A lot of customers want to charge their electric vehicle (EV) car during off-peak hours when electricity rates are lower.
Charging off-peak is easy through your vehicle’s app or its infotainment center, where you can set charging schedules. Most vehicles today offer some type of scheduling, and lots of YouTube videos show “how-tos” for specific makes and models. Once you’ve set the charging time from the infotainment center of your vehicle, the charging station will respond to the vehicle's request to charge.
For example, if you set your vehicle to charge between midnight and 5:00 a.m., you’ll plug your car in any time before midnight. (Most people plug in as soon as they arrive home.) When you plug into the charging station, there will be an initial “yes, I'm available” kind of handshake between the car and the charging station. Sometimes you even hear a connection or the vehicle’s charge port momentarily lights up, depending on the vehicle. The charging will not begin until the time that has been set. So, at midnight, the vehicle will request a charge. At that time, the station will then allow power transfer. This allows you to charge using those lower rates. Some utility companies have even lower rates than off-peak, just for EV charging; always check with your utility.
Charging during off-peak hours is easy. The vehicle is in complete control of the charge, so the station is never going to deliver power unless the vehicle is requesting a charge, which it will do at the time that you have set.
