Many Tesla owners are concerned about the environment. If they desire to charge their EVs with clean, renewable energy, Tesla is making their wishes come true. According to changes spotted in the Tesla app, there is a new a feature coming soon named “Drive on Sunshine. Get the cleanest charge for your car.”
The new feature was spotted in a new version of the Tesla iOS app released this week.
Looks like Tesla is adding native "charge on excess solar" functionality with Powerwall integration.
"Plug in your vehicle at home during the day to charge using the excess clean energy generated by your solar system"
Not yet live in app. https://t.co/jucXW2CO6r
— Long Zheng (@longzheng) March 15, 2023
A description of the feature found in the app strings says, “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 code indicates you can set the location where your car should charge with excess solar. It says, “Set your charge limits and location and tell your vehicle when and where to charge only from excess solar.”
Tesla cars already have several features that are location-based. For instance, Sentry Mode can activate when the car is parked at home.
Meanwhile, the solar charging feature can do other things, including using excess solar to top up only the battery used for daily trips. “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 included in version 4.19.0 of the Tesla app that was released this week, but it is not yet live. While the release notes only indicated minor bug fixes and improvements, there was at least one other undocumented feature. The battery charge limit slider now permanently displays the 10% intervals above 50%. Previously they were only visible while moving the slider.
Found a small visual change to the charge limit slider. Shows the increments at all times now pic.twitter.com/uYJNvmQhmK
— Anthony Spina (@Speenuh) March 15, 2023
