One more time: 85% Charging

[tigerbalm]

Is my understanding correct?

Yes, I believe so.

Here is what I want to achieve with AC charging:

1. Always charge the car to 100% if I am away from home. This means that I am on a trip – and charging either at a hotel destination charging or some other public AC charger. I might forget to set "Direct Charging".
2. At home charge to either 85% (if no trip planned) or 100% (if trip the next day planned) during my off-peak electricity times – which is 23:00 until 08:00 (during winter) and 00:00 until 09:00 (during summer daylight savings time).

To achieve this, I have set:

Profiles

1. General profile:
   1. Minimum state of charge: 100%
   2. Optimised charging active
   3. This profile is ticked to always be active.
2. Location based profile:
   1. GPS location set to home.
   2. Minimum state of charge: 25% (the lowest allowed).
   3. Preferred charging times set to: 23:00 to 08:00.
   4. I update these preferred charging times in summer when clocks change.
   5. This profile is ticked to always be active.

Timers

1. Timer #1 (85%):
   1. Set to be active every day daily (Mon to Sun)
   2. Charge set to be active.
   3. For me I have Precool/heat inactive.
   4. Target state of charge: 85%
   5. Target time: 08:00 (the end of my cheap electricity period).
   6. I tick this timer to be active if its a normal – no-trip planned – overnight charge.
2. Timer #2 (100%):
   1. Set to be active every day daily (Mon to Sun)
   2. Charge set to be active.
   3. For me I have Precool/heat inactive.
   4. Target state of charge: 100%
   5. Target time: 08:00 (the end of my cheap electricity period).
   6. I tick this timer to be active if I'm planning a long trip the next day.

Use

• I always leave both profiles active (GPS location will do the right thing) and forget about them.
• I have either Timer #1 or Timer #2 active depending if its a normal charge or a pre-trip charge.
• So there is always both a profile and a timer active.
• I go out to my car with either 85% or 100% charged everytime with these settings.
• I try to remember to set "direct charging" if I can – to override all this when at public AC charging – but if I forget the "General profile" will at least kick in.
• I leave my EVSE (home "charger") be as dumb as possible.

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[Raphie]

ThnX guys, makes sense now.

 

[whitex]

Ok so longevity is the amount of kW’s processed during lifecycle, not in how many or few sessions those happen?

Pretty much, as far as charge/discharge cycles. However, there is a less obvious, indirect benefit of shallow charging by plugging your car in whenever possible. It gives your car the option to use "shore power" instead of battery power for tasks such as battery heating/cooling while parked, or even cabin preconditioning. If your battery is at whatever SoC you set and you turn on climate control to precondition the car, or the car needs to top off the 12V battery, the car will draw from the EVSE charger if plugged-in, therefore no "no KWh going in or out of the battery", rather than draw it out of the battery and you having to put it back in at a later time. Tesla used to have posters in their service centers - "Plugged in Model S is a happy Model S". This makes sense as it provides the car with an alternate source of energy to use at its discretion (or more specifically, the discretion of the engineers designing the car). If the car is not plugged-in, the only energy source is the battery (unless of course you're rolling down-hill while braking, or being towed on all 4 wheels while the car is on and braking ).

 

[whitex]

A profile alone can't be used to control charging. To ensure a charging session ends then you will need to include a departure timer and make it a repeating one.

When left to a profile and you don't disconnect the EVSE the charging session will pause for around 30 mins when your minimum charge has been reached and then continue to charge.

Better to have a sensible minimum charge of around 25% and a repeating timer with a target charge of 85%.

WTF? What if you don't depart at consistent times?
Are you saying there is no way to setup the Taycan to charge to 85% as soon as it's plugged in to an AC charger, regardless of time of day, and not charge more, but top off to 85% if it falls below some threshold? Side note: Porsche published tutorial (here) states with no timers the charging will stop at the minimum. Have they changed this, or the people who make their tutorials simply don't have a clue what they are talking about? I was just planning to use that btw, but you're telling me this no longer, or never worked, correct?

How about DC charging, any way to set a target there, or do you just have to monitor the SoC yourself and unplug whenever you reach your desired value?

 

[W1NGE]

WTF? What if you don't depart at consistent times?
Are you saying there is no way to setup the Taycan to charge to 85% as soon as it's plugged in to an AC charger, regardless of time of day, and not charge more, but top off to 85% if it falls below some threshold? Side note: Porsche published tutorial (here) states with no timers the charging will stop at the minimum. Have they changed this, or the people who make their tutorials simply don't have a clue what they are talking about? I was just planning to use that btw, but you're telling me this no longer, or never worked, correct?

How about DC charging, any way to set a target there, or do you just have to monitor the SoC yourself and unplug whenever you reach your desired value?

That's irrelevant. You don't have to depart dependent on the timer set - this is just a window of time to control the charging session. I don't charge every day but always have one of 2 location profiles active and one timer active (00:00 - 07:00) and always have 85% of charge (min 25%).

What the video won't tell you is that an EVSE left plugged in will continue to charge after briefly pausing (30 mins) once the minimum charge level has been reached. To avoid overcharge and hands off control a departure timer will force and control the pause until the next timer event.

Nothing has changed on the usage or definition of timers and profiles since launch. The issue is that people choose not to read the instructions and end up getting confused. Videos can be misleading too as these folk tend not to read either nor have the experience to fully understand the subtleties of charging per brand.

Timers and profiles only relate to DC charging. Imagine the chaos at public DC charging if people had timers and profiles!!

In UK some EVSEs limit charging time - 30 mins in Edinburgh (Fettes Row) or face a £30 overstay fine. In general I would stay long enough to get the charge I need for the planned journey.

 

[whitex]

What the video won't tell you is that an EVSE left plugged in will continue to charge after briefly pausing (30 mins) once the minimum charge level has been reached. To avoid overcharge and hands off control a departure timer will force and control the pause until the next timer event.

Which means the video is wrong saying that without any timers the charging will stop. Arguing that the video is correct because "it will stop for x seconds", whether x is 1, 1800, or any other number, is just making excuses.

I'm glad you explained here by the way, probably saved me some frustrations trying to figure out it, even though I have watched Porsche instructional videos (Porsche wouldn't let me look at the manual until my car was produced and I could register it as mine). Porsche charging interface is the worst user experience design I ever came across on any EV, though I might be giving Porsche too much credit calling it a design. As I was learning about the ISO15118 recently, it dawned on me that they probably just had some lowest bid programmer implement the UI, as it seems to reflect the ISO spec, which is meant for engineers, not users.

 

[W1NGE]

Which means the video is wrong saying that without any timers the charging will stop. Arguing that the video is correct because "it will stop for x seconds", whether x is 1, 1800, or any other number, is just making excuses.

I'm glad you explained here by the way, probably saved me some frustrations trying to figure out it, even though I have watched Porsche instructional videos (Porsche wouldn't let me look at the manual until my car was produced and I could register it as mine). Porsche charging interface is the worst user experience design I ever came across on any EV, though I might be giving Porsche too much credit calling it a design. As I was learning about the ISO15118 recently, it dawned on me that they probably just had some lowest bid programmer implement the UI, as it seems to reflect the ISO spec, which is meant for engineers, not users.

I think the instructions could be clearer and I guess I've learned a lot in 26 months of ownership.

For piece of mind I'd suggest starting with the following for home AC charging to remove some of the early anxiety. From then on you can tweak as needed. Keep in mind that even though you have a timer and profile active all the time they have no effect until you plug in your EVSE.

 

[Dee]

I'm so annoyed that people use the minimum as an maximum.
Still.

It's called a minimum for a reason.
In profile you set the minimum (25%).
In timer you set the maximum (85%).
It's really that simple.

 

[Sir]

It's interesting reading all the different ways to charge and keep it at a set SoC. I have mine just on a profile with an 80% minimum, optimized charging and NO timer. The car charges to 80% and then just stops and states it as fully charged (i leave it plugged in). No need for a timer at all!

 

[Valen]

And sometimes, don't forget to charge to 100%....

It's not written anywhere in the manual but charging to 100% allows cell balancing (in other words to ensure that every cells are powered once in a while). It helps, battery longevity and performance.

This advice is coming from a legit source. I got an EV bike that is quite "rare" (same bike as current E-Moto GP) and got in touch with top tech guys from the factory/race team.
They confirmed that usually 20-85 is better (batteries are more or less the same) but sometimes charging to 100 is required to do a cell balancing.
Also going down to 0% is pointless except to get a better SOC calibration (which doesn't matter than much)
These guys are into high performance EV bikes for 10 years and were the sole manufacturers for E-Moto GP so i trust them more than the Porsche dealers

 

[Bognar67]

And sometimes, don't forget to charge to 100%....

It's not written anywhere in the manual but charging to 100% allows cell balancing (in other words to ensure that every cells are powered once in a while). It helps, battery longevity and performance.

This advice is coming from a legit source. I got an EV bike that is quite "rare" (same bike as current E-Moto GP) and got in touch with top tech guys from the factory/race team.
They confirmed that usually 20-85 is better (batteries are more or less the same) but sometimes charging to 100 is required to do a cell balancing.
Also going down to 0% is pointless except to get a better SOC calibration (which doesn't matter than much)
These guys are into high performance EV bikes for 10 years and were the sole manufacturers for E-Moto GP so i trust them more than the Porsche dealers

That is a well known fact, Taycan's BMS is self balancing the cells from 35% SoC so charging to 100% with this reason is unnecessary.

 

[Archimedes]

A profile alone can't be used to control charging. To ensure a charging session ends then you will need to include a departure timer and make it a repeating one.

When left to a profile and you don't disconnect the EVSE the charging session will pause for around 30 mins when your minimum charge has been reached and then continue to charge.

??? My JuiceBox does not do this. It stops at 85%, period. And I don’t use a departure timer.

 

[Raphie]

Great responses and experiences, keep them coming!

 

[W1NGE]

It's interesting reading all the different ways to charge and keep it at a set SoC. I have mine just on a profile with an 80% minimum, optimized charging and NO timer. The car charges to 80% and then just stops and states it as fully charged (i leave it plugged in). No need for a timer at all!

That is (sadly) interesting - is your profile of type General or Location based (not that it's entirely relevant)?

Which EVSE are you using?

I have a suspicion that something may have been tweaked in the 2 years+ since launch that has slipped under the radar and as a consequence fuelling the confusion and therefore advice being given.

I feel the need to revert to a profile only charge and see what happens..I gave up on it in the early days as charging would never stop within the window given and so always charge to 100%.

 

[Raphie]

It seems the % only works as a cap in the default profile?
all additional profiles it’s a minimum?

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