Scheduled charging failed!

[rsg123]

I have been plugging my late-2014 MS85 in daily and and set scheduled charging to start at midnight. This morning the car was at 23% where I had left it the night before. The 17” screen was not turning on at all and I could not see the car’s status on the iOS app. I had to do a reset of the screen and then it rebooted and started communicating with the app. I could then manually start charging, so I know it wasn’t an issue of not plugging in correctly.
The car had been performing 100% as expected yesterday when I had driven it from San Jose area back to my Rocklin home. I had it plugged in all night at my hotel where it charged to 90% on a Tesla destination charger at 8kW.
I was fortunate to have a backup ICE vehicle to use since my daily commute uses about 30% of my charge, but I really would like to get to the bottom of this because I want to sell that vehicle. Any ideas?

 

[Tslrsx]

What software version where you on? Some versions lately increased the chance of a crashed computer(and not charging with sheduled charging).

 

[rsg123]

What software version where you on? Some versions lately increased the chance of a crashed computer(and not charging with sheduled charging).

2018.36.1 904a9a4

 

[ckoval7]

Part of me is eager for new software updates, but seeing stuff like this has me worried the next update will put my car in the shop. I'm still on 2018.32.4 and had the center screen reboot mid flight once. I don't really understand how Tesla decides who updates and who doesn't.

 

[rsg123]

I didn’t really see this specific issue relating to a specific software version while browsing this site. Are we sure this is due to the software update? I tried calling Tesla tech support today for their input but gave up after 45 minutes on hold.

 

[Electric700]

Can you schedule the charging session earlier so you can check that it has started, and continues to charge normally? If it works, I recommend you leave it that way for a few days. Also, you may want to contact [email protected] and explain what you did as well as whether you updated your car recently.

 

[rsg123]

Yes, that’s exactly what I did. I looked into it and my off-peak electric rates start at 9pm so I set the charging to start then.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will email them. I will say that it had been about 6 months since I did a reset of the large screen, so it might have been due for one? Not sure how that works but I need to restart my desktop computer every so often for it to work smoothly.

 

[Doanster1]

This happened to me last week the night I updated to 36.2. Chalk it up as a fluke. Rebooted the MCU and all was well again. I wasn’t as low as you, though, so I feel your pain. That’s the only downside to scheduled late night charging. Anxiety about interrupted or charging not started.

 

[scottm]

Maybe you can plug the car in when you get home, say 7pm, and start charging but dial down the amperage on the console to a lower charge rate. Pick a charge rate that says the car will be done in XX hours (when you need it in the a.m.). Since it's slower you won't use much peak power before 9pm and afterward you're on cheap power for the remainder of the charge. But that way you'll know it started and see the comfortable glowing green ring.

If you're power is usually stable (no outages often) then it's not likely to be interrupted.

Unless you've scheduled a 2:30am software update, then don't depend on this method.

 

[rsg123]

Any detriment to the car with slower charging, like 10 amps instead of 40 (other than just taking longer)?

 

[Quickstart88]

Anyone have a issue with schedule charge where it's only doing 2 amps?
Basically, I am using the 2nd gen UMC for my M3.
Max amp is 32. I set my schedule charge at 2 am and never had any issue.
It would be done by 7 am because I don't need much. Lately the charging will continue pass 8 am.

What I noticed is the amp was set to 2 amps. Seems like with latest update the setting for amp is not saving at 32 amps.
I am on version 2018.36.2

No big deal but Is this a bug going on recently.

 

[scottm]

Any detriment to the car with slower charging, like 10 amps instead of 40 (other than just taking longer)?

Yes, lower amperage makes for less efficient charging. More watts consumed from the wall for same end result of what gets to the battery.

So I've been told, but never cared to measure for myself.

 

[kiwi]

Any detriment to the car with slower charging, like 10 amps instead of 40 (other than just taking longer)?

When I'm staying at the beach house, I charge at 10A/240V/8km/hr all the time - it takes nearly 2 days to fill the tank.
I checked with the local SC and they said the main cause of degradation is heat, and there is very little heat generated from slow charging.

As was noted above - slow charging might be less efficient, but in theory it's gentler on the battery.

 

[rsg123]

After V9 software update:
Same issue happened tonight again, but this time I noticed that I hadn’t received the 10pm charging started notification. The app could not connect with the car. I went out to the car and found that the main screen was not turning on. I rebooted it, and it immediately started charging. I’m glad that I caught it but not happy that it happened once again. I had just parked it in my garage about 2 hours earlier with 50% charge and plugged it in.

 

[tga]

This happened to me once last month (pre-v9). The car was parked, plugged in, for 2 weeks. At some point, the app started behaving really wierdly - I could turn on HVAC, but not turn it off (it timed out after 4 hours), I could not set the charge level or start charging, and the car stopped topping off after 3% vampire drain. When I eventually got back to the car, it turned out the center screen had crashed and wouldn't power up. After a forced reboot, everything was back to normal.

I haven't seen that before or since.

 

[rsg123]

I was hoping it would be a one-time thing for me as well since I have only had to reboot the screen one other time other than these two incidences in the year I have owned the car.

 

[OilAndGas]

Just curious, but what is the point of scheduled charging? Why not just let it go to your setpoint right away? Unless you have one of those free electricity plans at night I don’t get it.

 

[ckoval7]

Just curious, but what is the point of scheduled charging? Why not just let it go to your setpoint right away? Unless you have one of those free electricity plans at night I don’t get it.

If you're in a cold climate it's great to start charging a couple hours before you leave for work, that way it warms up your battery. Another reason is sometimes it's beneficial to balance your electric usage over the course of the day as not to overload older/smaller/lower capacity breaker boxes. If you have a 100A service, you probably don't want to be charging while you're washing clothes and cooking dinner. Scheduled charging helps with not having to walk out to your car and plug in after you're done with your chores.

 

[rsg123]

Just curious, but what is the point of scheduled charging? Why not just let it go to your setpoint right away? Unless you have one of those free electricity plans at night I don’t get it.

Time of Use electric plans. Peak times are usually much more expensive.

 

[tga]

Even without a fiscal incentive, charging at night uses cleaner base load power, places less stress on the grid, and is generally a good thing to do.

Theoretically, charging during peak usage times drives up transmission charges and requires the local distribution utility to upgrade/expand their network. Both result in higher charges that get passed through to their customers in the form of higher rates.