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For only the 2nd time in 2 years, I forgot to charge last night

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efusco

Moderator - Model S & X forums
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I have had a few "close calls" that got me out of bed when I suddenly remembered I hadn't plugged in--usually because something broke my routine. I had one other night I totally neglected to plug in well over a year ago. Then again last night. Not a huge deal as I still showed 155 rated and it's a fairly warm day (40s) without plans to go anywhere far away. But, again, it was due to a broken routine. I had planned to pick up my son after a musical performance he's in and then would have plugged it in after that last drive of the day. But then someone else brought him home so I never needed to drive the car again.

Minor surprise/panic when I went out and saw her not plugged in this AM. I know that that VisibleTesla will send alerts at a set time if you're not plugged in, but I've found that software to be very buggy and unreliable, and the need to keep it open 24/7 on my desktop has proven problematic too. Wish the new Tesla app/interface had the option to tell you at a time you determine "Hey stupid, you're car's not plugged in!"
 
Similar experience here. Doesn't happen often, but when it does it's quite a shock to the system. It's so easy to plug in and you get so used to having a 'full tank' every morning that you tend to forget it doesn't happen automagically.
 
Minor surprise/panic when I went out and saw her not plugged in this AM. I know that that VisibleTesla will send alerts at a set time if you're not plugged in, but I've found that software to be very buggy and unreliable, and the need to keep it open 24/7 on my desktop has proven problematic too. Wish the new Tesla app/interface had the option to tell you at a time you determine "Hey stupid, you're car's not plugged in!"

What a great idea. These smarty phones have alarms and reminders and calendars. Maybe I otta program something on it for before bedtime that says "Is it plugged??" Simple enough. My wife tries to remind me, but remembers about once every week.
 
True story: Got in my car yesterday morning - No Gas! I'd meant to get some on my way home the previous day, got sidetracked (you know the story). I had to go out of my way to get gas. Seriously there were no gas stations in the immediate direction I was going and I didn't have enough gas to make it to where there would finally be one near the end of my trip. I have less than zero opportunity to check any app about the state of fuel in my car.

Moral of the story: Sometimes the human brain does not operate as we'd like regardless of the type of car we drive. :wink:
 
Why not just set a daily reminder alarm on your phone?

I did this for a while. But after you 'never' forget to plug it in it gets annoying to have your phone go off at 10:30 every night.

Honestly Tesla should setup an alert where you are at 'home' (or other 'home-like' location) and at a certain time and not plugged in. Then email/text/app-push-notify you that you forgot to plug in. The Ford Focus Electric does this quite well. If you get home and within about 5-10 minutes after the car is off you aren't plugged in it will email/text/app-push-notify you that you didn't plug in. And all of that is configurable.

Really convenient. I seem to forget to plug in after trying to get those 5 extra grocery bags in the one trip from the car, or after a particularly tough soccer game. But about a years worth of 10:50pm alarms to remind me to plug in the car and I generally will remember to check on the plug right before I go to bed.
 
You're two years older..... :wink:

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Why not just set a daily reminder alarm on your phone?

I did this for a while. But after you 'never' forget to plug it in it gets annoying to have your phone go off at 10:30 every night.

Honestly Tesla should setup an alert where you are at 'home' (or other 'home-like' location) and at a certain time and not plugged in. Then email/text/app-push-notify you that you forgot to plug in. The Ford Focus Electric does this quite well. If you get home and within about 5-10 minutes after the car is off you aren't plugged in it will email/text/app-push-notify you that you didn't plug in. And all of that is configurable.

Really convenient. I seem to forget to plug in after trying to get those 5 extra grocery bags in the one trip from the car, or after a particularly tough soccer game. But about a years worth of 10:50pm alarms to remind me to plug in the car and I generally will remember to check on the plug right before I go to bed.

ElSupreme's comment is my concern...at some point those 364 annoying and unnecessary reminders become white noise and I'll probably unconsciously click through it the one time I should pay attention.

WRT Krugerrand's comment, you're right, sometimes it doesn't operate as we'd like, but in the case of the Tesla all the technology and communication necessary is already present, it just needs to be implemented to allow for reminders. If it's 11pm and the car is parked and not plugged in, send a text. Maybe gas cars will be able to do something like that someday, but even if they can, you're not likely to go get gas at 11pm--I, OTOH, will go out to the garage in my undies and plug my car in.
 
I have had a few "close calls" that got me out of bed when I suddenly remembered I hadn't plugged in--usually because something broke my routine. I had one other night I totally neglected to plug in well over a year ago. Then again last night. Not a huge deal as I still showed 155 rated and it's a fairly warm day (40s) without plans to go anywhere far away. But, again, it was due to a broken routine. I had planned to pick up my son after a musical performance he's in and then would have plugged it in after that last drive of the day. But then someone else brought him home so I never needed to drive the car again.

Minor surprise/panic when I went out and saw her not plugged in this AM. I know that that VisibleTesla will send alerts at a set time if you're not plugged in, but I've found that software to be very buggy and unreliable, and the need to keep it open 24/7 on my desktop has proven problematic too. Wish the new Tesla app/interface had the option to tell you at a time you determine "Hey stupid, you're car's not plugged in!"


easy solution for that!
If you have a smartphone, set a Location based reminder that reoccurs everyday. So no matter when / how you get home you'll be reminded.
 
easy solution for that!
If you have a smartphone, set a Location based reminder that reoccurs everyday. So no matter when / how you get home you'll be reminded.
I don't want a reminder every time I get home. I come and go frequently (4 kids in the house with lots of activities). And I almost never forget (ie. 2 times in 2 years). I just want a reminder, at night when I'm almost certainly done with my comings and goings AND with a status of not plugged in.
 
I've forgotten a few times, but then my typical strategy is to charge to 90% whenever I get under 100 miles of range. My daily commute chews up about 40-45 miles of range, so typically 3 days of commuting between charging. And if I do forget, I have at least 1 day of buffer.
 
I forgot once and had a long trip planned the next afternoon, I ended up working from home so I could charge!
That was before my employer had a charger.

I modified a script (see REST API thread) which would text me if the car wasn't plugged in at 9pm and 6am however
when they added sleep mode to the car the script stopped working and I haven't had time to debug it.

Now we're a two Tesla family and I don't charge every night and my commute is about half what it was...
 
Am trying not to have this post sound like a "sux 2 b u" comment, but....

one of the first reactions many have to learning one has a SpC next door is "oh, that is so cool!", whereas in reality, 99% of the time it is preferable to have any particular SpC some 150 miles away, off in that direction.

HOWEVER - it is on days such as the one in this thread that it is really, really nice!!!! that you can amend your forgetfulness in just a few minutes by going right around the corner. Phew!
 
I have Visible Tesla set to email me at 11pm every night if I'm not plugged.

I'm typically home, but awake until after then, so it covers 99.943% of the situations where I might be unplugged.

As I mentioned above, I used to use VT, but found it buggy and frustrating to have to keep actively running in the background on my PC. Maybe I should consider running it again until Tesla gets the App loaded with this feature.

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Am trying not to have this post sound like a "sux 2 b u" comment, but....

one of the first reactions many have to learning one has a SpC next door is "oh, that is so cool!", whereas in reality, 99% of the time it is preferable to have any particular SpC some 150 miles away, off in that direction.

HOWEVER - it is on days such as the one in this thread that it is really, really nice!!!! that you can amend your forgetfulness in just a few minutes by going right around the corner. Phew!
Yea, that would be nice. As I said, I still had 155 rated on the car, so really no panic or urgency...just that wake up call that I forgot and had a had a big day of driving planned I'd have been in a bind. And yea, don't get me started on the Supercharger thing...after 2 years my patience is beginning to wear thin for the neglect of this part of the country.
 
Guess that's why Tesla tell us "a plugged in Tesla is a happy Tesla." I've forgotten a couple of times in a year, but it's no big deal unless I have more than routine commuting to do, but then it's unlikely. With v.6 and notifications, it helps to see a notice that the car started charging at the appointed time, which is my bedtime, when the heat goes off in the house. Of course I can still forget to check and charge my phone. I agree it might be helpful to have an additional notification along the lines of "Charging cable unconnected at scheduled charging time."
 
As I mentioned above, I used to use VT, but found it buggy and frustrating to have to keep actively running in the background on my PC. Maybe I should consider running it again until Tesla gets the App loaded with this feature.

Sorry, I apparently glossed over that initially.

I actually tend to agree that the overhead of having to run that all the time is a bit of a pain. I have found that the previous version (0.28.x?) before Joe had to try to accommodate Tesla's new login servers was more stable than the latest version.

The other thing I've noticed is that the JVM that is bundled with VT consumes only about half the memory (170MB) than I noticed when running with the full JVM that I had installed on my desktop... and it also eliminates the issues I had with occasional hiccup when upgrading Java...
 
There are so many neat things Tesla could be doing with their software that they're just not capitalizing on. Although I haven't yet forgotten to plug in because my life is currently a pitiful spitting image of "Groundhog Day", a "you're not plugged in!" reminder would be cool.

Could have it set to go off only when you're below a certain SOC and (as an option) perhaps only when at home.