Teslafi tips for new users

[LukeT]

It seems to me that there's a lot of value for a Tesla owner to automate things and set actions. But it requires a third party app or teslafi to do it.

Examples immediately obvious to me (I'm new to this) are around charging, eg I have set mine to revert to an 80% charge limit every afternoon, figuring if I'm going on a big trip I'll set up a bigger charge overnight, or I might mess with it during a trip, but aside from that I want it to keep things in "best practice" territory without thinking. When I revert to a routine with a long journey at a particular time in the week I may set up a higher max charge a couple of hours before departure so I leave with a full and warm battery.

Also there's some ability to automate the enabling or disabling of sentry mode but this seems in practice to be to disable it at all tagged locations or nothing.

Also of course HVAC before normal commute departure or whatever.

I've only had mine a week though, so would be interested to hear what others have done.

Anyone care to share any bright ideas? Or the glaringly obvious that I haven't thought of?

 

[Fullerene]

Also of course HVAC before normal commute departure or whatever.

Or the glaringly obvious that I haven't thought of?

Probably recommend that you automatically disable HVAC after 15 minutes if the car hasn't moved so that it doesn't remain on if it's a Bank Holiday and you're not doing the regular commute

Looking forward to getting access, planning to roll my own with Node-RED then I can read news feeds and twitter sentiment and if it seems like there's a panic that fuel is about to run out I can send a message to my phone so I can prepare for the smugness before I step into the car.

Being an endless fiddler with this sort of stuff I will likely spend more time fiddling than driving, can't wait.

 

[ewoodrick]

And it seems to me that I only change the car config once every few weeks.

The AC cools and the heat warms in barely a minute. The car charges when I plug it in. (or you can set a schedule on TOU plan)

Leaving the car sitting at 100% for hours or days isn't a problem (It's months and years that cause SLIGHT stress).

Not sure why I would want it to revert to 80% every night. It stays there anyway and when on holiday, that's not what I often want.

The car works awesome, as-is. Sorry.

 

[WannabeOwner]

recommend that you automatically disable HVAC after 15 minutes if the car hasn't moved so that it doesn't remain on if it's a Bank Holiday and you're not doing the regular commute

Definitely ... I've done that (when Tesla changed the software from "auto-off after 30-minutes to on-indefinitely".

The AC cools and the heat warms in barely a minute

Works better in Model-3 than Model-S then. I find that running it for long enough to cool/heat the materials in the car helps too . otherwise they just need energy to acclimatise after you set off.

checking one example it took 15 minutes for car to cool from (internal) 45C to 24C (set temperature) and then a further 5 minutes for the (shore) power to drop from 5A to 2A

Leaving the car sitting at 100% for hours or days isn't a problem (It's months and years that cause SLIGHT stress).

I have never seen anything that says it is OK to leave battery at 100% for prolonged period. Even the car gives you a reminder notification if you repeatedly leave it at 100% charging limit. I don't sweat it if car at 100% and we are delayed driving for an hour or two, but if the trip is cancelled I either turn Climate on full, or drive it, to reduce SOC to 90%-ish.

I personally think that 80% or 90% is marginal difference to battery health, quite possible intangible, and I would prefer to have 90% for the once-in-blue-moon that I have unexpected journey and need the range.

 

[MaDProFF]

Even if the battery says 100% on the gauge is it really at 100%?

 

[WannabeOwner]

Even if the battery says 100% on the gauge is it really at 100%?

There is some top-end-buffer, but not much (e.g. compared to the likes of iPace / Etron. iPace charges to "100%" because of significant top end buffer - 100% on dial is a tad over 90% real)

 

[Roy W.]

For me the main problem with TeslaFi is that I’m a tight git, and just won’t pay $50 a year!

I can see the benefits in some ways, but I suspect I’d just set it up and leave it, and I wouldn’t really get my money’s worth.

I just need to persuade Tesla to add a charge stop time to the car’s software

 

[WannabeOwner]

I just need to persuade Tesla to add a charge stop time to the car’s software

I think they might not do that ... risk that car is not charged sufficiently by the time you want to depart - power cut or charging throttles down for some reason - and then people will be angry with Tesla for "causing it" and they have better things to do.

EDIT: There is also the issue that stopping charge at end of Off peak tariff for e.g. Octopus Go then leaves you having to remember to disable that on days when you want more charge than that ... and then have to remember to re-enable it back again next day ... just so that you can have the charge not normally overrun the Octopus Go hours. I am doubtful that Tesla will want to become part of that "It didn't work how I wanted" scenario

I schedule for charging to reduce to 80% limit at start time for Off Peak charging (but the car itself is in charge of actually starting the charge, in case of Internet failure or somesuch), and increase limit back to 90% an hour before departure (which is earlier than the end of my Off Peak tariff), and re-start (if not still) charging. Aim is to use that hour to get the car battery warm (in winter)

EDIT: I also have TeslaFi turn off my Off Peak charge at the end or that period ... and another optional schedule to restart it after that ... for days when I do need to extra-charge beyond Off Peak period. But its all a lot of faff to remember to set in exceptional circumstances, AND get right between Spouse and I, so might well be better to just let the car charge to LIMIT each night and not try to save a few pennies. Or use a 7-hour Off Peak rather than a 4-hour one.

won’t pay $50 a yea

500 miles price difference for "fuel" between your old ICE and your new EV.

Bad luck if your Old ICE was already an EV

You'll get a month's free trial if you use a referral code when you register for TesalFi. You can use mine if you don't have a better offer.

 

[DJP31]

For me the main problem with TeslaFi is that I’m a tight git, and just won’t pay $50 a year!

I can see the benefits in some ways, but I suspect I’d just set it up and leave it, and I wouldn’t really get my money’s worth.

I bet you wouldn’t just leave it. 370 posts since joining in June confirms nerd status in my book . No way you won’t be checking how many cars have had the latest software version, and how far behind the curve you are.

Or your lifetime driving map showing all the journey’s you’ve done since getting the car. How many kWh’s you’ve taken onboard, both by DC and AC and location. Wh/m journey rates and how they alter during different times of the year.

And that’s ignoring the useful stuff some of which has already been mentioned. All that for a dollar a week

 

[Roy W.]

I think they might not do that ... risk that car is not charged sufficiently by the time you want to depart - power cut or charging throttles down for some reason - and then people will be angry with Tesla for "causing it" and they have better things to do.

I hear what you’re saying, and understand, but it’s something that’s common on other makes. The Leaf has always had scheduled charging including start and stop times. I don’t hear anybody blaming Nissan for that in the way you suggest. Ditto the Zoe.

The Kona has start and stop times, and you can also set it so that it will start charging at a suitable time to ensure your required SOC by your departure time.

There are many, many settings that a customer can alter on a Tesla, knowledgeably or in complete ignorance. The fact they might be ignorant isn’t an excuse to omit the feature.

 

[animorph]

Make sure TeslaFi Sleep Mode is enabled (Settings->Sleep Modes). Always good for a vampire drain complaint.

TeslaFi can schedule up to a week ahead, and for specific days of the week. I only have to remember to setup for a road trip sometime within a week of leaving:
I schedule 90% charge the night before a road trip, 100% charge starting two hours before we leave.
I schedule 80% charge limit after a road trip. I have accidentally charged to 100% a few times.

I have it notify me if the charger is disconnected, the car is unlocked, or the charge limit is above 90% at 9 PM.
I have used TeslaFi to enable Sentry Mode by location, though the car can do some of that now.

Mostly I have a nice history of what happened with the car. I can compare it with a trip planner. I can check battery range. I can look at my Supercharger taper.
I can check on the car without waking it up, like the Tesla app does. Not to mention TeslaFi tells me when the car is sleeping.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Mostly I have a nice history of what happened with the car

One thing included, which is only handy if you have used TesalFi from pretty much "day one", is the range of 100% charges (actually you can choose the charge limit for the report, although for "battery degradation" the 100% report is the one that make most sense)

 

[MaDProFF]

I assume this is an app for a mobile phone, although I searched could not find Teslafi is it not available in the UK? or called something else. There is an app called stats for Tesla by MaaDotaa £19.99 seems pretty good

 

[DJP31]

I assume this is an app for a mobile phone, although I searched could not find Teslafi is it not available in the UK? or called something else. There is an app called stats for Tesla by MaaDotaa £19.99 seems pretty good

It’s a web based service not an app.

Home - TeslaFi.com

 

[LukeT]

Make sure TeslaFi Sleep Mode is enabled (Settings->Sleep Modes). Always good for a vampire drain complaint.

TeslaFi can schedule up to a week ahead, and for specific days of the week. I only have to remember to setup for a road trip sometime within a week of leaving:
I schedule 90% charge the night before a road trip, 100% charge starting two hours before we leave.
I schedule 80% charge limit after a road trip. I have accidentally charged to 100% a few times.

I have it notify me if the charger is disconnected, the car is unlocked, or the charge limit is above 90% at 9 PM.
I have used TeslaFi to enable Sentry Mode by location, though the car can do some of that now.

Mostly I have a nice history of what happened with the car. I can compare it with a trip planner. I can check battery range. I can look at my Supercharger taper.
I can check on the car without waking it up, like the Tesla app does. Not to mention TeslaFi tells me when the car is sleeping.

I have had sleep mode enabled but most days the car hasn't slept. I note I had one of the "try to sleep requirements" ticked so have now removed that. I also had "dashboard for tesla" on the free demo including an automated instruction so have uninstalled that.

On a related note, how do you track battery drain when parked? Is this automatically tracked on TeslaFi? I know it's happening but haven't quantified it, since I needed to get rid of the above obvious things first. I'm not worried about it day to day but when we park somewhere for a week I might be, so I figure it makes sense to set it up right.

 

[Daverh]

Teslamate has a lot of the datalogging features of TeslaFi but without the ability to affect the car's setting. I've set it up in a Docker container on my server (I couldn't get Docker working on my RPi with Raspbian Buster)

 

[jvmoore1]

Probably recommend that you automatically disable HVAC after 15 minutes if the car hasn't moved so that it doesn't remain on if it's a Bank Holiday and you're not doing the regular commute .

i second this statement. and making the change now

On Thur i set up a schedule to turn on HVAC 15 before i leave work.
Did not go to work Friday.
3:45 get the notification HVAC rule completed successfully. Ya!!
5:00 family go out to get in the car to get dinner.
Youngest child goes "hey dad check this out. and fogs up the windows on the outside.
*Checks Tesla from phone*
Interior temp is 51°F

 

[WannabeOwner]

I also had "dashboard for tesla" on the free demo including an automated instruction so have uninstalled that.
most days the car hasn't slept.

I recommend you change My Tesla password, and then set that password in only APPs you use - e.g. phone and TeslaFi - that will guarantee that nothing else is accessing the car, and rule that out.

how do you track battery drain when parked

On the main TeslaFi screen you can see the energy on "arrival" and then the energy when you next "set off", and difference in between.

On "Help" menu is "Raw data" which will show you the minute-by-minute logged data. You can CONFIG the columns displayed (i.e. a subset from the total logged data columns) according to taste / job-at-hand. That will show yo, for example, if/when Climate turns on/off

 

[Boogaloo]

Handing your login credentials to anyone is a bad idea, especially an organisation you know nothing about, and even more so with a car that can be remotely unlocked.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Handing your login credentials to anyone is a bad idea, especially an organisation you know nothing about, and even more so with a car that can be remotely unlocked.

Which is why they (well: pukka ones, certainly TeslaFi) use Token rather than Login credentials so you don't have to actually give them your passcode - and IIRC the Passcode is required to e.g. unlock doors