Scheduled departure for 100% charge?

[SDDizzle]

Hello,

I have done some reading and understand charging to 100% is okay if you are going to drive immediately and even better if you use scheduled departure… in that case, when I schedule departure time on my phone app - does that automatically taper the charge so it finishes right at departure time? Or do I have to enable “precondition - set climate and preheat battery”? I guess I’m unclear on how the scheduled departure time works.

Any input would help. Thank you!

 

[jcanoe]

Scheduled Departure has two functions. The first enables you to specify the time you plan to leave so that charging will always be completed prior to your planned departure time, usually about 15 minutes prior. (You set the daily charging limit using the slider control as your normally would.) Scheduled charging is generally more efficient and can be considerably less expensive if you have a time of use (TOU) rate plan than charging as soon as you arrive home. Scheduled charging will result in a battery that is already partially warmed from the charging session. The Tesla vehicle will not have to use additional power to warm the battery.

The second function will precondition the Tesla vehicle so that the cabin is warmed (or cooled) to your preferred temperature when you start to drive. The time you specify for completing charging does not have to be the same as the time you specify for preconditioning. The reason could be that you have a TOU rate plan that starts at midnight and ends at 0600 (you pay a lower price per kWh during this period.) You may not start driving until 0800. Charging will always complete by 0600, preconditioning will start to warm the passenger cabin shortly before the specified departure time. The time needed to precondition the passenger cabin will vary with how cold the vehicle is in the early A.M. In most cases 10 or 15 minutes is sufficient but preconditioning could take 30 minutes or even a bit longer in very cold weather if the Tesla vehicle is parked outdoors or in an unheated garage in sub-zero temperatures.

You don't need to worry about charging to 100% and trying to time this to the exact time you plan to depart. It is true that charging the battery to 100% regularly or leaving the battery charged to 100% for an extended period (especially in hot weather) is not good for the battery. For short periods, say 12 hours or even 24 hours this is not an issue. If you want to have the battery at 100% for the shortest possible time you can charge to 90% overnight and complete charging in the morning just before you leave by turning off Scheduled Charging to top off the last 10%.

 

[Sophias_dad]

Just an FYI... if you really want to hit 100%(and presumably have the car shut off charging because no more charge can be stuffed into the battery), I'd bet that scheduled departure doesn't work well at all. The last 1% and time taken between the car saying 100% and actually cutting off charge can be a solid HOUR, regardless of the capacity of the charge circuit. At the end, it'll be charging at 5/48 amps or something similar.

 

[ATPMSD]

precondition the Tesla vehicle so that the cabin is warmed (or cooled) to your preferred temperature when you start to drive.

Pretty sure preconditioning also warms the battery, this is so you can get full power out of the battery and full regen breaking. You can also “manually” precondition by simply turning the HVAC system on.

 

[jcanoe]

Pretty sure preconditioning also warms the battery, this is so you can get full power out of the battery and full regen breaking. You can also “manually” precondition by simply turning the HVAC system on.

Yes preconditioning can warm the battery. The Tesla app will display the read heating grid icon next to the battery if the battery is being warmed during the preconditioning period. The current Tesla software does not warm the battery as much as in earlier releases. It is likely that if charging has just completed, or within an hour or so of preconditioning, that the battery will be warm enough from charging that no further battery warming will be performed during preconditioning. Battery warming only warms the battery until the battery is a little below 50F (7C). Charging will leave the battery somewhere around 68 to 70F (~20C) so no further warming would be applied during preconditioning when the battery temperature is already well above 50F.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

I really need to experiment with this

I did try it once, but set the leave time in the vehicle and not in the phone. It seemed to work, but then wouldn't charge after that because it still had the 7am time in there, so even though it was plugged in over night, it just waited . . .

I finally managed to set charging in the vehicle to now instead of Scheduled Departure but it wasn't a straightforward task

 

[rodlloyd]

I still don't understand the scheduled departure. When I need to make a longer trip, I want my 2023 model Y to charge to 100% just as I am about to leave. I don't need it to do it every day. How do I do that?

 

[ATPMSD]

I still don't understand the scheduled departure. When I need to make a longer trip, I want my 2023 model Y to charge to 100% just as I am about to leave. I don't need it to do it every day. How do I do that?

Turn it on the evening before you leave then plug in the car, make sure you are at home when you do this. In the morning before you head out, turn it off. As a reminder:

Schedule Departure has two settings, each with its own time. Off-peak charging (misleading name) tells the car what time you want it to finish charging. For example, if you set it to 5 AM and plug in the car at 8 PM, the car checks the available charge rate (does a small charge to get this), then it looks at the current SOC and the desired SOC. Based on this the car will automatically start charging at a time so the car reaches the desired SOC at the time you have set (actually about 15-minutes prior.) The other option is pre-conditioning. If you choose this the car battery and cabin will be warmed or cooled so you are ready to go at the chosen time! Note that selecting schedule departure by itself does nothing. You must also select off-peak or preconditioning, or both.

 

[rwiegand]

Someday someone will figure out that one-time scheduled charging would be a nice feature to add, until then you have to manually turn it off after you've used it to get ready for a trip.

 

[rodlloyd]

Thank you for the reply. The off-peak charging is misleading and confused me. I tested it with the app and it worked there also. I wish it could be a one-time setting and not every day that I need to remember to turn it off again. It is such a basic setting that they have so wrong. I wonder if it works at a supercharger so I have time to eat a meal without getting an idle charge.

 

[ATPMSD]

I wonder if it works at a supercharger

No

 

[EVer Hopeful]

I only used it once - and I don't think I used it correctly then

Maybe I'll have another go at it, run a couple of tests

Some good info here though

 

[VeloSteve]

I just tried this last night with our new Model Y. Our low rates are from midnight to 3 PM and we are leaving at 11 AM. The car charged from our usual 80% to 100% right after midnight, so it's sitting at 100% for 8 hours or so before we leave. Not a disaster, but I had hoped it was smarter than that.

Next time, if we're not leaving very early I'll just manually turn on charging in the morning and modulate the amperage to be ready at the right time.

A one-time setting would be much more useful than a daily schedule for us.

 

[ATPMSD]

it's sitting at 100% for 8 hours or so before we leave.

This is no big deal, so don’t worry about it.

right after midnight

You likely did not set it correctly. What settings did you use?

BTW, if you have a Wall Connector you can set an allowable charging window and then you will never have to bother with the car settings.

 

[gtae07]

I just tried this last night with our new Model Y. Our low rates are from midnight to 3 PM and we are leaving at 11 AM. The car charged from our usual 80% to 100% right after midnight, so it's sitting at 100% for 8 hours or so before we leave. Not a disaster, but I had hoped it was smarter than that.

Next time, if we're not leaving very early I'll just manually turn on charging in the morning and modulate the amperage to be ready at the right time.

A one-time setting would be much more useful than a daily schedule for us.

What time do you normally leave in the morning? Just set your departure time to that, and set your off-peak time to some time a little later than that. Done. "Scheduled charging" says "start at this time". "Off-peak" says "finish at the earlier of the off-peak time or departure time".

In my case my off-peak is 2300-0700. I normally leave the house around 0445 for work. My off-peak time is set to 0700 and my departure is 0445. If I'm leaving later (e.g. on Sunday, or going on a trip) I set the departure to that time. The car times everything such that it's finished charging just before the earlier of the off-peak end time or the departure time. I never use scheduled charging, never have to worry about modulating charge current, never have to figure "when should I start charging?".

A couple weeks ago we went to Atlanta. I set the departure to 0800. Car hit 100% at 0657 and went to sleep for an hour just as expected. No worrying at all, just set and be done (and then set it back when we got home).

 

[VeloSteve]

Thanks for the replies and apologies for not following up. It was a busy weekend. Travel with the MY was great and the navigation took me to two easy-to-access and uncrowded superchargers.

Over the weekend I didn't look at this much because I lost access to some app functionality and didn't dare mess with it while travelling. Roughly the sequence was: Lost access to Charge on Solar Settings -> Various levels of clearing app data ending with a full reinstall -> Was told to set up Phone Key -> the process kept telling me I wasn't close enough to the car, even when sitting the the driver's seat. Various reboots, placements of the key card, and changes to Bluetooth settings made no difference at all.

@ATPMSD I now know not to worry about an occasional 8 hours at 100%. Thanks. As for settings, I thought I followed the scheduled departure instructions, but I can't check my settings after all the changes described above. I have had the car set to charge at 2 AM if it is below 60% and then charge to 80% if there is enough solar. The departure setting pushed the charge time back to midnight, which seemed odd. I suppose in the future I'll just shift the charging start time as you suggest, hand-adjust the thresholds, and ignore the scheduled departure feature, which seems to confuse more people than it pleases.

@gtae07 I don't normally leave in the morning. Also, I don't want to "fake" the TOU power information because my home makes use of the correct information. It looks like I could fake it for the car and leave the home tab at correct values, but that seems like a pretty bad hack. Your comment about "finished charging just before the earlier of the off-peak end time or the departure time" sounds like exactly what I wanted, but it's not what happened. It finished charging about 8 hours before departure and 12 hours before the end of off-peak. Maybe I need to try again.

I have now reinstalled the app again and regained the ability to set up the phone key, which means I now have full control over the car again. The 2024.14.9 software update is installing right now. Perhaps some software glitches will be fixed, or I won't make the same mistakes if I try again. Next time I'll take notes.

I have been super impressed with how the app works with my solar panels and power walls. The basic car features looked good at first, but other features seem fragile.

For the record, here's what it took to restore Phone Key capability. I don't know that every step is required, but I had tried most parts of this before without success.
Without testing or using the apps or car between steps:

• Force stop Tesla
• Clear all data
• Uninstall
• Force stop Tessie
• Clear all data
• Uninstall
• Reboot car display using steering wheel buttons
• Reinstall Tesla App
• Set up phone key when prompted. It was quick and painless.

I haven't reinstalled Tessie. It's probably fine, but I wanted to remove as many variables as possible.

 

[VeloSteve]

Even more...
To add to the list I posted, in this order:

• Reconnect power wall gateway to home network
• Reconnect phone to power walls, power cycling them

The good news is that I now have settings I can be happy with:

• Charge on Solar set to 60% from any source and 80% on solar.
• TOU pricing set to the actual values from the power company. Slightly simplified, rates are highest from 3 PM to midnight.
• Departure set to 5:30 AM, no preconditioning, off-peak end time at 3 PM.

This charges 60% overnight, timed to finish by 5:30 AM. It will then charge to 80% during the sunny hours if conditions are decent. I should not ever have to mess with my TOU values. Before a long trip I can just turn off Charge on Solar (which won't go past 90% on non-solar) and slide the percentages up to 100%.

OH NO - I just turned off Charge on Solar to verify what I was writing and the control to turn it back on is missing again! Before I go through another round of uninstalling and reconfiguring I'll give it a day. Some users say it will come back when there is solar power available, others say it takes a reinstall. I sat down to say that things are great, and now I'm not sure again.