New buyer! Can I set a specific time to Start charging?

I am about to get the RavEV, but I want to take advantage the off peak hours under PGE EV plan at 11pm. Can I set the RAV4 EV to start charging at 11pm, even I plug in the adapter early?

Thanks in advance

You can set a "departure time" for when the car will finish charging, which should do what you want.

Can only set "departure time"? Can't set starting time?

Departure time only - or Charge Immediately. There was a whitepaper by Southern California Edison where they said that this approach is better for the grid because it randomizes the start time based on how much charge is required for each car. I hadn't thought of that before. I can see how everybody starting at exactly 11pm or midnight would be bad.

If I don't set departure time, when battery is fully charged, I assume it will stop charging anyway?

Thanks for the input. I am a new To EV

Yes, the car knows how to stop charging when it's full. You should use the departure time, but be advised that it consistently overestimates how long it takes to charge. For example, I set my departure time to 7am even though I actually want it to complete before my "super-off-peak" window ends at 6am, and this works pretty well.

Oh, and the timer won't work on "31st" days, so mark your calendar to initiate your charge manually on those days (long story...).

Dds02400 said:

If I don't set departure time, when battery is fully charged, I assume it will stop charging anyway?

Click to expand...

Of course. You should also know that the RAV4 EV has two charging modes. Standard Charge and Extended Charge. Standard Charge is approximately 80% of the Extended Charge. You should only use Extended Charge if you know you will need more than about 90 miles of range. Well, maybe a little less if you want more of a range buffer.

There are 16 bars on the SOC gauge (#2 below). When the Standard Charge is complete, it will show "Full" with all 16 bars. The extra energy available from the Extended Charge is not shown at all on the gauge. You can usually travel 20-25 miles before the first bar disappears after an Extended Charge.


Excerpt from Toyota RAV4 EV 2012 Quick Reference Manual

...and you should know that the departure time calculation has a bug...

On the 30th of each month with 31 days, you will see your display compute your next morning's departure time correctly... but the date will be the 1st of the following month. Unless you were planning on taking the 31st off each of the 6 months it occurs, this is probably not what you wanted :-(.

My workaround is to remember to select "immediate" charging as I park the car on the night of the 30th... or it would be if I could remember. Got bit by this in May, July, and August. Hmm... my Rav4 is due for it's 10K check-up in a couple of weeks (possible firmware fix?)... I wonder if I'll remember on Halloween .

thank you for all the tips.

There's now an app called RavCharge that will allow you to work around the on-board timer's limitations and set a timer to start charging at a specific time.