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Question about charging from a normal wall outlet

Discussion in 'Model 3: Battery & Charging' started by tom_1983, Sep 14, 2018.

  1. tom_1983

    tom_1983 Member

    Joined:
    Sep 11, 2018
    Messages:
    61
    Location:
    Montreal, QC
    I am moving soon so I didn't install the wall charger and am just using a normal wall outlet to charge my car, at about 7km/hr lol. When I first got the car a week or so ago on 32.5 I kept it plugged in for the first couple days all the time. It would notify me on the app that charging was completed and that was generally it. I'd sit in the car using the radio or playing with it and understand from the manual that doing this it gets the power from the wall not the car.

    I didn't charge my car for maybe 3-4 days because I wanted to get the battery low so I could try using a Supercharger. I did that and got my car to maybe 70% then used the wall at home to get to the 80% where I leave it.

    I was then updated a day ago to 34.1. Every maybe 3-4 hours the app will notify me now and say "Charging completed with 423km range." I haven't used the car, moved it, it's just in the garage plugged in. Other times I'll open the app and it will say "Charging, 15 minutes remaining" and it will say 423km range on it.

    Should it not charge fully and then not charge until I drive it again? Or is this normal? It's not losing range or anything, just not sure why it keeps randomly charging like that. It was at 423km range when I went to bed last night, and I manually selected "stop charging" where this right now it shows 422km range and says "Charging Complete."

    Now as I just finished typing the last paragraph, the app changed and says "Charging 15 min remaining." So it's doing it again, so just wondering if that's normal. With time of use rates it's the most expensive days/evenings so I don't want it to be charging 24/7 like it seems to be. Is this just because I'm using the wall plug vs a faster charger?
     
  2. Derek Kessler

    Derek Kessler Active Member

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2016
    Messages:
    1,193
    Location:
    Cincinnati
    Regardless of whether the car is plugged in or not, it always draws power for operations from the battery. It will use a few miles of range per day just sitting there, and if it's plugged in it will periodically top the battery back up. Time of use and scheduled charging is really only useful when you have a higher power outlet to work with — when you're charging at 10A/120V, it'll take so long to charge it doesn't make sense.

    I suggest just turning off the charging complete notification.
     

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