Gary Zhou 
Tesla’s “Drive on Sunshine” feature aims to allow owners to charge their all-electric vehicles with excess energy generated by residential solar arrays and stored in their Powerwalls.
Now that the feature is close to a wide rollout, we’re getting our first looks at the feature in the Tesla App.
In mid-March, we reported that coding within the Tesla App had revealed a new feature allowing owners to charge their Tesla vehicles on excess solar, allowing drivers to use the extra energy captured by solar panels for driving range.
“Plug in your vehicle at home during the day to charge using the excess clean energy generated by your solar system,” an update in the Tesla app’s coding said in mid-March. “Set your charge limits and location and tell your vehicle when and where to charge only from excess solar.”
It will also allow drivers to set the 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.”
Now, the first looks at the feature are surfacing as it is set to roll out on the Tesla Smartphone App.
Twitter user @olympusdev_ (via NotATeslaApp) shared images of the first looks of the feature:
“Plug in your vehicle at home during the day to charge using the excess clean energy generated by your solar system,” the app says. “Set your charge limits and location to tell your vehicle when and where to charge only from excess solar.”
The feature is groundbreaking for Tesla because it helps bring owners’ reliance on the grid to a minimum. If the owner of a Tesla vehicle also has a series of the company’s energy products, they can use the full product ecosystem to make things as clean as possible in terms of adding range to their vehicles.
It is likely that Tesla will be rolling out the feature soon, as it is not yet currently live in the most recent version of the App. However, it could be in the testing phases, and as it moves forward with a wider release, we should see more in-depth looks at the feature in action soon.
