Tesla Random Charging Start Issue

Tesla Random Charging Start Issue

Some Tesla vehicles with certain software versions (including 2023.2.10 and 2023.2.12) have developed new behaviour where they start charging by themselves at random times.

Due to the way the Tesla charging control works, Charge HQ can not distinguish between these random starts and when charging is deliberately started using the Tesla app or vehicle touchscreen.

Normally, when a vehicle starts charging by itself Charge HQ assumes this was caused by the owner and stops sending charging commands to avoid overriding the owner's wishes. Unfortunately in the case of random charging that results in the vehicle charging to completion against the owner's wishes.

Charge HQ offers two options to help manage this issue.

Option 1: Enable the vehicle schedule (recommended)

This option helps avoid the random starts by enabling the vehicle's charging schedule, which prevents charging from starting outside of the scheduled charging window. This option also provides additional benefits, and is the recommended option.

This option is recommended even if you don't want to perform actual scheduled charging.

Note that some vehicles may start charging repeatedly during the schedule window - see the page below for more details.

For information and instructions, please see Using Tesla scheduled charging with Charge HQ.

Option 2: Override non-Charge HQ Control

This option instructs Charge HQ to always override any unexpected charging start or stop, and to maintain its control. Unlike option 1, this option does not avoid the random starts - instead it changes how Charge HQ responds to them.

Note that this option is not always effective for some vehicles, as they keep starting repeatedly after being stopped and Charge HQ will give up after 4 attempts.

This option does have some disadvantages, which are explained at Override non-Charge HQ Control. Please read that page before enabling this option.