How to use charging timers

[SergeyIndy]

The best I understand is that you have a need for Preferred Charging window to take advantage of the cheapest rates.

There is no configuration, that you already know, to just tell the car to charge between time point A and B, because as soon as you plug the car in, it will charge to 25% as soon as possible. Therefore, the best you can do is to control the timing of the charging when the car is at 25% or above.

The only function that allows to set Preferred Charging window is a Profile and you can setup several such as Night and Day and turn them on and off. The confusion in the Profile setting is that the charge that you set that is labeled Minimum is actually the Maximum so you would want that setting to be 85% for daily use.

I will let our Euro gurus to advise on how to let the EVSE control the charging, but here in the US we prefer the EVSE to be a dummy one and let the car control the charging protocol.

Sponsored

 

[Scandinavian]

I am no longer so sure how the charging system works now. I have not used my car much this year. Quite frankly absolutely tired of all the Gremlins in the software. Navigation, charging with DC, brake recuperation not working, the list is long and the Porsche dealer is helpless.

However we used the car lately and set the preferred timer with the profile at 25% ( minimum). Charge level on timer between 14.00 to 17.00 daily to 85%.
The car was plugged in on AC with about 12% charge in battery at 10.30. It started charging at once but stopped at 25% on 11 kW supply. Stopped and started again at 14.00. Normally the car would have continued charging until requested level has been reached. But to our surprise, the next morning the car had not reached 85%! When checking our power meter in the house we could see that it stopped charging at 17.00. It show a blue blink on the charge port which indicates charging paused. In the car it showed that charging would resume at 14.00 again!

Never seen this before so assume this is due to some of the latest software updates.

And it was not just a once off, it has been the same now for a few weeks!

Reason is that electricity charges were really low between 14.00 and 17.00. Just a dumb charger, Tesla Wall Connecter, capable of 22 kW.

 

[targa666]

The best I understand is that you have a need for Preferred Charging window to take advantage of the cheapest rates.

There is no configuration, that you already know, to just tell the car to charge between time point A and B, because as soon as you plug the car in, it will charge to 25% as soon as possible. Therefore, the best you can do is to control the timing of the charging when the car is at 25% or above.

The only function that allows to set Preferred Charging is a Profile and you can setup several such as Night and Day and turn them on and off. The confusion in the Profile setting is that the charge that you set that is labeled Minimum is actually the Maximum so you would want that setting to be 85% for daily use.

Correct. That is what I’m looking for

The mostly small part till 25% is no problem on a higher rate, as long as most of the charging is in the optimal window

Pfff, the minimum is a maximum!!! Lol. I would never have figured that out! This I can work with
With this info I’m gonna work out some nice profiles and experiment with it

thank you so muchSergeyIndy! You are a great help again

 

[targa666]

I am no longer so sure how the charging system works now. I have not used my car much this year. Quite frankly absolutely tired of all the Gremlins in the software. Navigation, charging with DC, brake recuperation not working, the list is long and the Porsche dealer is helpless.

However we used the car lately and set the preferred timer with the profile at 25% ( minimum). Charge level on timer between 14.00 to 17.00 daily to 85%.
The car was plugged in on AC with about 12% charge in battery at 10.30. It started charging at once but stopped at 25% on 11 kW supply. Stopped and started again at 14.00. Normally the car would have continued charging until requested level has been reached. But to our surprise, the next morning the car had not reached 85%! When checking our power meter in the house we could see that it stopped charging at 17.00. It show a blue blink on the charge port which indicates charging paused. In the car it showed that charging would resume at 14.00 again!

Never seen this before so assume this is due to some of the latest software updates.

And it was not just a once off, it has been the same now for a few weeks!

Reason is that electricity charges were really low between 14.00 and 17.00. Just a dumb charger, Tesla Wall Connecter, capable of 22 kW.

This sounds logical to me? The 25% is a minimum that charges immediately and than the charging pauzes till scheduled timer.
Obviously the 3 hour window wasn’t long enough to charge 60% (25-85%) so according to schedule it will continue the next day
If you want it full the timeframe needs to be longer (at a higher electricityrate)

 

[SergeyIndy]

Correct. That is what I’m looking for

The mostly small part till 25% is no problem on a higher rate, as long as most of the charging is in the optimal window

Pfff, the minimum is a maximum!!! Lol. I would never have figured that out! This I can work with
With this info I’m gonna work out some nice profiles and experiment with it

thank you so muchSergeyIndy! You are a great help again

My advice is to never let the car go below 25% at plug in time, then you will always get your charging in the Preferred Timing window. This is not like a gas car that is ok to go to empty and then fill up.

 

[targa666]

My advice is to never let the car go below 25% at plug in time, then you will always get your charging in the Preferred Timing window.

Sometimes its either that or a expensive DC charger. Most of the times I won’t be under 25%. Advantage of a tiny country


of course I will make sure to not ‘empty the tank’. Read about that in another thread!! Yesterday DC charged for 2 minutes just to be sure. Wan’t neceserry with a 60 km left on the calculated range but it still got me nervous. Guess that also takes getting used to, different dynamics going on than my old petrol toyota

 

[W1NGE]

The OP is J1.1 and new to the car.

My advice also is that the simplest way to charge is to just use the Profile, unless there is a reason to use a Timer for just in time charging to target.

I used to like Timers and just got tired of them as it is a trickle charges the battery over a period of time. Profile just gets you to the target as soon as possible and then the car is not bothered.

The only use case for using a Timer, in my view is that if you want just in time charging to 100% for the long trip, or you want to precondition the car that does not require a charging setting.

Also, want to point out to level set, that regardless of the settings the car will charge to 25% when plugged in and then look for the next instruction in Profile including preferred times or Timers. The OP was right on stating that so there is no confusion why this is happening, as if to say that when someone want to charge in a Preferred window, that is not happening if the car is below 25% at plug in time and not in a Preferred window.

Agreed but in my case I always had to use a profile (location based as I had two private charging locations) and a recurring timer set otherwise I did not have total control of the charging session. This was then superseded by using my energy providers app which could talk directly to the PCM.

 

[W1NGE]

I don’t know. Gonna figure that out. I have the Porsche wallbox

No control therefore of the wallbox and so all charging managed via the PCM - perfect.

 

[W1NGE]

While the gurus consider a response: do you have any timing control of your EVSE (wall-box)? - smart or dumb? This affects the options you may have.

Porsche EVSEs don't have programmatic capability and so My Porsche app / PCM controls the charging session unless using your energy provider's app (common kn UK) which in some cases can talk to the PCM directly.

 

[Shug]

The OP is J1.1 and new to the car.

My advice also is that the simplest way to charge is to just use the Profile, unless there is a reason to use a Timer for just in time charging to target.

I used to like Timers and just got tired of them as it is a trickle charges the battery over a period of time. Profile just gets you to the target as soon as possible and then the car is not bothered.

The only use case for using a Timer, in my view is that if you want just in time charging to 100% for the long trip, or you want to precondition the car that does not require a charging setting.

Also, want to point out to level set, that regardless of the settings the car will charge to 25% when plugged in and then look for the next instruction in Profile including preferred times or Timers. The OP was right on stating that so there is no confusion why this is happening, as if to say that when someone want to charge in a Preferred window, that is not happening if the car is below 25% at plug in time and not in a Preferred window.

I have a J1.1 and do not use profiles.

The timer is perfect to match the charging to the cheap rate electricity through the night.

I have Octopus with 6 hours of almost free charging overnight. I set the charge to increase by no more than 45% and finish by 5:30am. This costs no more than a couple of pounds.

Unfortunately Octopus are going to vary the 6 hour window, so may be forced to try their app again, which pains me since it was completely unreliable when I previously tried.

If you are using the Octopus app then you must have no timers or profiles set.

 

[PorscheTaycan]

I have Tesla Gen 3 wall chargers and they are set to only charge between midnight and 6 am (cheapest period) - so my profile on the Taycan is set to 80%, and the car only charges up to 80% during those times. Works fine that way.

 

[Scandinavian]

This sounds logical to me? The 25% is a minimum that charges immediately and than the charging pauzes till scheduled timer.
Obviously the 3 hour window wasn’t long enough to charge 60% (25-85%) so according to schedule it will continue the next day
If you want it full the timeframe needs to be longer (at a higher electricityrate)

I agree that it is logic to do like this.

however my car has never done this before. It did not stop charging outside that time window. Possibly changed to do this after some recent updates in my car, that have not been done before.

’’it has always started charging in that window, but not stopped and paused

 

[Murph7355]

This is another area where if Porsche gave us the latest J1.2 PCM s/w it would fix the idiotic way they did this in J1.1 (programmed by someone who had never used an EV for more than 5mins).

When getting my car onto Octopus Intelligent Go, I wiped all charge profiles and timers. OIG connected up to the car OK, and I've controlled it that way ever since (2yrs ago). Set desired charge level and "ready by" time in the OIG app, and if there's enough time available it sorts it out (95% of the time there is as they give me extra cheap slots). Otherwise it gets as far as it can, and I can use "bump charge" if I want

Using public chargers is no issue. Don't have to change anything. Using another home charger is similarly no issue. If I want more at home sooner than their slots allow I use "bump charge" in the app.

Luckily it just works.

The J1.2 approach is much simpler on the car and way more user friendly. Another thing, however, that's not worth a £50k+ upgrade. So come on Porsche, show your customers some loyalty and ensure their cars have some longevity. It'll save you s/w dev costs and help residuals which you know will help you long term.

 

[ct4s]

Gave up using the timer 18 months ago on my j1.1 and never used it on my j1.2.
Crazy that Porsche hasn't got enough tech ability to design and build high quality and user friendly software.

I use the Octopus app to control when it charges and all I use the PCM / Porsche app for is to set a max charge %.
Works flawlessly.

Wy wife's Kia has so many useful and easy to use options in her app. Eg, the ability to throttle charging speed (great for extending the 5p electric window to benefit the whole house when using a smart charge) and more useful options for cabin preconditioning (max defrost).

It's not just an EV thing - Porsche is being left behind in many areas and need better software for all their new cars.
AND, crucially they shouldn't stop developing for cars they have already sold so quickly.

 

[tophamn]

I have a J1.1 and do not use profiles.

The timer is perfect to match the charging to the cheap rate electricity through the night.

I have Octopus with 6 hours of almost free charging overnight. I set the charge to increase by no more than 45% and finish by 5:30am. This costs no more than a couple of pounds.

Unfortunately Octopus are going to vary the 6 hour window, so may be forced to try their app again, which pains me since it was completely unreliable when I previously tried.

If you are using the Octopus app then you must have no timers or profiles set.

I guess you had Octopus controlling the car - I too found it very unreliable so reverted to have Octopus control my EVSE (MyEnergi Zappi - installed by Octopus). The benefit here is the car doesn't automatically start charging when plugged in - the charging window is controlled by Octopus so I always get the cheap rates. I then have a single profile where the "minimum" charge level is treated as maximum, and no timer set.

Sponsored