Scheduled Departure no longer working

[Wahbash]

2018 M3 - Before the pandemic I used to use scheduled departure every day to have the car warmed up and ready for when I left for work, but stopped using it over the past year while working from home. The last few weeks I have been trying to use it again, and either something has changed or my car isn't working correctly.

When I try and set a scheduled departure now, I set it to "depart by 8:00 AM" and hit the Grey "set" button which then lights up as blue "Scheduled". If I x out of that pop-up however, there is no confirmation (I think it use to say "Scheduled for departure at 8:00am" or something at the bottom of the charging screen?) and it acts as though nothing is set. In fact, it starts charging immediately as soon as I plug it in, even if I only need 1% of charge. I have tried setting this while plugged in, not plugged in until after I set it...but it always starts charging immediately.

Tonight I have tried to set it 3 times and have to keep raising the charge limit because 10 minutes after I leave the vehicle I get a message saying "charging complete". The only way I can get it to NOT charge is to switch to scheduled charging and tell it not to start until tomorrow morning.

Anyone experience this or am I missing something stupid?

 

[medphys3]

Scheduled Departure only effects Cabin and Battery Pre-conditioning. You need to adjust the other settings in order to schedule charging (I think this is a change from a while ago?) Pushing SCHEDULE should take you to a pop-up to configure your Preconditioning and Off-Peak Charging settings. If you don't use Off-Peak Charging, it will start charging immediately. Do you not see this?

What software version are you on?

 

[Braumin]

Yes I just confirmed this on my own where I use scheduled departure and @medphys3 is correct. The charging is separate from warming/preconditioning or at least it CAN be. Sorry for the quality of these photos but press the Settings button to change the preconditioning/off peak charging. Blue Scheduled means it is turned ON, then press Settings where you can change the charging and preconditioning options. I want my car to charge when I get home so I turned off the charging option.

 

[Wahbash]

Hi medphys3,

Yes, I am seeing that...are you saying I need to select "off peak charging" in order for it to start charging when it needs to? That doesn't make sense to me. I don't think I have ever used that because I don't have on/off peak rates....and I wouldn't want to limit it to only charging late at night. I have always had 'preconditioning' on and 'off peak' off.

But you guys are saying I need to have both on?

I did eventually figure out the non-intuitive function of the blue scheduled button. It seems that this is non intuitive also, but I didn't used to have a problem with it.

Oh God...I'm getting old...

 

[Wahbash]

Oh wow. I just checked it and you are correct. That is WAY confusing. Unfortunately I have to lie and tell it my utility "off peak" hours end at like 9am so it will keep charging right up until I want to leave, but at least it is something.

Thank you guys! I never would have guessed that. Tesla needs to change that stupid wording.

 

[medphys3]

Yes, the wording is crappy. I think it’s a throw back to before they updated the software. It used to be that using “off-peak charging” was a fixed value. Charging was completed by 6am and you couldn’t change it. It was a Komifornia thing. They later changed it so you could tell the car what your actual “off-peak” times were and added more settings (which is good in my opinion).

It should just be named like “Preferred Charging Time” or something similar. I don’t have off-peak charging rates either, but I use the feature to help keep my battery healthy.

 

[Vic_F]

Scheduled Departure used to charge and precondition. This allows charging to 100% just in time to leave. Could not get it working on my 2018 S

 

[DanDi58]

Scheduled Departure used to charge and precondition. This allows charging to 100% just in time to leave. Could not get it working on my 2018 S

Huh so are you saying it won’t charge to the set limit by departure time now? That kinda makes it pointless….

 

[Sam1]

Huh so are you saying it won’t charge to the set limit by departure time now? That kinda makes it pointless….

It will charge by departure time, but for some dumb reason, you have to set the car to charge off peak, then set an off peak time, then the charge by departure option can be set.

I don't understand the purpose behind this at all, other than maybe the programmers live in an area where there's some stupid tiered power pricing scheme that doesn't apply to the other 95% of Tesla owners.

 

[Vic_F]

I got it to work, but yes the sequence of steps is very unintuitive

 

[ODWms]

Same here.

 

[SanCarlosJeff]

It will charge by departure time, but for some dumb reason, you have to set the car to charge off peak, then set an off peak time, then the charge by departure option can be set.

I don't understand the purpose behind this at all, other than maybe the programmers live in an area where there's some stupid tiered power pricing scheme that doesn't apply to the other 95% of Tesla owners.

I'm guessing tiered pricing is much more common than you think. That being said, the way the departure time setting needs to be done is pretty clunky.

 

[DanDi58]

Just to follow up, it did work fine, although it ended charging at around 8:30 - but certainly sitting at 95% for 30 minutes, vs several hours is obviously better.

 

[JimOdbe]

I look at it this way: I adjust scheduled departure to when I want the car warmed/cooled for departure, which varies depending on the day. I don't have off-peak rates, but I keep the Off-peak end time set to 6:00 AM, which is before any of my rendom departures. This way I can set departure time as needed, knowing I will leave with a full "tank." Even where there aren't off-peak rates, it's nicer on the grid to move charging loads to off hours.

 

[rpiotro]

I'm guessing tiered pricing is much more common than you think. That being said, the way the departure time setting needs to be done is pretty clunky.

Correct, Time of use (TOU) rates are very common. I'm guessing most people have not bothered to investigate. I pay less that 9¢ per kWh off peak. I charge the car while I am sleeping and/or on weekends and my energy costs are about 2¢ per mile!