I'm retired so no set work/driving schedule and the time between needing to charge can vary from week to week so we rarely need to charge 2 consecutive days in a row. That is why I simply plug it in and recharge it when needed without using the schedule function. Do most owners just charge as needed or use the schedule function or does it vary ?
Vary for me. If I know I have to leave at a certain time tomorrow, I will schedule. But if it’s during the day, I’ll let it charge immediately. (Since it’ll be at a public charger usually). Once I’m home, it depends if I have enough for later in the day or if I need a full charge.
Whenever possible I'll schedule for full charge just before I leave. For example, charging at work, I'll aim for full battery just before I leave. I do this to minimize the time that the battery sits fully charged. If I can't plan, then I'll charge whenever I can for as long as I can.
In my case (northern CA), PG&E offers a "charging" plan for EV owners if you charge within certain hours for a lower rate. I just recently enrolled, but my rate is lower if I charge between 12 midnight and 3pm, so I'm going to use the charging scheduler to charge after midnight and before I leave for work at 7:30am.
We live in a small town and I've never heard of our local electric company having any such plan as of yet, of course we live in a non-CARB state and there are likely a lot less plug-in cars in our state than in a CARB state. Anyhow, I'm retired so no daily commute, my wife still works part time but her commute is only about 2 miles and she uses our Kia for that so it don't sit unused. Our electric rate don't seem too bad to me, we pay about 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. So even when we need to fully recharge the battery from being drained, it only costs less than just 81 cents per charge ! We usually charge once per week, and occasionally twice, so even 6 charges per month would only add less than $5 a month !
