This article will walk you through how the smart charging feature works and list common questions that you may receive from end users.
What is Smart Charging?
Smart charging means that we optimize your electric car charging to when electricity prices are at their lowest. All you need to do is connect your device and set the time of day when your car should be fully charged. We take care of the rest, and you can feel confident knowing you'll always have a charged car at the lowest possible cost.
Why should I use Smart Charging?
The electricity price varies from hour to hour and can differ significantly between days. This makes it challenging to manually ensure that electricity is used during the cheapest hours. For instance, we might start your charging in the evening, pause it for a few hours, and then resume in the middle of the night.
If I have both a vehicle and a charging station, will I need to connect both?
It's best to connect both your electric car and your charging station, as we can then gather data from both devices. Of course, the service also works with just one device connected.
Are you always controlling my charging?
The charging is only controlled when you charge at your registered home address. If you charge at work for example, nothing will be optimized through the service.
How can I maximize my savings for charging?
To achieve the highest possible savings, you can do the following:
- Turn off any other apps and services that controls the charging
- Keep the car connected as much as possible when you are at home
- Lower the minimum charge level
- Charge the car at home as much as possible
I have connected my charging station, what happens now?
We check the charging station every minute to see if there is any car connected. This allows your car to charge for a few minutes when you connect it before we detect it.
If you also have an electric car that can be connected, we recommend doing so. This is to provide us with information about the battery size and battery level. If you don't have an electric car that can be connected, we will make an estimation of these values. The first time you charge, we will base our calculations on these estimations. The more you charge, the more our algorithm learns.
Based on parameters such as battery level, battery size, price, and your desired departure time, we then calculate when the charging should take place to be as cost effective as possible. This means that sometimes we charge immediately, and sometimes we pause and charge later.
I have connected my vehicle, what happens now?
We check the car every 15 minutes to determine if it has been plugged into a charging station. This means the car can charge for a maximum of 15 minutes after you've connected it before we detect it and our algorithms take over.
Can I connect several devices?
You can connect all electric cars and charging stations that you have, if the models are supported.
My vehicle has built-in scheduling, can I still use the service?
Yes! You can enable the optimization, but we recommend that you turn off any other schedules. Otherwise both will try to control the charging and the result will likely be a poor optimization.
What is the recommendation for minimum battery level?
The minimum battery level, meaning the state of charge before optimization begins, depends on your situation. Consider how far you need to drive if you unexpectedly had to leave. Maybe a quick errand to the store, or picking up a friend from the airport. A lower value means there is a bigger window of opportunity to shift your consumption to cheaper hours. A higher value decreases the flexibility of your charging sessions, which could in turn decrease savings.
How do I enable location sharing?
Depending on your vehicle brand, enabling location sharing can be done in different ways. In most cases, there is a setting available in your car's infotainment system. Some brands display the setting in their own mobile application. There can be different levels of privacy to select - we recommend the least restrictive to make sure all necessary data can be accessed. If you have allowed location data sharing but receive an error message in the service, your vehicle might need additional authorization. Check your owner's handbook or the manufacturer's website for the appropriate authorization method.
Why do you need my vehicle's location data?
The optimization is only performed at your home location, which is why we need the vehicle's position in order to verify that it is located at the registered home adress.
My car is charging slowly, at low power or only on one phase - is something wrong?
Ensure that your equipment (electric vehicle, charge station or facility) supports high power charging and charging on several phases. For some charging stations there is a phase mode setting that can be adjusted - check that this is set up correctly in the charge station's app. If your facility is equipped with a load balancer the charging can be slowed down to reduce strain on the fuses. Your load balancer might decrease the current to the minimum the car needs to accept charging, usually 6A.
Why does my car charge immediately when plugging in?
Immediate charging can occur for several reasons.
- We communicate with a vehicle every 15 minutes in order to save battery, so there could be a delay between plugging in the car and sending a command.
- A high 'safety state of charge' setting, which will hold off optimization until the set level is reached
- Bad internet connection or response time from the vehicle
- The current vehicle settings don't allow us to gather data or send commands. See How do I enable location sharing?
Smart charging does not seem to be working, what could be the problem?
There are several things that can affect when the charging takes place and in turn how well it will perform and generate savings. Below you will find some explanations as to why the performance of Smart charging can vary and actions to ensure optimal charging.
- Smart charging is not provided enough time to shift consumption - this can occur if there is a late plug-in and an early departure. Immediate charging will likely occur in order to meet the energy demand for the deadline, which will impact the savings. Avoid this by plugging in the vehicle as soon as possible and set a reasonable departure time in the settings.
- Ensure that any other scheduling, either via the vehicle itself or your charging station, is turned off. If they are not, they may interfere with the Smart charging and lead to poor performance.
- Make sure that location sharing is enabled by your vehicle. If not, we won't receive your home position and thus cannot know when to perform Smart charging. Smart charging is always disabled when you are charging away from home. Usually location sharing is enabled through the car's infotainment system.
- If you only have a charging station connected, the energy demand for any given session must be estimated. The actual demand can be both lower and higher. Charging may occur earlier or later than optimal because of this, which can impact the savings. For each session performed, the estimation becomes more refined and closer to the actual energy demand.
By departure time my car wasn't fully charged, why is this?
There could be several causes for this:
- We may have lost the connection to the device, and if this occurred when charging was not taking place we would not able to start it.
- We overestimated the charge rate, which could schedule less hours for the session than what is necessary to meet the energy demand.
- We may have the wrong data for the vehicle's battery capacity. If it is lower than the actual capacity the energy demand will be underestimated and the calculated schedule will not meet the energy demand at deadline
I have a load balancer installed, will it affect my charging?
If your facility is equipped with a load balancer the charging can be slowed down to reduce strain on the fuses. Your load balancer might decrease the current to the minimum level required by the car to accept charging, which is usually 6A.