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Model 3 scheduled/timed/smart charging
- Thread starter Glan gluaisne
- Start date
So the car failed to charge at all again last night! I removed all scheduling and tariff info from the smart charger app. So this is definitely car related.
Interestingly, when I checked the app at about 9pm. It simply said ‘Ready to charge’. Whereas when I checked it this morning and saw it hadn’t charged, it said that charging would start at 00:30. So a different message. Why was this not displayed last night? I assume there is a connection between the message and lack of charge.
Interestingly, when I checked the app at about 9pm. It simply said ‘Ready to charge’. Whereas when I checked it this morning and saw it hadn’t charged, it said that charging would start at 00:30. So a different message. Why was this not displayed last night? I assume there is a connection between the message and lack of charge.
If the car is asleep when the charge point makes charge power available then the car will just ignore it, and refuse to charge. It isn't supposed to do this at all, it should start charging as soon as power becomes available. The owners manual even states this, as it says that if there is a power cut during charging the car will automatically resume charging when power is restored. It doesn't do this at all, as I simulated a power cut lasting a couple of hours and the car refused to restart charging.
Tesla have, apparently, been aware of this failing for around a year, as it's mentioned in other parts of this forum from this time last year. They are supposedly coming up with a software update to correct it, but seem to be dragging their heels a bit. It is a problem that seems specific to the Model 3, apparently, as Model S and X owners are reporting that their cars follow the charging protocol and do start charging when power becomes available.
Tesla have, apparently, been aware of this failing for around a year, as it's mentioned in other parts of this forum from this time last year. They are supposedly coming up with a software update to correct it, but seem to be dragging their heels a bit. It is a problem that seems specific to the Model 3, apparently, as Model S and X owners are reporting that their cars follow the charging protocol and do start charging when power becomes available.
It worked okay the night previously, and the car was asleep then too.
It’s odd, and the car didn’t used to sleep at all (when charging worked as expected for the first couple of months), but it is constantly sleeping when not it use these days. This is despite Sentry Mode being turned on. It’s been on since the day I collected the car, and I thought Sentry was meant to prevent the car sleeping?!
If it worked before, then it was because the car wasn't asleep, and had been woken up for some other reason around the time the charge point made power available. There are several ways this can happen, from setting a software update to happen overnight to leaving the car in sentry mode. The car will also wake up if interrogated by the app, so if you check on the car it will often wake it up. It's odd that it's now not responding when sentry mode is on, as that has been thought to be a sure fire way to keep the car awake.
Which is what I thought. I know Sentry is on, as the car shows Events have been recorded on screen (although I’ve not viewed these). Although, the number of Events appears reduced lately, so maybe these are being recorded prior to the car sleeping. But as Sentry is on, the car shouldn’t sleep at all. So it sounds like I am experiencing the charging issue that you describe when the car is asleep, but this is as a consequence of the car going to sleep with Sentry on, when it shouldn’t.
I have removed all schedule and tariff details from the Smart app, to be sure they were not interfering and possibly causing my issues. The car is still scheduled to start at 00:30.
Good point. The in-car charging schedule system isn't great, IMHO. For it to work the charge point has to be plugged in and ready to supply power all the time, as the car will start charging as soon as it's plugged in for a minute or two, presumably to assess that the charge point is working properly, then the car will turn off charging and wait, either until the scheduled start time, or until the time it thinks it needs to start charging to meet the scheduled departure time (one or the other, but not both).
I've been caught out by plugging the charge lead in with the charge point off, setting a scheduled charge start time in the car, locking it, then turning the charge point on. That may result in a failure to charge at the scheduled time, may be because the car refuses to wake up if it thinks there's no working charge point connected.
What does sort of work is to have the charge point timer set to turn off at the end of the cheap rate period, but turn on again for the time when you want to plug the car in again. It's a PITA if you don't have a regular driving pattern, but is the only way I've found to get around the failings in the car charge scheduling. Right now I set the car to scheduled charging, when it's plugged in with the charge point manually turned on. I then get out, lock the car, wait for it to stop the initial short charge and switch the charge point over to timed charging. I have the charge point set to turn on about 15 minutes before the car scheduled charge start time, and turn off at the end of the off peak time. That seems to work, and ensures that the car mainly charges during the off peak time.
The in car schedule used to work great for me. I had exactly the same setup and processes for the first 2 months of ownership as I have now. Sentry on, in car schedule set to 00:30. The only thing that changed was the smart charger app introducing schedules and multi tariff details, which is why I removed those, but obviously still had the issue last night.
Without a schedule set on the charger, there is no real manual start. It should just start charging straight away. Other than the fact I have the car set to start at 00:30. When plugged in, the car does detect an initial trace of charge... well I’m assuming that’s what the “2V” indicates below.
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MrBadger
Badger out
If charge drops below 20%, sentry is disabled. Just guessing, but I suspect that below 20% charge, the car will be more likely to sleep, irrespective of sentry mode state.
The car is telling you that the charge point is inactive from that display. It will not then charge at the scheduled time as it believes that the charge point is turned off (which it probably is). I had exactly this issue originally, when trying to use the scheduling in the charge point to control charging.
What should happen if you've set a scheduled start time in the car, is that the car should start to charge when plugged in, with the contactor in the charge point clicking shut to supply power (you can sometimes hear this) followed a minute or two later by the car stopping charging and shutting down. It should then start charging at the scheduled start time.
If it doesn't do this initial quick charge, then it usually means that the charge point is turned off, so I would check whether or not you've got your charge point set to manual, or dumb, mode, where it is on at maximum rate all the time.
I wanted to say thanks for you excellent and scientific investigation of the M3 charging problems. It's really helped me to understand what's going on. Let's hope a software fix is possible. Its rather annoying when my Leaf just works.
Ant M3
Member
This is a new way to help the National Grid balance the power... traditionally they have companies on standby the use extra power (even if it isn’t needed) to burn the extra power in the system ... at least it’s now useful rather then wasteful ... great work from NG and OctopusIt can do, if I've done a long trip. Happened once so far, where charging over ran for two hours into the peak electricity price period.
I can do the work around where I use the car to schedule the start of charge and the charge point to schedule the end, and that works for the winter, when almost all charging will be overnight at the cheap rate.
What I want to be able to do is get back to what I've been doing for the past few years with other EVs/plug-in hybrids, and have total control of charging via the charge point. If I can crack this, then it will allow me to use flexible charging during periods when we are generating enough electricity from the solar panels, something that probably accounted for around half my annual driving this past year (in a little BMW i3). To do that means getting the car to always be subservient to the charge point, within the hierarchy of control. This is supposed to be something that car has to do to be compliant with the standard, anyway, and Tesla know of the non-compliance and have supposedly been working on a fix for over a year now.
One reason it's needed is because, sooner or later, all the smart charge points that are being installed here will be able to control grid demand by throttling back, or switching off, EV charging during peak demand periods, so as to keep the national grid balanced. A couple of days ago one energy company started paying consumers to use electricity, believe it or not, as the national grid was awash with wind generation and needed consumers to increase demand. Getting EV owners to charge their cars was singled out for thanks by a manager at the national grid, in this message:
Agreed, but it does not work with a Tesla Model 3, as Tesla have failed to implement charge control in accordance with the standard, specifically they have failed to enable the charge point to control vehicle charging. That makes every smart charge point in the country a wasted investment in terms of OLEV grant funding, as these charge points are wholly unable to charge a Tesla on demand from the supplier or DNO, as intended. It also means that charge point scheduled timing, to take advantage of off-peak rates fails to function, as the car refuses to wake up and accept a charge at the start of the charge period.
The only way around this at the moment is to switch off the smart functionality within the charge point, have it revert to being a dumb, always on charge point, and then use the car scheduled start, or scheduled departure (but not both, they are mutually exclusive), functions to try and approximate the best use of electricity during the cheap periods.
I’m working on a service which will do that, hope to have it available over the Christmas break.
Me too, in slow time!
I now have a prototype "Tesla Button" sort of working, which gets a token from Tesla and then replicates the app "climate on" function. Not wholly happy with it, and still on a very steep learning curve for me (I'm very much a hardware person) but as a "proof of concept" it seems OK.
Next stage is to try and make a multi-functional remote, with real buttons, together with a timer to be able to schedule charging when I want it to happen. I may end up separating the latter bit out and fitting it into my charge point, so that can control charging properly, either when connected to a Tesla Model 3, or any other EV that actually follows the requirements in IEC61851 properly.
Ultimately I want something that's really easy to use in the house, just press a button a few minutes before we go out to warm/cool the car, would be a start. My work around at the moment is an old Android tablet that I've blu tacked to the wall and have set to be always on, plugged into a charger (needs to be anyway, as the battery's knackered). This just sits with the Tesla app open, so it's reasonably quick to wake it up, go to the climate setting, and tap it, but nowhere near as handy as just pressing a button.
Might be worth having a thread here that collects together links to all the effort going in to do stuff like this. For me, the most understandable starting point was this project: Tesla API Security Alarm System with Raspberry Pi
I've just modified his code so that instead of being an alarm it controls the climate, and used a Raspberry Pi Zero W. Next stage is to get to grips with micropython on an ESP8266, as that looks to be an ideal device for a remote, as it has a fairly low power sleep mode (~60µA, I think). That makes having a small box that runs on battery power feasible.
ACarneiro
Active Member
Probably. Pretty much everything we do to control those magic pixies could be viewed as witchcraft by some...
Suffered from the "scheduled charge current dropping to 16 A" problem last night, straight after a software update. Instead of the car being fully charged at the end of the cheap rate period, it was only 63% charged an hour after the end of it.
It's a damned nuisance this bug, one that I thought had gone away after the last software update, but it seems not. The charge started normally at full current, then halved a short time later, and stayed at that low level all night.
As it happens I most probably don't need to drive anywhere today, but if I did I'd be damned angry about the car refusing to charge at the full rate. No problem here with supply voltage, either, even the car was indicating 238 V when I stopped and restarted the charge at full current, just to check that it was the well-known bug we've seen before.
It's a damned nuisance this bug, one that I thought had gone away after the last software update, but it seems not. The charge started normally at full current, then halved a short time later, and stayed at that low level all night.
As it happens I most probably don't need to drive anywhere today, but if I did I'd be damned angry about the car refusing to charge at the full rate. No problem here with supply voltage, either, even the car was indicating 238 V when I stopped and restarted the charge at full current, just to check that it was the well-known bug we've seen before.
Got caught by it too. Happened to wake up with 1 hour left of Octopus Go cheap rate, stopped and started it and it jumped back up to 32A. Pathetic bug, a real pain and really, really annoying.
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