[DrakeRuns]

Thanks to Chris TX I have been rocking along at L2 charging with the OEM EVSE.

When I was pushing L1, I had the car set to charge 'immediately' due to the length of time it required (essentially from the moment I got home to the time I left in the morning) to fully charge. When I connected L2, I changed the setting to charge before I left in the morning, thinking that by holding off until 3am in the morning to start charging I was doing some good somehow. This morning I had to leave earlier than usual (an hour before usual) and I subsequently found myself with less than a full charge (not a huge deal, but still...).

Unfortunately my power company doesn't offer any 'off peak' discounts. After reading up, its seems that I'm really not getting any tangible benefit to delaying the charge... since the car apparently doesn't draw much (if any) power after charging is complete, so I'm thinking of resetting back to 'immediate' and forgetting about it.

Thoughts? Are there any real benefits to holding the charge until early morning if you don't have off peak power pricing?

 

[caronjeff]

No. charge it as much and as soon as you can. Nice having a full charge for those multiple trip days.

 

[Craigm]

I'm thinking a byproduct of charging is a little heat in the battery? Possibly delayed charging, to end just prior to your anticipated departure, might have your battery at a better temperature?

 

[rmay635703]

Delayed is only beneficial during cold or extremely hot weather. If the charge completes about a half hour before departure the battery temperature management system will stay off

 

[ChiVolt]

Are there any real benefits to holding the charge until early morning if you don't have off peak power pricing?

We don't get off-peak rates either. However, we have deferred charging a few times - when our grid was heavily taxed during sweltering days with high AC demand.

 

[WopOnTour]

Delayed is only beneficial during cold or extremely hot weather. If the charge completes about a half hour before departure the battery temperature management system will stay off

This...
WOT

 

[DonM]

When I return to the garage late afternoon in the summer and the Volt is hot, the garage is hot, and the battery may be warm from power use, I think there might be some advantage to delay the charge until everything has cooled some. I set the charge to finish by 8 am next morning which is the earliest I would need to go out. I had noticed that if the charge started immediately when I plugged in on returning to the hot garage, the Volt cooling system was running a lot and the garage got a little hotter.

 

[Barry]

Use delayed charging and set it an hour earlier. It is far more "grid friendly." You will be using cleaner energy and helping to keep utility costs down for your whole community. Even though you don't have peak rates, your utility has peak usage periods.

It is better for your car, because it reduces the time your car sits with a full battery (this is the condition when the battery ages the fastest). In the summer, you are charging during the coolest time of day. In the winter, a late charge pre-heats the battery for driving, improving range.

Lots of good things about delayed charging.

 

[BAZINGA]

Use delayed charging and set it an hour earlier. It is far more "grid friendly." You will be using cleaner energy and helping to keep utility costs down for your whole community. Even though you don't have peak rates, your utility has peak usage periods.

It is better for your car, because it reduces the time your car sits with a full battery (this is the condition when the battery ages the fastest). In the summer, you are charging during the coolest time of day. In the winter, a late charge pre-heats the battery for driving, improving range.

Lots of good things about delayed charging.

All great reasons. Thanks for pointing them out.

 

[LDB]

With delayed charging you tell the car what time to begin charging and thus you get however much charge you get until you unplug? Or is there a way to tell it when you want it to be finished charging and it figures out how long it needs and starts at that time?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

If you charge off peak you help reduce the ability of an exploitative monopoly to profit by expanding infrastructure capacity.

However, you get no direct financial benefit, and if others don't do the same as you it'll really make no difference.

 

[DrakeRuns]

.... is there a way to tell it when you want it to be finished charging and it figures out how long it needs and starts at that time?

Yes this is how it works... issue I had was that I left an hour early missing out on full charge which had me playing catch up the rest of the day. Whats worse, when I got to my destination there were 2 empty ChargePoint stations that I could have used to top off... but I hadn't set up an account yet. DOH!

 

[DrakeRuns]

Use delayed charging and set it an hour earlier. It is far more "grid friendly." You will be using cleaner energy and helping to keep utility costs down for your whole community. Even though you don't have peak rates, your utility has peak usage periods.

It is better for your car, because it reduces the time your car sits with a full battery (this is the condition when the battery ages the fastest). In the summer, you are charging during the coolest time of day. In the winter, a late charge pre-heats the battery for driving, improving range.

Lots of good things about delayed charging.

VERY helpful context... sounds like setting an hour earlier is the right play. thanks !

 

[llninja]

When I return to the garage late afternoon in the summer and the Volt is hot, the garage is hot, and the battery may be warm from power use, I think there might be some advantage to delay the charge until everything has cooled some. I set the charge to finish by 8 am next morning which is the earliest I would need to go out. I had noticed that if the charge started immediately when I plugged in on returning to the hot garage, the Volt cooling system was running a lot and the garage got a little hotter.

I don't even use the delayed feature ( any easier I should) but in the hot summers I start charging outside on 110v to help keep the garage cool so that I can work in the garage without it feeling like a sweatshop. So the benefit is selfishly for me, not the car. We end up taking short trips after dinner enough that charging immediate to get 6-10 miles of range is worth it.

 

[Barry]

Another aspect of the "grid friendly" idea is this: there are not many plug in cars now, so this does not matter much yet, but some day, almost everyone will have one. In total, cars will consume so much electricity that our current grid infrastructure will be totally unable to support them in addition to the other normal loads it supplies. However, our grid is largely unused at night, which is a convenient time to charge cars, so our current grid could become twice as productive with basically no additional investment. But this would require everyone to cooperate by charging at night when possible. This will probably be incentivized by peak rate structures. But we might as well get used to charging that way now, and help ease the transition to a more electrified future.

 

[wordptom]

Delayed charging would give the computer time to gather additional data to tweak the final "on-the-fly" soc estimate made by the computer while the car was underway, providing a more precise soc estimate for use as the recharging process is started.

For those who immediately plug in upon arriving home for the night and who rarely fully deplete the battery, and whose daily commute involves a minimum number of miles, this may reduce corruption that may creep into the Battery State Estimate algorithm (used to calculate the battery’s soc as you drive). Some suggest corruption in the algorithm caused by imprecise soc estimates may, over time, trigger the "switch to ICE" process too soon by an inaccurate on-the-fly soc reading, causing the AER and kWh Used numbers shown when the car was new to decrease (e.g., a 2012 Volt getting only 9.7 kWh Used per full charge that was originally 10.3 when the car was new). If delayed charging will allow time for the computer to produce a more precise soc reading at the start of the recharging process, it may also reduce the chances of errors that could corrupt the algorithm.

 

[mike100]

Another aspect of the "grid friendly" idea is this: there are not many plug in cars now, so this does not matter much yet, but some day, almost everyone will have one. In total, cars will consume so much electricity that our current grid infrastructure will be totally unable to support them in addition to the other normal loads it supplies. However, our grid is largely unused at night, which is a convenient time to charge cars, so our current grid could become twice as productive with basically no additional investment. But this would require everyone to cooperate by charging at night when possible. This will probably be incentivized by peak rate structures. But we might as well get used to charging that way now, and help ease the transition to a more electrified future.

On the other hand, you could charge from 11am to 3 pm when your solar is putting out 3-4kW which is greener and lessening the demand on the utility.
Unfortunately, only weekends are good days to 'get high on your own supply' for me. If I had two ev's, one could alternate every other day...