Question about leaving car idle.

[Raro]

I will be out of town for a few weeks, planing on leaving the car plugged in, the charger is on a TOU plan.

If I set the charging start time at my preferred time will it top off only at that time throughout my time away or will it start charging right away once it drops 3% regardless of what the time of day it is?

 

[jjrandorin]

I will be out of town for a few weeks, planing on leaving the car plugged in, the charger is on a TOU plan.

If I set the charging start time at my preferred time will it top off only at that time throughout my time away or will it start charging right away once it drops 3% regardless of what the time of day it is?

Charge it up to 90% right before you leave, then move the slider down to 50% and it likely wont even charge while you are gone at all.

 

[hgmichna]

I will be out of town for a few weeks, planing on leaving the car plugged in, the charger is on a TOU plan.

If I set the charging start time at my preferred time will it top off only at that time throughout my time away or will it start charging right away once it drops 3% regardless of what the time of day it is?

It will always obey the charging time. My recommendation is to set the charge limit to 50% or 60% and leave it there. You may want to switch off Sentry, Summon Standby and anything else that keeps the car awake, to allow it to sleep and thus save a bit of energy.

The day before you need the car you can use the Tesla app to turn the charge limit higher if needed.

I don't think it is a good idea to charge the car to 90% while away, if it is connected to a charger.

 

[Raro]

Thanks for the info, I typically charge to 80% before leaving work (my primary charging location) I was planing on leaving sentry on since I live in a condo complex and we have had the occasional “undesirable” get into the garage.

So I will just leave the slider down at 50% and set the charging start time to midnight.

 

[lUtriaNt]

50% is good for storage - i have seen this mentioned many times on the forums and it may even be in the manual as well.

 

[smatthew]

Wait, you're going to be gone a while? Do you feel your range is degraded? Especially if you typically charge to 80% you're probably suffering from a battery imbalance. The car can correct it, but it takes a lot of time...... which you have..... The car needs the battery to be at least 85% (which you don't normally hit), and the car has to be asleep. The car takes 24hours to fix 1mv of imbalance, and won't start unless you have at least 5mv of imbalance.

I would set the charge percentage to like 88 or 90%, turn of sentry, and summon standby. And let the car do it's thing. I bet your 100% range will increase from when you leave, to when you return.

 

[Chopr147]

Your Tesla "idles"?

 

[Raro]

Wait, you're going to be gone a while? Do you feel your range is degraded? Especially if you typically charge to 80% you're probably suffering from a battery imbalance. The car can correct it, but it takes a lot of time...... which you have..... The car needs the battery to be at least 85% (which you don't normally hit), and the car has to be asleep. The car takes 24hours to fix 1mv of imbalance, and won't start unless you have at least 5mv of imbalance.

I would set the charge percentage to like 88 or 90%, turn of sentry, and summon standby. And let the car do it's thing. I bet your 100% range will increase from when you leave, to when you return.

I have about 1300 miles on the car, I typically charge to 80% monday-Thursday and give it 90-95% on fridays since I don’t charge at home during the weekend, I did a longer road trip two weeks ago and charged to 100% and my rated range was at 298 so I don’t think I’m suffering from degradation. Good to know, I might slide it up to 90% 48 hours before I get home anyways.

 

[smatthew]

Oh, so this is a relatively new car. Wasn't sure. Enjoy your trip! And 50 or 60 percent, with a 90% boost 48 hours before you get home sounds great to me.