Timed start charging, how to?

[ridera]

I want to use L1 charging that starts at 10pm to take advantage of a much lower kwHr rate. I'd like to plug in the connector early evening and have the charging start at 10pm.

The Start Timer seems like it should simply do it; but it doesn't. Soon as I plug in the connector, charging starts. Is my car's charging timer broken? What's the point in have a Start Timer if you can't even plug in power ahead of time?

Folks have suggested that I just set the End Timer and let the system decide when to start charging. That appears to work; but, it's limited. e.g. Assume the battery needs 4 hours to fully charge and End Timer is set for 7am, then charging will start at 3am. Then assume an emergency occurs at about 3am, no charging has occurred. If the Start Timer worked, charging would commence at 10p and be finished at 2pm, ready for the emergency trip.

In other words: Keep the battery charged whenever you can to be ready to go.

Al..........

 

[wsbca]

Regarding emergency trip capability - I think the charging protocol you need to use for that depends on various things, like how far the hospital (or person you might have to go help) is away from you, assuming you have only the one car. If you have more than one car, then the emergency level of juice is whatever it takes to get the car out of your garage when your house is on fire - not much. Further, given that you're talking about 4 hours of L1 charging (20 miles worth), it sounds like you aren't pushing the range to extremes, so it's going to be pretty rare that you end the day with the car fully depleted or anywhere near it. We fairly frequently go 2 days between charges.

Anyway - the timers do work - the reason you're getting an instant start to charging is either because you have one of the timers set to span 24 hours, or you have a start time set with no end time (which is effectively the same thing if I recall) or you are pushing the bypass button. [edit to clarify - if you only specify 10pm start, and it's before 10pm, how is the car supposed to know you aren't plugging in "after" 10pm the night before, in which case you're late plugging in and it surely should charge right away, as opposed to "before" 10pm tonight? That's why you have to also put an end time on it.]

Try setting timer 1 to start at 10pm and end at 6am. Then plug in (before 10pm) - it won't (shouldn't) start charging, until 10.

Also, regarding just using an end timer, to defer charging to the coolest part of the night and spend less time at 80%, note that it doesn't (at least with L2) really run right up against the end time, it is fairly conservative. Our charge tends to finish 45 minutes or an hour before the end time. So we set it for 5am.

Finally, back to the emergency thing...if your SOC is down to something lower than you are comfortable with when you end the day's driving, just bypass the timer for a little while to get some juice in there. Then stop it, and let the timer kick in later at night to top it up. Having said that, if you do get it to wait until 10pm to start, which you will be able to do, the difference between that and starting at, say, midnight due to a 5am end time isn't all that much. What I mean is, isn't just as likely that the emergency will be at 9pm as at 3am?

 

[dgpcolorado]

I want to use L1 charging that starts at 10pm to take advantage of a much lower kwHr rate. I'd like to plug in the connector early evening and have the charging start at 10pm.

The Start Timer seems like it should simply do it; but it doesn't. Soon as I plug in the connector, charging starts. Is my car's charging timer broken? What's the point in have a Start Timer if you can't even plug in power ahead of time?

Folks have suggested that I just set the End Timer and let the system decide when to start charging. That appears to work; but, it's limited. e.g. Assume the battery needs 4 hours to fully charge and End Timer is set for 7am, then charging will start at 3am. Then assume an emergency occurs at about 3am, no charging has occurred. If the Start Timer worked, charging would commence at 10p and be finished at 2pm, ready for the emergency trip.

In other words: Keep the battery charged whenever you can to be ready to go.

Al..........

You didn't provide much information so I am going to have to make some guesses. If you have any sort of start timer at all, I presume that you have a 2013 SV or SL, correct? (The 2013 S model doesn't have a timer with a start time.) When setting a timer you have several steps you need to go through. You can't just set the start time, you must set the end time and the days of the week. Then you need to go through several screens to save the settings. If you don't get all the way to the last "yes" button the timer will not be saved nor turned on. If no timer is properly set the car will charge as soon as it is plugged-in.

In addition to the timers, you also need to set the car to charge to 80% or 100%. I'm not sure what those modes are called, but they are described in the manual.

FWIW, many of us use end-time-only charging so that the battery remains at a lower charge level, which is better for it than keeping it at 80% or, especially, 100%. So far as emergencies go, most of us have another car to use in that unlikely event. But since you are charging with very slow Level 1, I can see that you want to get the car charging as soon as your power rates drop since it takes so long. That is less of a problem when charging at Level 2 (240 Volts).

 

[ridera]

Thanks...

You are correct in that both the start and end times must be set for the delayed start to work. I just tested it.

Yes I have the SL trim

I plan to install a L2 setup. But, so far [2 months] I haven't come close to needing anything but trickle charging. We average about 25miles per day.

Al.........

 

[dgpcolorado]

...I plan to install a L2 setup. But, so far [2 months] I haven't come close to needing anything but trickle charging. We average about 25miles per day.

Al.........

Unless you take trips somewhat longer than your 25 mile per day average you may get along fine with L1. If you live in the snowbelt you may find that preheating works better with L2. And faster charging is more convenient.

Otherwise you might want to skip the expense of L2. Just make sure that the wiring for the 120 Volt outlet you are using is in good shape and isn't being shared with another device that runs at the same time as when you charge.