AgingHippie
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2017
- Messages
- 46
I'd like to see an enhancement to the delayed/scheduled charging function, to extend battery life by reducing charging amperage.
Here's how I envision it working.
You plug your car into the charger at 10 PM, with the charge level at about 3/4. The car is configured to charge itself to full by 6 AM the next morning, so it has 8 hours to charge. At 40A, it could charge the battery to full in 2 hours. Currently, that's what it does, it waits until 4 AM, then starts pumping 40A. But it could also take the entire 8 hours to charge the car at 16A, causing much less wear on the battery, and reducing the load on the house to reduce the possibility of popping a breaker. Also, if I change my mind and go somewhere at 4 AM, the car is at least partially charged, where currently it would have had no additional charging.
We know that the car can charge at variable amperage, otherwise it would pop the breaker on every commercial charger you plug it into. We know that the car knows how long it will take to charge at either 120 or 240, because it displays that information when you turn it off. So there should be no hardware change required to do this, just software to select the lowest amperage that will get the job done in the time allowed.
Ideally, you'd be able to choose from the charge scheduling menu whether to charge at full power as it does now, or charge at the lowest amperage that will charge to full by the departure time. But I'm not sure of the purpose of continuing to use the current full power charge functionality with the scheduling menu - if you're always going to charge at full power, why not just leave "charge immediately" on, and set the home charger to turn on when you want it available?
Here's how I envision it working.
You plug your car into the charger at 10 PM, with the charge level at about 3/4. The car is configured to charge itself to full by 6 AM the next morning, so it has 8 hours to charge. At 40A, it could charge the battery to full in 2 hours. Currently, that's what it does, it waits until 4 AM, then starts pumping 40A. But it could also take the entire 8 hours to charge the car at 16A, causing much less wear on the battery, and reducing the load on the house to reduce the possibility of popping a breaker. Also, if I change my mind and go somewhere at 4 AM, the car is at least partially charged, where currently it would have had no additional charging.
We know that the car can charge at variable amperage, otherwise it would pop the breaker on every commercial charger you plug it into. We know that the car knows how long it will take to charge at either 120 or 240, because it displays that information when you turn it off. So there should be no hardware change required to do this, just software to select the lowest amperage that will get the job done in the time allowed.
Ideally, you'd be able to choose from the charge scheduling menu whether to charge at full power as it does now, or charge at the lowest amperage that will charge to full by the departure time. But I'm not sure of the purpose of continuing to use the current full power charge functionality with the scheduling menu - if you're always going to charge at full power, why not just leave "charge immediately" on, and set the home charger to turn on when you want it available?