Drive on sunshine: Tesla app to allows owners to charge on excess solar

Solar and EVs often go hand-in-hand. Tesla is now going to allow owners to be able to charge their electric vehicles with excess solar using the Tesla app. The new suite of in-app features to enable this will be called “Drive on Sunshine. Get the cleanest charge for your car.”

This was first spotted in an unreleased version of the Tesla iOS app by LongZheng on Twitter.

The strings within the unreleased app shows various prompt that the upcoming Tesla app is expected to show, including: “Plug in your vehicle at home during the day to charge using the excess clean energy generated by your solar system.”

Another part of the app’s coding suggests that you can even set your location where your car can charge with excess solar (i.e. home):

“Set your charge limits and location and tell your vehicle when and where to charge only from excess solar.”

The location-based functionality could be similar to what currently exists with Sentry Mode which can be deactivated automatically when an owner’s Tesla is parked at home.

Another key part of charging via excess solar is by giving owners control over setting minimum range required for daily trips. On top of that, allowing for excess solar to only top up part of the vehicle’s battery:

“Set your vehicle’s battery to charge as usual from any available sources for enough daily driving range. Then reserve part of your vehicle’s battery to charge only when excess solar is available.”

The feature is expected to be launched with version 4.19.0 which is starting to get rolled out in the US. Many Australian owners are currently on 4.18.0.

The new update is a feature many owners have been waiting for. It can currently be done via apps like ChargeHQ if connected to an approved inverter which is used to communicate with your solar system.

This means that many owners that have solar generation are able to charge when they are at home.

This will help debunk the myth about Australian EVs charging using electricity generated from brown coal and other dirty sources.

This is another step to help owners make the most of the cleaner energy they produce which can help drive EVs further with minimal impact on the environment.