Question Charging Best Practice

[DaveRuns]

I’m a new Model Y owner. I’ve been reading these forums but still have questions. I set the charge limit to 90%. When fully “charged”, the car is around 290 miles range. I leave the car plugged in (via my JuiceBox 40 pro). I can see through the Tesla App that range I’ll drop down a few miles throughout the day, for example to 285 or so miles. Question is, why doesn’t the car keep charging itself to maintain the 290 or 90%? It’s always plugged in, so I assumed it would always top itself off, like a phone battery. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Ed Woodrick]

It will drop to a certain point and then start charging. Remember 5 mile is less than 2% of the battery. If it is dropping from 290 to 285 in day then either you have sentry turned on or you keep waking the car up to check the battery charge. Leave the car alone. Don't check it with the app, let it sleep. It should be able to get down to about a mile a day drop.
If the car is parked outside, you may also see variance in the battery as the temperature changes during the day.

Nothing to worry about.

 

[DaveRuns]

Thanks...yes, during the workday I do have sentry mode turned on (I park in a parking garage). At home however, I disable sentry mode and the mileage still drops a few miles, likely due to cold weather and me checking the app. I just figured by me leaving the car plugged in, it would top itself off the extra couple of miles, but it doesn’t. Oh well

 

[garsh]

I just figured by me leaving the car plugged in, it would top itself off the extra couple of miles, but it doesn’t. Oh well

It will eventually. It doesn't try to maintain a "strict" 90%. IIRC, it won't charge back up until it drops by about 5%.

As Ed says, checking the status of your car will wake it up, and that will cause it to use more electricity than if it's allowed to remain in "sleep" mode. It's natural to want to keep checking on your new car to understand what's going on. But you should have better results if you leave it alone until you're ready to drive it again.

 

[DaveRuns]

It will eventually. It doesn't try to maintain a "strict" 90%. IIRC, it won't charge back up until it drops by about 5%.

As Ed says, checking the status of your car will wake it up, and that will cause it to use more electricity than if it's allowed to remain in "sleep" mode. It's natural to want to keep checking on your new car to understand what's going on. But you should have better results if you leave it alone until you're ready to drive it again.

Point taken....I’ll leave it along and let it do its thing from now on. I appreciate the feedback.