Question on Using MYLR and Charging for daily Errands

[ItisMe80]

Moderator note: This thread was moved from a different forum.

Hi , I am a new owner and waiting for my delivery of MYLR - I am In Ontario Canada , and I have some questions on using the car and charging it for daily errands. I am willing to have it at 80% SoC when I leave the house. Nema 14-50 240 v mobile charger at 32A

1- Scenario one: Weekend leaving at 9 am to drop kids 30kms(~18 miles) away, then going for some grocery and driving back home for another 30Kms - total trip 60-80 Kms back home then . I will be waiting at home for 2 hours before I do same round trip to pick my kids up (no grocery so it will be total of 60 Kms)

Q1 : If it is Winter:
Should I charge my tesla once I am home waiting to go out again in 2 hours - also should I charge it to what percentage? or just keep it plugged in without charging ? (if I set charging to be after 7 pm for offpeak rates)?

Q2: If it is Summer: same question above.


2- Scenario 2: Going to work leaving house with 80% battery SoC, parking my car at the train station for 12 hours , what should I do ? can I just leave it out in Winter and keep Sentry mode on ? or do I need to take more precautions ? , shall I follow the same for Summer as well ?

3- Scenario 3: Parking the car at the airport for 4-5 days leaving house with 80% battery SoC, parking my car at the train station for 12 hours , what should I do ? can I just leave it out in Winter and keep Sentry mode on ? or do I need to take more precautions ? shall I follow the same for Summer as well ?

Thank you and Sorry for the long post.

 

[ItisMe80]

Sorry this meant to be in the model Y charging and battery , can a moderator move it there please ?

Thanks!

 

[E90alex]

Don’t think of it as km or miles of range. Keep the car display on % because the km/mi is not accurate at all and should not be relied on for anything.

Figure out how much battery % each of those scenarios will use. Charge up to whatever you need to cover your usage. For example I only use 15% daily so charging to 50% is more than enough for me. There is no reason for me to charge to 80% and the lower you can keep the battery the better it will be for it.

It’s fine to park outside in the winter or summer. Nothing special you need to do. Sentry mode on or off is up to you, but sentry mode will keep the car “awake” and therefore use more battery. You can precondition the car 10-15 mins before getting back to it if you want to make the cabin more comfortable.

Long term parking like airport you should turn off sentry mode or else it will drain your battery. Also don’t open your Tesla app unnecessarily while away or it will wake up the car and use battery.

 

[DCGOO]

Hi , I am a new owner and waiting for my delivery of MYLR - I am In Ontario Canada , and I have some questions on using the car and charging it for daily errands. I am willing to have it at 80% SoC when I leave the house. Nema 14-50 240 v mobile charger at 32A

1- Scenario one: Weekend leaving at 9 am to drop kids 30kms(~18 miles) away, then going for some grocery and driving back home for another 30Kms - total trip 60-80 Kms back home then . I will be waiting at home for 2 hours before I do same round trip to pick my kids up (no grocery so it will be total of 60 Kms)

Q1 : If it is Winter:
Should I charge my tesla once I am home waiting to go out again in 2 hours - also should I charge it to what percentage? or just keep it plugged in without charging ? (if I set charging to be after 7 pm for offpeak rates)?

Q2: If it is Summer: same question above.


2- Scenario 2: Going to work leaving house with 80% battery SoC, parking my car at the train station for 12 hours , what should I do ? can I just leave it out in Winter and keep Sentry mode on ? or do I need to take more precautions ? , shall I follow the same for Summer as well ?

3- Scenario 3: Parking the car at the airport for 4-5 days leaving house with 80% battery SoC, parking my car at the train station for 12 hours , what should I do ? can I just leave it out in Winter and keep Sentry mode on ? or do I need to take more precautions ? shall I follow the same for Summer as well ?

Thank you and Sorry for the long post.

Assuming you do not have a time of day plan from your electric utility, you should plug it in whenever you can, certainly at least overnight every night. It should have no problem sitting for 4 -5 days at the airport, although you might consider turning off Sentry Mode at the airport.

 

[ItisMe80]

Don’t think of it as km or miles of range. Keep the car display on % because the km/mi is not accurate at all and should not be relied on for anything.

Figure out how much battery % each of those scenarios will use. Charge up to whatever you need to cover your usage. For example I only use 15% daily so charging to 50% is more than enough for me. There is no reason for me to charge to 80% and the lower you can keep the battery the better it will be for it.

It’s fine to park outside in the winter or summer. Nothing special you need to do. Sentry mode on or off is up to you, but sentry mode will keep the car “awake” and therefore use more battery. You can precondition the car 10-15 mins before getting back to it if you want to make the cabin more comfortable.

Long term parking like airport you should turn off sentry mode or else it will drain your battery. Also don’t open your Tesla app unnecessarily while away or it will wake up the car and use battery.

Thank you!

 

[ItisMe80]

Assuming you do not have a time of day plan from your electric utility, you should plug it in whenever you can, certainly at least overnight every night. It should have no problem sitting for 4 -5 days at the airport, although you might consider turning off Sentry Mode at the airport.

Thank you!

 

[Eric33432]

Adding to the above good advice...when you first get the car you will likely have a little range anxiety so charge it to 80% before you drive it on your various scenarios, which will be more than enough for each scenario. Note the SOC at the end of each day until you cover all your different scenarios. Do this until you are comfortable you have a good idea of what each scenario requires.

Then, at the end of the day, notice what your state of charge is at. If you notice that it is consistently above 50% (meaning you used <30% that day), then charge to 50 or 55% that night. You will have a 20 or 25% buffer. If you are down to, say, 30%, meaning you used 50%, then charge the car to 70 or 75% that night.

I would not worry too much if one scenario uses, say 20% and another uses 40%. Just get a feel for how much you use and add 20 or 25% to the highest use you routinely experience, and make that your normal charging routine. (The minimum you can set the car is 50%.). For example, in my daily driving I use 10 to 30% each day and I just charge the car to 55% each evening, and I leave it plugged in until the next time I use the car.

If planning a longer trip, you can adjust this. If planning on a road trip, I charge to 90% the night before, then whilst getting ready in the morning I bump it up to 100% and when I am ready to leave the car is somewhere between 95 and 100%.

You can plug in during the day between trips if you want, but it should not be necessary, routinely I just plug in each evening when I am done driving for that day, and if you have lower electricity rates during the night, definitely take advantage of those rates by not charging during the day unless necessary.

I have Sentry Mode on for daily driving but not at home when the Tessies are safely put to bed in our garage, and it does use a little juice. I would use it for daily driving as it is a great benefit to have it on in case something were to happen. I have never parked either of our Tessies in long term parking, but it seems to me that might be a place where you would want Sentry Mode to be on. If you discover it is using too much juice you can always turn it off, but as discussed above, avoid checking on the car too much as that will awaken it. If you leave it at the airport, perhaps you can check on it after 24 to 48 hours to see how much it has used and if it appears to be using so much energy that you will not have enough charge to make it home when you return from your trip, you could turn it off from the app.

Only in the car you can use the touch screen to bring up the Energy App, and it will tell you how much energy various functionalities are using whilst the car is parked.

Most people on this forum recommend using the Tesla Wall Connector, which will charge faster at up to 48 amps (240 volts), but only *if* your electrical service has the capacity.

Hope this helps, and good luck with the new MYLR.

 

[jcanoe]

Plug in whenever possible, usually at least once a day. Nothing bad will happen if you don't plug in on some days. If you have a time of use (TOU) rate plan with an off-peak period then setup Scheduled Charging. Find a daily state of charge setting that meets your needs without any range anxiety whether 50% up to 80%. I routinely charge my 2020 LRMY between 85% and 90% in winter. (I have been doing this since my 2020 Model Y was new, before Tesla started recommending an 80% daily charge limit.) In winter expect to use at least 25% more energy for preconditioning (including battery warming) and for driving than in summer.

If you park at an airport where there may be no charging options available then I would leave Sentry mode Off. I would also suggest leaving Sentry mode Off when parked at home. Sentry mode causes the Model Y to remain in Standby mode (the Model Y never enters Sleep mode when Sentry mode is On.) Standby mode uses almost 10X more power from the battery than Sleep mode. Still, if you want to leave Sentry mode turned on know that this will consume ~6% to 7% of the high voltage battery state of charge (SOC) over 24 hours; Sentry mode will be automatically disabled when the battery SOC falls below 20%. Do you really want to return from a trip and find that your battery SOC is lower by ~30% to 40% after just 5 days?

Precondition while plugged in whenever possible. You can also precondition when not plugged in. Preconditioning will cause the Tesla Model Y to warm the passenger cabin and warm the battery as needed. Preconditioning will typically use a couple of % of the battery SOC. Depending on the temperature you may need to precondition for longer than 20 minutes (especially if parked outside and needing to defrost the vehicle of ice and snow.) If you precondition while plugged in outside of the off-peak rate window then you will be using power from the grid when it is most expensive.

There is now a Defrost Vehicle option within the Tesla app. This single button will turn on Preconditioning and maximum defrost of the windows, also defrost the cameras and mirrors and rear hatch glass. If you find that you frequently need to use the Defrost Vehicle function you can move this function to the main Tesla app screen. (There is also hack you can use to have 5 functions display on the Tesla app screen instead of the usual 4 functions.)

 

[ItisMe80]

Adding to the above good advice...when you first get the car you will likely have a little range anxiety so charge it to 80% before you drive it on your various scenarios, which will be more than enough for each scenario. Note the SOC at the end of each day until you cover all your different scenarios. Do this until you are comfortable you have a good idea of what each scenario requires.

Then, at the end of the day, notice what your state of charge is at. If you notice that it is consistently above 50% (meaning you used <30% that day), then charge to 50 or 55% that night. You will have a 20 or 25% buffer. If you are down to, say, 30%, meaning you used 50%, then charge the car to 70 or 75% that night.

I would not worry too much if one scenario uses, say 20% and another uses 40%. Just get a feel for how much you use and add 20 or 25% to the highest use you routinely experience, and make that your normal charging routine. (The minimum you can set the car is 50%.). For example, in my daily driving I use 10 to 30% each day and I just charge the car to 55% each evening, and I leave it plugged in until the next time I use the car.

If planning a longer trip, you can adjust this. If planning on a road trip, I charge to 90% the night before, then whilst getting ready in the morning I bump it up to 100% and when I am ready to leave the car is somewhere between 95 and 100%.

You can plug in during the day between trips if you want, but it should not be necessary, routinely I just plug in each evening when I am done driving for that day, and if you have lower electricity rates during the night, definitely take advantage of those rates by not charging during the day unless necessary.

I have Sentry Mode on for daily driving but not at home when the Tessies are safely put to bed in our garage, and it does use a little juice. I would use it for daily driving as it is a great benefit to have it on in case something were to happen. I have never parked either of our Tessies in long term parking, but it seems to me that might be a place where you would want Sentry Mode to be on. If you discover it is using too much juice you can always turn it off, but as discussed above, avoid checking on the car too much as that will awaken it. If you leave it at the airport, perhaps you can check on it after 24 to 48 hours to see how much it has used and if it appears to be using so much energy that you will not have enough charge to make it home when you return from your trip, you could turn it off from the app.

Only in the car you can use the touch screen to bring up the Energy App, and it will tell you how much energy various functionalities are using whilst the car is parked.

Most people on this forum recommend using the Tesla Wall Connector, which will charge faster at up to 48 amps (240 volts), but only *if* your electrical service has the capacity.

Hope this helps, and good luck with the new MYLR.

Thank you for your detailed response! due to some limitation in electricity I can only use the 14-50 NEMA with Mobile charger which I am willing to limit to 32A , that is why I didn't want to buy the wall charger where I cannot utilize it fully

 

[ItisMe80]

Plug in whenever possible, usually at least once a day. Nothing bad will happen if you don't plug in on some days. If you have a time of use (TOU) rate plan with an off-peak period then setup Scheduled Charging. Find a daily state of charge setting that meets your needs without any range anxiety whether 50% up to 80%. I routinely charge my 2020 LRMY between 85% and 90% in winter. (I have been doing this since my 2020 Model Y was new, before Tesla started recommending an 80% daily charge limit.) In winter expect to use at least 25% more energy for preconditioning (including battery warming) and for driving than in summer.

If you park at an airport where there may be no charging options available then I would leave Sentry mode Off. I would also suggest leaving Sentry mode Off when parked at home. Sentry mode causes the Model Y to remain in Standby mode (the Model Y never enters Sleep mode when Sentry mode is On.) Standby mode uses almost 10X more power from the battery than Sleep mode. Still, if you want to leave Sentry mode turned on know that this will consume ~6% to 7% of the high voltage battery state of charge (SOC) over 24 hours; Sentry mode will be automatically disabled when the battery SOC falls below 20%. Do you really want to return from a trip and find that your battery SOC is lower by ~30% to 40% after just 5 days?

Precondition while plugged in whenever possible. You can also precondition when not plugged in. Preconditioning will cause the Tesla Model Y to warm the passenger cabin and warm the battery as needed. Preconditioning will typically use a couple of % of the battery SOC. Depending on the temperature you may need to precondition for longer than 20 minutes (especially if parked outside and needing to defrost the vehicle of ice and snow.) If you precondition while plugged in outside of the off-peak rate window then you will be using power from the grid when it is most expensive.

There is now a Defrost Vehicle option within the Tesla app. This single button will turn on Preconditioning and maximum defrost of the windows, also defrost the cameras and mirrors and rear hatch glass. If you find that you frequently need to use the Defrost Vehicle function you can move this function to the main Tesla app screen. (There is also hack you can use to have 5 functions display on the Tesla app screen instead of the usual 4 functions.)

Thank you for your detailed response!

 

[Blue Eye]

Plug in whenever possible, usually at least once a day. Nothing bad will happen if you don't plug in on some days. If you have a time of use (TOU) rate plan with an off-peak period then setup Scheduled Charging. Find a daily state of charge setting that meets your needs without any range anxiety whether 50% up to 80%. I routinely charge my 2020 LRMY between 85% and 90% in winter. (I have been doing this since my 2020 Model Y was new, before Tesla started recommending an 80% daily charge limit.) In winter expect to use at least 25% more energy for preconditioning (including battery warming) and for driving than in summer.

If you park at an airport where there may be no charging options available then I would leave Sentry mode Off. I would also suggest leaving Sentry mode Off when parked at home. Sentry mode causes the Model Y to remain in Standby mode (the Model Y never enters Sleep mode when Sentry mode is On.) Standby mode uses almost 10X more power from the battery than Sleep mode. Still, if you want to leave Sentry mode turned on know that this will consume ~6% to 7% of the high voltage battery state of charge (SOC) over 24 hours; Sentry mode will be automatically disabled when the battery SOC falls below 20%. Do you really want to return from a trip and find that your battery SOC is lower by ~30% to 40% after just 5 days?

Precondition while plugged in whenever possible. You can also precondition when not plugged in. Preconditioning will cause the Tesla Model Y to warm the passenger cabin and warm the battery as needed. Preconditioning will typically use a couple of % of the battery SOC. Depending on the temperature you may need to precondition for longer than 20 minutes (especially if parked outside and needing to defrost the vehicle of ice and snow.) If you precondition while plugged in outside of the off-peak rate window then you will be using power from the grid when it is most expensive.

There is now a Defrost Vehicle option within the Tesla app. This single button will turn on Preconditioning and maximum defrost of the windows, also defrost the cameras and mirrors and rear hatch glass. If you find that you frequently need to use the Defrost Vehicle function you can move this function to the main Tesla app screen. (There is also hack you can use to have 5 functions display on the Tesla app screen instead of the usual 4 functions.)

 

[dwtaylorpdx]

Thank you for your detailed response! due to some limitation in electricity I can only use the 14-50 NEMA with Mobile charger which I am willing to limit to 32A , that is why I didn't want to buy the wall charger where I cannot utilize it fully

If you cant add to your panel, for an upcharge the installer might be able to install a small secondary panel and it gets tied in parallel with its own breaker so its only limited by your transformer feeding your home..