Have Tesla Solar? Have Tesla Car? Charge On Solar!

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One of the greatest things about this new energy era is the ability to “drive on sunshine.” Anyone with solar panels on their roof and an electric car in their driveway likes to share with others that the solar energy they collect powers their electric car. However, the specifics of electricity flow can be slightly different. Perhaps you’re charging at night when your solar array isn’t generating electricity, and then during the day, your solar array is just sending electricity back into the grid. Tesla is now helping you to be more deliberate and more specific in your claims — as long as you have a Tesla solar power system and electric car, of course.

This has a practical or financial purpose, too. Some people are compensated well for any electricity their solar power system sends into the grid. Many, however, get little compensation and it’s much more financially helpful to use their solar-generated electricity if they can and not have to buy as much electricity from the grid.

As you can see in the screenshot above, you can set both the base charge you want from any sources (to make sure your car has a critical minimum amount of charge) and then you can also set what percentage you want to charge to when solar is available.

Note that there are minimum software and hardware requirements to use this feature. They are as follows:

How do you actually get to these Charge on Solar options, though? It’s as easy as apple pie.

Here’s another shot of the charging in action from two viewpoints in the app (also featured at the top of the page):

As a final note, Tesla shares that the Powerwall works superbly with Charge on Solar no matter the scenario. “The following Powerwall modes work seamlessly with Charge on Solar:

Easy, right?

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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