Non-scheduled, TOU charging, how?

[ucmndd]

Yes, and that is a PITA. I can plug in my car and it won't start charging. I've actually bought a Wi-Fi controlled switch for this and when the switch turns on, the car won't start charging until 8 pm. So I have to disable the feature in the car entirely.

Lame car.

If you say so. I'd offer the feature is working as designed. My peak electricity rates are ~4x higher than off-peak. I don't want my car topping itself off for any reason during that peak period unless I explicitly tell it to. That's sorta the point of the whole charging schedule.

 

[gnuarm]

Amazon smart plugs are rated at 15 amps, as an example. Pretty sure a 120v Tesla on a 5-15 outlet draws only 12 amps. Seems well within safety ratings, no? If safe, this would solve the OP's problem, cheaply and efficiently.

I don't know that a 15 amp rating on the controlled switches is common. When I bought mine I had to look pretty hard to get one actually rated for 15 amps. Most are only 10 amps and the rating is often hard to find. They are designed to control lamps and such.

My experience has been that they are not so reliable either. At first mine worked fine and I used it on the car for some months. Then I used it on my refrigerator which showed me I had the temperature settings wrong. During this time it started missing times as if it were shifted by 12 hours! The settings are all military time, so the settings are not wrong by am/pm. I'm using it again on the car, but don't know if it is working right or not. It turned on at the right time this morning and says it will turn off in x hours correctly, so I guess it's back on track.

These cheap consumer items are never built well and should not be trusted with charging your car when it is important to get it right, like when you have a court date!

Why the devil can't Tesla provide a decent TOU capability in their internal charging AND make that controllable through the Tesla app? This is the 21st century and charging is something very, very fundamental to using an EV. TOU saves me about half my EV charging costs and going forward this will be important as the number of EVs increase and level 1 and 2 home and work charging become a significant impact on the grid.

 

[gnuarm]

If you say so. I'd offer the feature is working as designed. My peak electricity rates are ~4x higher than off-peak. I don't want my car topping itself off for any reason during that peak period unless I explicitly tell it to. That's sorta the point of the whole charging schedule.

You aren't grasping the concept. The car needs to know when the peak times are so it won't charge. Right now it only knows to not start until the peak time ends, but will happily charge into the peak times and won't start charging even when not peak times. In the winter my peak times are two, 6-9am and 5-8pm. So the car will not start charging until 8 pm and happily charge into the morning peak time and on through the pm peak time the following day. It only stops when reaching the programmed charge level and won't give you a charge if started any time before then peak or not.

 

[ucmndd]

You aren't grasping the concept. The car needs to know when the peak times are so it won't charge. Right now it only knows to not start until the peak time ends, but will happily charge into the peak times and won't start charging even when not peak times. In the winter my peak times are two, 6-9am and 5-8pm. So the car will not start charging until 8 pm and happily charge into the morning peak time and on through the pm peak time the following day. It only stops when reaching the programmed charge level and won't give you a charge if started any time before then peak or not.

I see, and agree even, thus my prior comment up-thread:

Correct. There’s no way currently to set charge “blackout” hours. Agree it would be a useful feature.

Do any other EVs have this capability? Other than my Tesla I've had a Chevy Volt and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid - both of which had charging schedule features that made Tesla's look downright sophisticated.

 

[gnuarm]

I see, and agree even, thus my prior comment up-thread:



Do any other EVs have this capability? Other than my Tesla I've had a Chevy Volt and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid - both of which had charging schedule features that made Tesla's look downright sophisticated.

I think it is disingenuous to talk about comparisons rather than just talk about a problem. How does it matter one whit what GM or Chrysler do when you are driving a Tesla? The point is the Tesla TOU charging capabilities are crude by any measure... at all.

 

[ucmndd]

I think it is disingenuous to talk about comparisons rather than just talk about a problem. How does it matter one whit what GM or Chrysler do when you are driving a Tesla?

I'm not suggesting it as an excuse, but more an honest question as to the relative development effort other companies have put into this feature and their prioritization of such. To be quite frank, the challenges you're having would appear to be a fairly rare edge case. What is preventing you from achieving a full charge between 8pm and 6am, or starting a charge manually from the app when you need to? Apparently you have a Model X with "72kW" chargers (I'll assume you mean 72 amp) - although even a car with the base 48 amp charger could charge from dead flat to 100% in 10 hours...

The point is the Tesla TOU charging capabilities are crude by any measure... at all.

Except the measurement of what other manufacturers provide.

 

[gnuarm]

I'm not suggesting it as an excuse, but more an honest question as to the relative development effort other companies have put into this feature and their prioritization of such. To be quite frank, the challenges you're having would appear to be a fairly rare edge case. What is preventing you from achieving a full charge between 8pm and 6am, or starting a charge manually from the app when you need to? Apparently you have a Model X with "72kW" chargers (I'll assume you mean 72 amp) - although even a car with the base 48 amp charger could charge from dead flat to 100% in 10 hours...


Except the measurement of what other manufacturers provide.

That's not a measurement, it's a comparison.

I don't know my situation is such an odd duck. The real issue is for 8 months of the year I deal with two peak times, morning and evening. In 4 months I have a single peak time in the late afternoon. This is a common pattern. Heck, some locations have multiple tiers even.

Of course I could charge manually, but is that all I should expect from a car of such technology and expense? This is like saying the auto wipers work as well as can be expected since no one else's wipers work better. The auto wiper sucks. The other option gives no control over the intermittent wiping, so sucks worse than my 20 year old pickup truck! May it rest in peace. Teslas are full of such incongruities.

 

[ohmman]

I don't know my situation is such an odd duck.

PG&E (California) has moved a lot of EV rate customers (like me) to the EV2-A program. Off-peak is 12AM-3PM. I agree that I'd like the car to be smart enough to charge if I plug it in and my rates are low. I'd also like it to be able to stop charging as soon as I hit part-peak or peak.

The Tesla app has my electricity peak/off-peak/part-peak times in it, because I have Tesla Powerwalls, and they want to know this situation to determine when to charge and when to supply house power. Seems like Tesla should be able to update the car firmware to support something similar.

For those that have other restrictions (maybe daytime power draw limitations or something else), it would be nice if it could be disabled and put in a "start at X:XX" mode again.

 

[iffatall]

I think the charging features on Tesla do not expect 120V charging as a regular use case.

Most 240V charging solutions will likely finish charging within one off-peak slot for most people. It is only 120V charging that is slow enough that a charging session starting at the start of an off-peak slot may spill over to subsequent peak slots.

That being said, I agree that better flexibility in charge scheduling should be an option. If they are afraid it might make it too complex to configure, may be put it under an "advanced" section.

In the current state, the easiest way to handle this is what someone suggested earlier - just set an alarm 5 mins before the start of peak hours, and manually "Stop Charging" from the app.

 

[gnuarm]

I think the charging features on Tesla do not expect 120V charging as a regular use case.

Most 240V charging solutions will likely finish charging within one off-peak slot for most people. It is only 120V charging that is slow enough that a charging session starting at the start of an off-peak slot may spill over to subsequent peak slots.

That being said, I agree that better flexibility in charge scheduling should be an option. If they are afraid it might make it too complex to configure, may be put it under an "advanced" section.

In the current state, the easiest way to handle this is what someone suggested earlier - just set an alarm 5 mins before the start of peak hours, and manually "Stop Charging" from the app.

Sure, but the point is not everyone fits the "typical" use case. In a family with more than one driver the car might return home around midnight or later so is not charged fully by the morning peak rate time. So the charging needs to stop and restart when it is over so the "other" driver can drive with a full tank.

Or a home with two or three cars might need to stagger the charging times so each vehicle gets some amount of charging on any given evening without overloading the main circuit. Three cars charging at 32 amps is half the total load for the home. Add in an oven, a couple of stove burners, an electric furnace... It really won't be long before this sort of thing is the norm rather than the exception.

As EVs mature we will find all manner of needs for charge scheduling to optimize both the utility to the user as well as assist the public utilities in optimizing resources. Such a lame user interface is not a good place to start.

 

[ucmndd]

as well as assist the public utilities in optimizing resources.

I think this is what will drive the innovation. Utilities having some control over the draw of your EVSE (presumably in exchange for a lower rate) to help with grid demand management.

 

[gnuarm]

I think this is what will drive the innovation. Utilities having some control over the draw of your EVSE (presumably in exchange for a lower rate) to help with grid demand management.

One has to check motivation. The public utilities don't have a lot of motivation to promote efficiency. They have various programs in place for that, but it is mostly in response to requirements by government and to prevent negative PR, so tokens. Generally speaking they justify profits based on their capital investment. So they have no problem going to the rate board and saying they need to invest 2 billion over the next five years to upgrade distribution to accommodate EV charging. We pay for that and they get to up their profits.