First Look at Tesla's Climate and Charge Scheduling in Update 2024.26.1

@greggertruck/X (Edited by NATA)

As part of update 2024.26.1, Tesla is bringing some oft-requested user features, including two of the biggest ones — the ability to schedule climate and charge cycles.

Although both of these options were available before, they were very limited in features, for example, if you wanted to precondition your cabin, you could only choose between weekdays or weekends, not anything in between. Scheduled charging was better, but you couldn’t pick the days of the week to charge, or choose a stop time. For owners with a time-of-day electrical plan, where the price goes up after a certain time, the ability to stop charging before the price increases is beneficial.

For now, this update is in a very limited release with only about 0.1% of the fleet having access to it, but it’s expected to go out to more vehicles soon.

In settings, there’s a new tab called Schedule, right after Navigation. There’s also a shortcut in the climate menu that will take you to the same location.

Schedule Location

Schedules for preconditioning or charging your vehicle are location-dependent, so your vehicle will only precondition at the selected time if it’s at the location you picked.

With the new scheduling options, you’ll be able to pick the location from a drop-down menu of saved locations, including your current location, Home, Work, and labeled Favorites. You can set a different schedule for each location. You can now set a schedule for any location even if you’re not physically there. Previously, setting a preconditioning or charging schedule only applied to the vehicle’s current location.

Start Times, End Times & Days of the Week

In the precondition or charging sections, you’ll be able to see any schedules that were already created for the selected location. Tapping on the + button will reveal additional options to create a new schedule.

From here you’ll be able to select a start time, end time, which days of the week the schedule should apply to, and whether this is a one-time occurrence or if the schedule should repeat.

These new options let you quickly set up temporary preconditioning or charging schedules when traveling.

You can set climate and charge schedules

@greggertruck/X (Edited by NATA)

You’ll be able to add multiple schedules, for example, you can have the vehicle precondition the cabin at 8 am during the week, but then create a second schedule for it to also precondition when you leave work at 5 pm, or create a completely different schedule for Saturdays, etc. Likewise, you can have different charging schedules during the week versus the weekend when electricity is sometimes cheaper.

Tesla App

In addition to setting schedules up through the vehicle, you’ll also be able to create them through the Tesla app once your vehicle receives update 2024.26.

Those with Tesla Solar and Tesla Powerwalls will find that this new interface is already compatible with Charge on Solar. Charge on Solar overrides the schedule settings when excess energy is available but will fall back to these settings if energy isn’t available.

These are two very welcomed features that will save some owners some money, while also reducing electrical loads on the grid by letting them set charge stop times.

If you have a consistent schedule, the preconditioning options are a huge improvement as you won’t have to remember to manually precondition anymore.

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Tesla To Launch Four New Battery Cells in 2026

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According to an article published by The Information in early October, Tesla intends to introduce four new types of 4680 batteries in 2026. We already know that Tesla has been working hard on new batteries. The Cybercell - the upgraded 4680, is already a new design meant specifically to get the Cybertruck and future vehicles off the ground.

Tesla has also been working on Solid-State Batteries, but even with Tesla’s technological and engineering prowess, that technology is still quite far out.

The 4680 Cell

To put things in context, the 4680 cell is Tesla’s replacement for the older 2710 cells present in most Model 3s and Model Ys. Tesla has been producing these cells for a long time and has optimized them considerably, both in terms of scale of manufacturing and engineering.

But the tech behind the 2170 cell is old, and 4680 will be Tesla’s next leap forward. They previously tried with the much-maligned 4680 Model Y, but it was quickly pulled from sale. They tried again with the Cybercell—and that went much better. So much better, in fact, that Tesla is working on enhancing the Cybercell even further—using a Dry Cathode Process to make the cell easier and cheaper to manufacture.

The Trouble with 4680

According to The Information, an inside source at Tesla has said that Tesla is losing 70-80% of its anodes—one of the two parts that move electrons from the cell to the vehicle—in test production. Tesla has been working hard to solve this, and they recently demoed a Dry Cathode Process Cybertruck.

First prototype Cybertruck with in-house dry cathode 4680 cells – making it an all dry electrode vehicle pic.twitter.com/NzJxKQrRBp

— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) August 2, 2024

The 4680 cell is the next leap in large battery packs, but it's a difficult leap to make. Tesla is having trouble moving its research and development to engineering, but it's just a matter of time. Today, the 4680 is primarily made at the Fremont factory in California, but Tesla intends to move parts of its future battery chain production to a new area outside Giga, Texas.

With that new zone, they intend to establish the 4680’s dry cathode process production facility—to produce the 4680D Cell. According to Musk, that move will cut the 4680's production costs by nearly 30%.

The New Batteries

The four cells that Tesla plans to introduce in 2026 have some interesting code names. The first is “NC05.” The NC stands for New Cell, but we’re sure Tesla will come up with a witty name once it comes out of R&D.

NC05 Battery

This cell is intended to be the easy-to-manufacture cell that will power the Cybercab and will likely also power the lower-cost $25,000 model—which we’re still expecting to see sometime next year.

NC20 Battery

The next size up, the NC20, is intended to power Tesla’s SUV lineup and the Cybertruck. This will be a larger-format cell intended for moving larger and heavier vehicles and possibly optimized for towing—a constraint the Cybertruck, on its current 4680s, can find challenging in harsh winter conditions.

NC30 & NC50 Batteries

The NC30 and NC50 are the other two cells that The Information lists, but they’ll be drastically different. They won’t be using the standard cell materials that we’ve seen used up to this point. This is where the focus of Tesla’s R&D likely lies - they intend to introduce cells using silicon carbon into the anodes. Silicon Carbon, or SiC, can hold and move electrons faster than traditional anode materials.

These cells are likely where Tesla will make significant strides in both faster charging times and improved energy output. The advanced anode design, which allows for greater energy transfer, is poised to play a crucial role in Tesla's push for ultra-fast Supercharging.

The NC30 will eventually end up in the Cybertruck and Tesla’s future SUV lineup - maybe a refreshed Model X or Model Y.

The NC50, on the other hand, will be focused on performance and a smaller cell. It’ll power the new Tesla Roadster and likely Tesla’s performance models, such as the Plaid, Performance, and Beast variants.

The Information didn’t provide any information on whether Tesla will utilize this tech on its Powerwalls or Megapacks just yet, but it's likely that both of those two products will see further cost optimization and efficiency gains as well.

We’re excited to see where Tesla takes its battery tech in the future, as charging times and vehicle range are still one thing preventing the mass adoption of electric vehicles.

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We're Launching Our Redesign: See What's Included

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We’ve been working behind the scenes on a few updates for our readers. We recently saw the unveiling of the Robotaxi and even some leaks of the Model Y refresh. This time, it's our turn for a refresh.

Let’s take a quick peek at the changes coming next week.

New Navigation

One key feature of our site refresh is an updated navigation. The new nav better organizes our content under one of three sections: News, Software Updates, or Guides. Once you tap on a category, you’ll be presented with the pages for that section.

This will also allow us to expose a lot more of our news content — letting you dig down into Robotaxi news, Project Juniper, or specific models. In a future update, we’ll also introduce a new Popular section, letting you easily catch up on news by viewing the best content on the site.

Dark Mode+

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Along with the new navigation and some tweaked site colors, we’re also happy to introduce an updated dark mode with new, smoother colors that will be easier on the eyes. It’ll keep our night owls happy and keep your eyes nice and comfy whether you’re using it during the day or night.

Auto-Updating Statistics

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We recently also launched auto-updating statistics for each of Tesla’s software updates. These stats let you view the number of installations and rollout of each Tesla update, giving you a better idea of which updates are still rolling out and which are paused.

More Features

We’re also actively working on a couple of other projects, so stay tuned for more features coming soon.

Support Us

The best way to support us is by sharing articles and following us on social media. We’re on X, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Google News and other popular platforms. If you don’t see your favorite here, just scroll to the bottom of the site to see all of the platforms we’re on.

We launched more than four years ago, in 2020. Here’s a brief look back at what our site looked like then.

A look back at how the site looked in 2020

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Feedback

If you have any feedback on the changes, whether it’s good or bad, let us know in our forums or reach out to us.

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