would use low SOC.

I was an a three week US-holiday and had the car in my garage home in Sweden during this time. It was summer and thunderstorms is not that unusual so I did not connect the car. (There was a high number of briken things in the neighbourhood just before this due to a lightning strike so it was an easy call, not to connect).

My car had 33% SOC, which is ”low enough” but had that amount because a friend did get it home from the service center the same day we went on the holiday trip.
If I had parked it at between 15 to 50% SOC I would have kept that value.
Below 15% I probably had charged it just a little to have a safe margin to ending up below 0% during the trip.

Parked at 33% and had 31.X% after three weeks.

I often arrive below 20% at work, long drive and in most cases it have been sleeping at 15-18% or so at work for one week before I charge for the drive home.

 

[johnny_cakes]

I would use low SOC.

I've seen suggestions to either plug in the car and leave the charge limit set to 50% or leave it unplugged to minimize SoC. I'm wondering we can do both to get the best of both worlds. Leave the car plugged in but manually turn off charging through the Tesla app. That way the vehicle will rest at a low SoC (20% or whatever you leave it at), then you can occasionally check in on it and if it needs a little charge, can manually turn on then turn off charging remotely through the app to get it back to your desired SoC. Has anyone tried this?

 

[AC Traction]

I've seen suggestions to either plug in the car and leave the charge limit set to 50% or leave it unplugged to minimize SoC. I'm wondering we can do both to get the best of both worlds. Leave the car plugged in but manually turn off charging through the Tesla app. That way the vehicle will rest at a low SoC (20% or whatever you leave it at), then you can occasionally check in on it and if it needs a little charge, can manually turn on then turn off charging remotely through the app to get it back to your desired SoC. Has anyone tried this?

I tried that once, parking in my garage with about 25% SoC. Plugged in, set the car to 50% and hit "stop charging" in the app. It stopped and the wall connector contactor opened, but sometime during the night it started charging again. The next morning it was at 50%.

 

[johnny_cakes]

I tried that once, parking in my garage with about 25% SoC. Plugged in, set the car to 50% and hit "stop charging" in the app. It stopped and the wall connector contactor opened, but sometime during the night it started charging again. The next morning it was at 50%.

Oh interesting, so it sounds like that technique doesn't work. Strange.

 

[AAKEE]

Oh interesting, so it sounds like that technique doesn't work. Strange.

I would guess there is ”only” two settings:
- Scheduled charging - will charge every day at that time.
- Not scheduled charging - starts charging directly when connected.
If the SOC is below the set charging level with a certain margin, it will charge up to the set level,at least I think.