Question on SE Charging

David Comstock

David Comstock

Member
Hi All,

New SE owner here... Question about the scheduling when the car charges. I programmed the app to initiate charging after 9pm (that's when my kwh rate drops a bit), and program it so the car is 100% charged by 7am. But I noticed the car won't actually start charging until many hours past 9pm.... seems like it works backwards.

Meaning it knows it has to be 100% charged by 7am and then works backwards from there to figure out what time it needs to start actually charging. For instance it started charging at 4am this morning (instead of 9pm last night) and was done @100% by 7am.

I'm just curious what the logic might be with doing it this way instead of it just just starting the charging process at 9pm?

Thanks!
 
Same here, I wish mine would start at 9p too. I just bumped my "departure time" to midnight to get it going sooner.
 
@Puppethead figured this out in a thread last year - I'd be curious to see if you still see the same behavior as you tinker with your settings:

Puppethead said:
And the magic cutoff value is 30 minutes!

If you set your departure time to 29 minutes after your charge window, the SE won't start charging until near the departure time. Example: 21:00-06:31 depart 07:00, charging starts however long before 07:00 to be at 100% by 07:00.

But if you set your departure time to 30 minutes after your charge window, the SE starts charging immediately at the start of the charge window. Example: 21:00-06:30 depart 07:00, charging starts immediately at 21:00.
Click to expand...
 
Oh interesting...thanks! I'll have to tinker with it and see. I personally don't really care when it starts charging as long as it's done before I head to the office... I was just curious about BMW's logic in programming it this way.
 
I'm not sure if that trick still works.

If you set your charge window to 9:00pm-7:00am (say), and have no departure time it will charge immediately at 9pm. It's what I do in the summer, I only set the departure time in the winter because I want my batteries warmed up when I leave.
 
Wonder if it's done intentionally to stop a hit on the grid of everyone's EV starting to charge right at the lower rate cutoff.
 
Puppethead said:
I'm not sure if that trick still works.

If you set your charge window to 9:00pm-7:00am (say), and have no departure time it will charge immediately at 9pm. It's what I do in the summer, I only set the departure time in the winter because I want my batteries warmed up when I leave.
Click to expand...

You're able to set a charge window and not set a departure time? If I have no departure time selected, the "low-cost charging for departure" option is disabled. Quick demo:

 
endquote said:
You're able to set a charge window and not set a departure time?
Click to expand...
Oh sorry, I misspoke. I have my departure time set after the charge window, so I guess the trick I found does still work.

I use the app to change the settings, but it should work the same from the car.

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Puppethead said:
I'm not sure if that trick still works.

If you set your charge window to 9:00pm-7:00am (say), and have no departure time it will charge immediately at 9pm. It's what I do in the summer, I only set the departure time in the winter because I want my batteries warmed up when I leave.
Click to expand...


Hmm this is interesting…whats odd is when I try to go in the app and toggle the departure time OFF, it won’t let me and gives me this message
 

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My cheapest time to charge is midnight to 6:00 am every day. I have a Wallbox Pulsar Plus that let’s me set a schedule for charging so I set the daily schedule for 12:00 am - 6:00 am. I also set the same schedule on the car with a departure time at 7:00 am. The first night I plugged the car in, nothing happened. When I got up at 4:00 am, I noticed the car had not charged at all. I expected it would start charging at midnight and be fully charged. I changed the car back to charge immediately and disconnected/reconnected the charger and it started to charge.

Should I only have either the charger or the car set with a schedule? At least my first time it seems like having both with the same schedule meant nothing worked.
 
David Comstock said:
Hmm this is interesting…whats odd is when I try to go in the app and toggle the departure time OFF, it won’t let me and gives me this message
Click to expand...

I got stuck in that loop the other day. In my opinion the app is poorly designed. It definitely forces charging window to be tied to a departure time, which seems unnecessary.
 
GvilleGuy said:
I got stuck in that loop the other day. In my opinion the app is poorly designed. It definitely forces charging window to be tied to a departure time, which seems unnecessary.
Click to expand...

Yeah it could be a bit more intuitive in this section of the app. Got it ok thanks for clarifying
 
BackPack said:
Should I only have either the charger or the car set with a schedule? At least my first time it seems like having both with the same schedule meant nothing worked.
Click to expand...
I suspect the issue is there is no power coming from the EVSE when your car wakes up, likely caused by minor differences in clocks between the EVSE and car. Try setting the SE charge window to start at 00:01 and have your EVSE activate at 00:00. I think that should work, because the EVSE will be "awake" when the car tries to charge.
 
Puppethead said:
I suspect the issue is there is no power coming from the EVSE when your car wakes up, likely caused by minor differences in clocks between the EVSE and car. Try setting the SE charge window to start at 00:01 and have your EVSE activate at 00:00. I think that should work, because the EVSE will be "awake" when the car tries to charge.
Click to expand...

That’s what I suspected as well. Just haven’t had time to test it out.
 
I changed the setting on the car to Charge Immediately and set the schedule on the Wallbox for 12:00 am - 6:00 am. Worked perfectly.
 
BackPack said:
I changed the setting on the car to Charge Immediately and set the schedule on the Wallbox for 12:00 am - 6:00 am. Worked perfectly.
Click to expand...
That might be the best solution. Now if you stop at a public charger you don't have to worry about changing the SE to charge immediately.
 
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