How can I connect my Tesla? – Smart Charging

Are you unable to connect your Tesla due to missing permissions? Or maybe you're struggling to set up your Smart Charging Virtual Key... If so, this article is here to help you get started with Smart Charging your Tesla.

How should I connect my Tesla?

As a driver, you can now choose what information a third-party app should have access to. With this change, Tesla gives you more control over what data is shared.

When you first try to connect your car to the Smart Charging app, you will be asked to select which information you allow your Smart Charging app to access. Please ensure you allow sharing the following information during the connection process:

- Vehicle Information
- Vehicle Charging Management

If you do not allow one of these items to be shared, your connection will fail. To undo this, you will have to revoke the consent in the Tesla app before retrying your connection. Keep reading to find out how you can do this and exactly what data is being used by your Smart Charging app.

Why does the Smart Charging app need this data?

Tesla has grouped data access and functionalities. Therefore, when our service requires one type of data, the driver must consent to sharing all data within that consent group.

Your Smart Charging app currently requires two of the six consent groups. Here we detail the type of data processed for each of the consent groups required.

Vehicle Information

This includes essential data for our smart charging service to work optimally. With this consent, we retrieve two groups of data:
Vehicle status information: This involves data on the state of the EV, such as the State of Charge, the current battery percentage, and the Charging Status. This allows us to see if the EV is plugged in, charging, etc. This is essential for managing your charging sessions according to your preferences and calculating charging costs, kWh added, and earnings (if applicable).
Location information: This allows us to know whether you are charging at a known charging location. We do not store the coordinates of any location retrieved. The coordinates we receive are only mapped if/when there is a match with one of the charge locations you set in the app. This allows us to determine the charge costs, energy market optimization to be applied and whether rewards apply to your session.

Vehicle Charging Management

This allows us to manage your charging sessions:
Start/stop charging and/or commands to schedule: This is what allows us to pause and restart your sessions according to charging preferences and energy tariffs provided in the app.

Please keep in mind:

Your Smart Charging app will only use the data necessary to provide you with the best smart charging experience. Even though you may give us access to other items (e.g. nearby superchargers), this does not mean these will be retrieved, stored, or used.

How to Revoke Smart Charging Consent in the Tesla app?

To revoke the consent given to your Third Party Smart Charging App, please follow the steps below:

Open the Tesla App and go to your account
Click on ‘Account’ and go to ‘Security and Privacy’
Open the 'Security' section and go to ‘Manage Third-Party Apps’
You will see ‘Jedlix Smart Charging’, click the ‘Manage’ button.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click ‘Remove access’

After revoking this access, you can try to connect your Tesla to your Smart Charging app again!

Please ensure you allow sharing the following information during the connection process:

- Vehicle Information
- Vehicle Charging Management

Sharing your Virtual Key

Most Tesla vehicles (except Models S and X from before 2021) now require drivers to generate a Virtual Key for the Smart Charging service. This Key allows our charging commands (start/stop charging) to work.

It is worth mentioning that only third parties authorized by Tesla are able to have Virtual Keys generated for them. In this case, a Key will be created for "assetsconnection.jedlix.com".

How to Share the Tesla Virtual Key?

To share your Virtual Key, please follow the steps as described in the Virtual Key instruction screen:

Click on "Copy link" and paste it into your browser (if you are using an iOS device, please use your Safari browser)
Follow the Virtual Key access flow within the Tesla app;
Go back to your smart charging app and click on “Validate”;

You can also set up a Virtual Key via this link.

Are you driving a leased car?

It is possible that when you click the link above you will receive an error because you are not the vehicle owner - your leasing company is. You should see an option to use your Key Card by holding it in the middle console (similar to how you normally start the car). After doing this, the Virtual Key connection can be approved on the car screen.

What happens when you share your Third-Party Virtual key?

This is a safety feature by Tesla to confirm that we are authorized to send charging commands to your car. Essentially, this establishes a security protocol between the smart charging service and your car.

Rest assured that, when sharing your Third-Party virtual Key with us, this does not entail that any of your personal data or car security is exposed or compromised. We will also not have access to any other features or commands that are not related to your charging process (not necessary for smart charging).

How to remove the Virtual Key for smart charging?

To remove the Virtual Key given to your smart charging app, please go to your Tesla's Dashboard and follow the steps below:

Click on the car symbol to go to the Main menu;
Go to 'Locks';
Under 'Keys' look for "assetsconnection.jedlix.com" and click on the Remove button.
You may need to scan your Key Card to remove this