Schedule Home Charging and Departure on a Tesla

Published October 23, 2026 · Last reviewed October 23, 2026

Which setting to use

The two features answer different questions. Scheduled Charging says “begin at this time.” Scheduled Departure says “be ready at this time” and lets the car work backward, which can also include warming or cooling the cabin and battery from the plug rather than from the battery. Names, options and where they sit in the menus change between software releases, so look for them under Controls › Charging or Controls › Schedule and treat these labels as a starting point.

Action

Read your electricity bill or utility page for the hours on a time-of-use plan, and note which hours are cheapest.

Why it helps

The saving exists only if your tariff has a cheaper window. On a flat-rate plan, scheduling saves nothing and only decides when the car is ready.

Verification

You can write down the cheap window as start and end times.

Action

Choose Scheduled Departure if you leave at a regular time and want the car conditioned, or Scheduled Charging if you only want a start time.

Why it helps

Preheating from the wall means the cabin warms without spending battery range, which matters in cold weather. Profile D

Verification

On a cold morning the cabin is comfortable and the battery percentage did not drop to heat it.

Action

Enter a start time safely inside the cheap window, and leave slack before the window closes.

Why it helps

Charging that runs past the end of the window is billed at the higher rate. Real charging time depends on the charger and the car, so do not set it to the minute.

Verification

The next morning, check when charging started and finished on the car or app and compare with your window.

Action

Plug in every night, and recheck the schedule after a software update or after changing the charge location.

Why it helps

A schedule is attached to a location and a plug-in. If either changes, the car may charge immediately or not at all.

Verification

The charging screen shows the schedule as set and a time when charging will begin.

Know your own charger

Your wall connector or outlet decides how fast the car charges, not the schedule. Use the charging screen to read the real rate while plugged in. A slow outlet may need a longer window than you think. For general home-charging background, see the U.S. Department of Energy page in the sources below, and have a licensed electrician advise on any installation.

Check the result once a week

For the first fortnight, glance at the app each morning: did charging start inside your window, and did it end at your limit? Two good mornings in a row is enough to stop checking daily. A missed night is a prompt to recheck the plug, the location and the schedule.

Leave a margin for flexibility

If you sometimes need a full charge fast, the app lets you start charging immediately. That override is useful, but remember to switch back so the next night follows the plan. Also bring your Charge Limit into the plan, since the schedule is only the “when” and the limit is the “how full.”

How it works

Charging at home is slow and steady, which is why the schedule matters less for the car than for your bill. A time-of-use tariff charges different prices per kWh at different hours. The car cannot know your prices; it can only start when you tell it to or finish when you tell it to.

Scheduled Charging works from a start time you set. Scheduled Departure works from a finish time. The car estimates how long the charge needs, given what it has, the limit you set and the rate it is getting, and starts early enough. If conditions change, such as a lower rate from the wall or a colder battery, the estimate can slip, so always leave slack.

Preconditioning from the plug is the other benefit. Heating or cooling while connected draws power from the wall instead of the battery. In winter that can mean a warm cabin and a full battery together, which is why the cold-weather guide recommends it. The schedule is not a guarantee: an unplugged car, an over-limit setting or a locked-out charger will defeat it.

Worked example

Suppose, as a made-up illustration, your tariff is $0.30 per kWh at peak and $0.12 per kWh off-peak, and a typical night needs 15 kWh added from the wall. Substitute your own numbers.

Cost = kWh × price. At peak: 15 × 0.30 = $4.50. Off-peak: 15 × 0.12 = $1.80. The difference is $4.50 − $1.80 = $2.70 per night. Over 20 such nights, 20 × 2.70 = $54.00.

Time check: if your charger delivers a hypothetical 7.5 kW, 15 kWh takes 15 ÷ 7.5 = 2 hours. If the off-peak window opens at 23:00 and you need the car at 07:30, you could start at 23:00 and finish by 01:00, with plenty of slack. If your charger delivered only a hypothetical 1.5 kW, the same energy would need 10 hours, and the window would not be enough. This ignores charging losses; if you want to include them, add your own assumed loss to the kWh figure before multiplying by the price. The charge cost calculator does this arithmetic with your inputs.