TeslaFi unrecorded journey/charge

[MrBadger]

Investigating a slow charge at local PodPoint charge station yesterday.

Unfortunately, TeslaFi did not record the charge, or the journey to it. It had us down as Parked (as expected) right up to the point that we started that evenings journeys. Then sleeping (not what we expected) between then and point car came off charge, even though we had made two short drives in that time. No evidence of charge or drive other than range loss was -0.43 and odo jumped from 873 to 880.

During the missing 1hr 13mins and 7 miles, TeslaFi recorded each minute interval as being offline. Presumably this is info that it would have been getting from the 'vehicle' sleeping state rather than car 'data' info whilst it would have been driving. Enabling sleep settings to limit vampire loss. / Knowledge base / TeslaFi

So unfortunately, as well as experiencing a slow charge (we added ~4% 2.7kWh in 49 minutes from 7kW 4 stall pod-point charger otherwise empty) we also lost 3kWh in the return 8 miles but are totally blind to what actually went on during that time period. It did however catch our return journeys and awful efficiency for a pretty benign journey.

 

[TezzyMod3]

It’s pretty well explained in the sleep settings.

Sleep is disabled by default so you might have turned it on accidentally. I tried it with and without, and honestly, sleep saved me charge rather than stopping TeslaFi from using it.

The new firmware basically no longer reports sleep state so TeslaFi has to guess when the car is asleep and for that reason the sleep mode can sometimes miss data. There’s three additional options you can tick which the car will check for before going to sleep. The more you tick, the less likely it will sleep.

With regards to PodPoint, I’ve never had a problem so may have been just a faulty point. In my experience, it’s best to check your app after 5-10mins to make sure you got what you’re happy with.

p.s. you sure it’s a 7kw charger? They have some slower ones

 

[MrBadger]

I'm pretty sure TeslaFi is set up correctly. Can't remember what setting I changed, but it was as documented. Its worked flawlessly for best part of 3 weeks and this is the first time it has hic-up' d, just when I needed it most.

Its defo a 7kWh charge point according to pod point app. Its a brand new 4 stall setup and we were the only one there.

Walking back to car, I checked the app, it still said confirm charge which I had done earlier and, without putting glasses on, I don't think it said charging. But both charge port and pod point were green which I assumed meant things were ok. We were in a little bit of a rush so didn't double check the screen before disconnecting so evidence had gone before I realised numbers didn't stack up. Had hoped to see what had gone on in TeslaFi. If charge had stopped after 15 minutes, ie it didn't recognise my initial confirm charge, then I would have expected much less than the near 3kWh of added charge. And would car port and charge point still been green?

 

[MrBadger]

Retraced the exact same journey and charge.

Apart from some woman nearly reversing into us as we stopped to reverse into the charge bay, it was a worthwhile trip.

The reason why we got a slow charge was that charge rate was limited to 16A. So upped that to max allowed of 30A. So we bounced between 6kW and 7kW, much more worth while. Interestingly, the charge voltage was very low. I believe far too low to be the grid voltage. I'll revisit that one when I had a chance to do some calcs.

As for awful efficiency. What last night was 362Wh/mile at wet night 11C, this morning was 240Wh/mile at dry daytime 12.7C. Again, I need to dive into the data.

 

[MrBadger]

Apart from some woman nearly reversing into us as we stopped to reverse into the charge bay, it was a worthwhile trip.

So, when you are starting to reverse into electric parking space, make sure the mad woman in the parking space opposite knows what mirrors are for and you know where your horn is...

 

[NorfolkMustard]

The new firmware basically no longer reports sleep state so TeslaFi has to guess when the car is asleep and for that reason the sleep mode can sometimes miss data.

On the model 3 at least, the current firmware reports state=asleep OK

What teslafi has to guess, is when the car is trying to go to sleep - i.e. times when it would happily sleep if it weren't for teslafi pinging it every 60 seconds asking it how it feels

The basic "TeslaFi Sleep Mode", when enabled, will leave the car alone (stop asking it how it feels) after 30 minutes of inactivity (i.e. 30 mins of the car saying its stationary with no HVAC or Sentry Mode running)

After 30 mins of the car doing nothing (but teslaFi is still asking how it feels every 60 seconds during those 30 minutes) TeslaFi will then give the car 15 minutes to go to sleep by stopping polling the car entirely.

After those 15 minutes, teslaFi then asks Tesla (NOT the car) what the car's last reported state was. If tesla says the last reported state was "asleep", then TeslaFi will stop asking the car how it feels, and instead it will switch to regularly asking Tesla (unless you disable this also [by ticking "Do not check the vehicle state during Deep|Nighttime Sleep Mode|Attempt" ], but there's no need to and if you do teslafi will not be aware of the car becoming active again)

 

[TE51 DAV]

I use Tasker on my Android to send a wake command via TeslaFi whenever my phone connects to my car Bluetooth.

I know this sounds counter-intuitive because my car is obviously awake in order for the Bluetooth to have connected but it has the nice side-effect of nudging TeslaFi to connect fully. I get virtually no gaps in data now and suspect the odd (very short) gaps are due to poor signal strength areas.

 

[brkaus]

The reason why we got a slow charge was that charge rate was limited to 16A. So upped that to max allowed of 30A. So we bounced between 6kW and 7kW, much more worth while. Interestingly, the charge voltage was very low. I believe far too low to be the grid voltage. I'll revisit that one when I had a chance to do some calcs.

if the voltage is bouncing around on the low side, that may have caused the car to lower the value to 16a at that location. It does it for safety - it cannot tell if it is just a long wire or a bad connection point in the circuit.

 

[MrBadger]

I think night before, we just got a default 16A charge. Very wet night, in a rush, we just got the default offering.

UK mains voltage is 230v -6%/+10% so 216 to 253v range.

Following day, initially connecting up, car showed 221v at 16A (4kW) and offered 30A max, which I adjusted to.

At 30A, voltage was 214v giving 7kW. It was bouncing between 6kW and 7kW during charge, didn't notice volts. We were offered 30A max at all times during the charge, so were not curtailed although tbh was surprised that we were not offered 32A.

If car was indeed receiving 214v, it would be below UK mains voltage range. I have never ever seen a UK mains voltage that low which is why I question whether it was mains voltage I was seeing. I live about 3 miles from that AC charger and our mains voltage is typically low to mid 240v ish, sometimes higher. In area where I live, mains power is pretty robust, so I would not expect mains voltage where charge point to be located to be significantly off from 240v.

This is a recently commissioned charge point (within last month) so I would expect it was tested when commissioned. So the question is, what is voltage on Tesla display actually recording and do these charge points actually put mains voltage on the output or is it regenerated somehow. Image (not mine) of charge point in thumb - 4 stall point (2 x 7kW outlets), otherwise empty. We were front right stall of picture.

Now of course, my car/type 2 cable may have an as yet undiagnosed AC charging fault.

 

[simon79]

I use Tasker on my Android to send a wake command via TeslaFi whenever my phone connects to my car Bluetooth.

Please tell me more! There is Shortcuts on iOS that can now be similar automated. What’s the command you send to TeslaFi via Tasker?

 

[brkaus]

@VanillaAir_UK the car reports the voltage at the car. This will also capture any voltage drop from a weak circuit from the mains to the charge point.

here in the US the ChargePoint stations tend to be installed poorly and there can be significant voltage drop. ChargePoint stations are all independently owned, so the are quite variable.

what i watch for is the voltage on the car screen right at the beginning of the charge session when the current is low. And then how much it drops as the charge current increases. I find it it changes more than about 5-8% the car will decide there is a potential issue and reduce the current draw.

At my house it drops approximately 1%. At a ChargePoint up the street the voltage will drop around 7%. It will then drop the current from 30 to 22a. I find that if I manually set it to 25 as the session starts it will be able to maintain 25.

 

[Yev000]

Following day, initially connecting up, car showed 221v at 16A (4kW) and offered 30A max, which I adjusted to.

I had the same experience with a Rolec charger in a garden center

There were 2 chargers for 2 spots, I plugged into the first one and got 4kw, thought "that's funny". Plugged into the other one and get 7kw. Then though, maybe it was a lose connection or something, plugged back into the first one and got 7kw....

So no idea maybe those points need to warm up first or something, but worth unplugging and re-plugging.

Never happened with my Tesla charger at home

 

[brkaus]

I had the same experience with a Rolec charger in a garden center

There were 2 chargers for 2 spots, I plugged into the first one and got 4kw, thought "that's funny". Plugged into the other one and get 7kw. Then though, maybe it was a lose connection or something, plugged back into the first one and got 7kw....

So no idea maybe those points need to warm up first or something, but worth unplugging and re-plugging.

Never happened with my Tesla charger at home

When a Tesla lowers the max charge rate, it records it by GPS location. So it wouldn't recognize the difference between two charges nearby.

To set it back - before plugging the car in at the location look at the charge amps on the screen. Use the up arrow to set back to maximum for the car.

 

[Mr Miserable]

If that Tesco charger is at Camberley - I used it succesfully on 9 Oct however TeslaFi shows the average voltage I received as 214.64V and a max of 217 V, which as you state is unusually low. I got 30Amps though.

So your cable is fine - it's the charger
(I used the one closest to the shelter.)

 

[MrBadger]

Yes, Camberley. You need to watch the one closest to the shelter. If you reverse too close to the pole your boot lid will touch the EV sign. Thankfully my wife was more quick witted than me, but in the end we cleared it by about a cm. One reason not to go for an auto boot opener.

Thanks for the clarification. I was going to check at lunch time - a local charge point crawl, but decided to make the most of the most expensive of my life whilst charging at 11kW at Pennyhill Park.

Anyone wanting to use Pennyhill needs to know that public entrance is from A30 only - the sat nav directions from east/M3-J3 are wrong and take you to the tradesmans only entrance. Thankfully I was on an explore and decided to follow sat nav even though I suspected it was wrong.

 

[Mr Miserable]

The Energie charger at Fleet has been replaced with 2 new 50kW chargers.
They are free to use for a week - which is nice.

also you don't pay for parking whilst charging, which is also nice.

 

[NorfolkMustard]

If that Tesco charger is at Camberley - I used it succesfully on 9 Oct however TeslaFi shows the average voltage I received as 214.64V and a max of 217 V, which as you state is unusually low. I got 30Amps though.

So your cable is fine - it's the charger
(I used the one closest to the shelter.)

Ditto. I was there on Monday this week
Avg Voltage - 215.3V / Max Voltage - 216V
30 amps (constant)

The Energie charger at Fleet has been replaced with 2 new 50kW chargers.
They are free to use for a week - which is nice.

also you don't pay for parking whilst charging, which is also nice.

Excellent, I'll pop over tomorrow and check them out. Saves me having to loop around the M3 to get to fleet services

 

[Mr Miserable]

In my former life, I avoided filling up at Tesco in my ICE - lower quality fuel.
It seems that Tesco have managed somehow to achieve the same with electricity.
I understand now how Shell can charge 39p/kWh - they presumably have extra volts and a secret additive for cleaner consumption.

 

[WannabeOwner]

they presumably have extra volts and a secret additive for cleaner consumption.

Greener? Hang on, let me just eat my hat ...

 

[TE51 DAV]

Please tell me more! There is Shortcuts on iOS that can now be similar automated. What’s the command you send to TeslaFi via Tasker?

It is a bit hidden.

Browse to the TeslaFi.com page> Settings > Account and then go to the "Advanced" section and click the "Tesla API Access" link. This will show you the TeslaFi token you need to browse with and the list of available commands to make up the URL you need.

For example, the command I was describing was https://www.teslafi.com/feed.php?token=[your_TeslaFi_token_here]&command=wake_up

You can check you have the correct URL by just browsing to it on any browser on PC or mobile device and checking that you get a valid response (the wake_up command returns a list of options codes for your particular car).

I am not familiar with IOS but if you can get your device to browse or post that URL whenever you connect to your Tesla Bluetooth then you should find that TeslaFi wakes up whenever you connect.

Hope that helps?