Winter Driving Experiences

[Brian H]

Agree and just wanted to note that cleaning the windows did help I believe, and most notably - simply opening climate, touching the "fresh air" button helps prevent fogging for me considerably. Should be obvious, but without defrost actually on, the air appears to be part fresh, part recirculating air. Fresh air is key to disbursing the humidity. And I really don't like to run defrost after the first minute or two in the car. Jerry33 please chime in

Yes; cold air, even at 100% humidity, gains a great deal of water-capacity when warmed. If it's low humidity cold air, it becomes quite ravenous, as many people's pelts (mine, e.g.) can attest. cursing: Glycerin helps, though, as it strongly latches onto water and resists evaporation, holding water on and within skin.) Even in Vancouver, with the onshore "warm" Pacific wet-erlies, gets down to 30-40°F outdoors in winter, and that air gets thirsty when centrally heated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the wind blows down from the desert plateaux on the top of the Coast Range (Kamloops area), it is pre-dried, and then you can almost see water levels in glasses, cups, and pots lower as you watch! Household plants turn brown before your eyes (despite elevated indoor CO2 levels which permit them to transpire much less). Sometimes an hour or so of running a shower head on hot mist setting can drive up the hygrometer reading a few notches, but it's transient relief.

 

[Brian H]

...polluting the "alert" feedback channel to the user with stuff that's not useful is counterproductive.
...

The boy who cried, "Wolf!" phenomenon. It gets tuned out, and then ....

 

[pbrulott]

I'd like to come back on the excessive loss of charge of the battery in the cold (reported to be 12 - 31 miles per day vs 1% or 3 miles per day as per spec)

I believe the excessive loss is due to heating the pack
It means that the Pre-Smartphone App behavior of the car is to heat the pack at all time
I read that cold is not armfull for the battery (unless -30C which never happens where I am) and the only impact would be regen loss at start and missleading range at start
Why is it that the battery has to keep itself warm, why not just before you leave in the morning

Default behavior should be not to heat the pack and then when the app is available you could heat 30 min prior departure not to waste energy

A second related thought is, if the efficiency of the chargin is 70-90% as per various reports) and that the car warms the pack all the time, it would add significant overhead to the pure drive consumption.

Comments? thoughts

 

[RichardC]

I'd like to come back on the excessive loss of charge of the battery in the cold (reported to be 12 - 31 miles per day vs 1% or 3 miles per day as per spec)

I believe the excessive loss is due to heating the pack
It means that the Pre-Smartphone App behavior of the car is to heat the pack at all time
I read that cold is not armfull for the battery (unless -30C which never happens where I am) and the only impact would be regen loss at start and missleading range at start
Why is it that the battery has to keep itself warm, why not just before you leave in the morning

Default behavior should be not to heat the pack and then when the app is available you could heat 30 min prior departure not to waste energy

A second related thought is, if the efficiency of the chargin is 70-90% as per various reports) and that the car warms the pack all the time, it would add significant overhead to the pure drive consumption.

Comments? thoughts

Very good thoughts and questions. I would like to be able to program the car so that it would begin charging at the time which would result in a full charge at the scheduled departure time, and begin to warm the interior and battery (if required) at the specified time before departure. For example, I could set the departure time and the warming time at 7 am and at 25 minutes, respectively, and the car would start charging at the time (which could be 3 or 4 or 5 am) which would allow it to reach full charge at 7 am, and the heating would begin at 6:35 am. In this way the battery would be warmed by the charging right before use, and minimize any standby and pack heating energy losses.

I would very much appreciate Tesla advising us exactly how the charging and heating algorithms work so that we can optimize the charging and operation of the car in cold weather. I have found that indoor parking, charging before driving, and slightly warmer weather all help to reduce energy consumption. I have got my round trip average (which is mostly 100 km/hr highway) below 200 Whr/km with the temperature around freezing.

 

[jerry33]

Agree and just wanted to note that cleaning the windows did help I believe, and most notably - simply opening climate, touching the "fresh air" button helps prevent fogging for me considerably. Should be obvious, but without defrost actually on, the air appears to be part fresh, part recirculating air. Fresh air is key to disbursing the humidity. And I really don't like to run defrost after the first minute or two in the car. Jerry33 please chime in

That's correct. Fresh air is better than recirculated to prevent fogging. The more passengers you have, the truer this is. Some cars default to fresh at every opportunity.

With fresh air you'll also be breathing a smaller amount of the outgassing chemicals--I doubt that they do you any good, if for not other reason then they coat your lungs the same way they coat the windshield.

 

[PatP]

Interesting. I presume you mean "knowingly allow". Otherwise, anybody with a misfiring TPMS error could inadvertantly cause Tesla legal harm just by mentioning it publicly on the forum. Further, it seems likely that they have a pretty small window of time to get this misfiring warning fixed in the firmware before facing some fines or somesuch.

Misfiring - I'm not referring to Pat's case (where he doesn't have sensors), but rather folks that have the sensors and the firmware is reporting faults with Tesla saying "just ignore them for now".

Actually I have sensors. But it seems they were not properly configured or maybe the installer made an error somewhere (not Tesla).

 

[brianman]

Actually I have sensors. But it seems they were not properly configured or maybe the installer made an error somewhere (not Tesla).

@mikevbf - Shouldn't the installer be on the hook to fix this?

 

[PatP]

@mikevbf - Shouldn't the installer be on the hook to fix this?

This whole TPMS thing is kind of crazy. Two times per year, I'm swapping my tires at my local specialized tire shop. Then, I have to drive with the TPMS error all the time until a Tesla Ranger will reprogram my car (as I live 240 km from the nearest not even opened service center). This mean I have to endure driving with the TPMS error for at least 2-3 weeks two times per year.

It's the same with my wife Volt. However, I bought GM's TPMS device for $100 and I can do the reprogramming myself in 2 min.

According to Tesla, they will not sell or let customers reprogram their TPMS on Model S... grrr... It definitely shows with these decisions that Tesla is based in California.

 

[Doug_G]

According to Tesla, they will not sell or let customers reprogram their TPMS on Model S... grrr... It definitely shows with these decisions that Tesla is based in California.

Keep hammering on them. They said the same thing about the Roadster tool at first, but it's available now.

 

[Jeeps17]

This whole TPMS thing is kind of crazy. Two times per year, I'm swapping my tires at my local specialized tire shop. Then, I have to drive with the TPMS error all the time until a Tesla Ranger will reprogram my car (as I live 240 km from the nearest not even opened service center). This mean I have to endure driving with the TPMS error for at least 2-3 weeks two times per year.

It's the same with my wife Volt. However, I bought GM's TPMS device for $100 and I can do the reprogramming myself in 2 min.

According to Tesla, they will not sell or let customers reprogram their TPMS on Model S... grrr... It definitely shows with these decisions that Tesla is based in California.

+1 PatP.

A the very least, winter / summer bi-yearly wheel changes with TPMS reprogramming should be included in the maintenance package, especially for owners (like us) where winter tires are mandated by law...

Having to pay my Toyota dealer $50 twice per year for a 5 minute TPMS code swap is annoying enough!

 

[mknox]

It's the same with my wife Volt. However, I bought GM's TPMS device for $100 and I can do the reprogramming myself in 2 min.

The thing with GM cars, is you can do this from the car without even needing the tool. It's a bit of a convoluted process whereby the turn signal at the corner your working on blinks, you add or delete 5 PSI of pressure to "register" that wheel, then the next turn signal starts to blink and you move on to that tire. Once all four are done, you can adjust the pressure to the value you want.

Tesla should implement something like this IMHO.

 

[PatP]

+1 PatP.

A the very least, winter / summer bi-yearly wheel changes with TPMS reprogramming should be included in the maintenance package, especially for owners (like us) where winter tires are mandated by law...

Having to pay my Toyota dealer $50 twice per year for a 5 minute TPMS code swap is annoying enough!

I think this *may be* included in the maintenance package. The bug for me is that I don't wont to drive 240km to go to Laval or wait for a ranger...

 

[pbrulott]

+1 RichardC, exactly my thinking too

i'd like Doug_G to comment as you seem to understand the behavior pretty well.

 

[Doug_G]

+1 RichardC, exactly my thinking too

i'd like Doug_G to comment as you seem to understand the behavior pretty well.

I doubt Tesla is going to share details about the pack heating, etc. They seem to be aiming for a "plug and forget" model, hiding all the "car stuff" from the user. Heck they don't even show us the tire pressures, which is bordering on moronic IMHO.

As it stands it would be soooo useful to have a single one-number display of the pack temperature. But I've realized there is a nice proxy for pack temperature, as long as you didn't do a full Range Mode charge: the regen and power limits. I've seen the display range from slight regen limits to no regen at all plus power limit to ~80 kW - now that's cold!

Tesla seems to be taking their time coming up with important features like the charge timer and pack heating while plugged in - basic stuff the Roadster has. This could only mean they're working on something elegant and sophisticated. I'm guessing they'll let you program in your TOU rates, your usual departure times, etc., and optimize everything automatically. (Heck maybe they'll even do something like the Nest thermostat, who knows?)

In the meantime, when it's extremely cold out I pre-warm the pack before driving, when I can. When possible I arrange it so that charging doesn't complete before I depart. I've taken to charging at 110V at night, because it usually doesn't finish. I periodically top it off at 240V/70A to keep the charge level from sagging.

If the car is fully charged, then you want to turn on the pack heater for half an hour or so. One way is to simply turn the car on. You have to leave the door ajar slightly to keep it powered up. That will of course drain power from the battery.

If you have a plug available then you can use the second method - switch to Range Mode charging and dial the power back to minimum. You won't get any significant range in less than an hour, so there will be no additional degradation to the battery pack. Most of the power will go into the pack heater. Just remember to switch it back to Standard Mode again; unlike the Roadster it doesn't default back.

Of course the second technique doesn't work if you needed a Range mode charge in the first place... in that case leave as soon as it finishes. It has been my observation, though, that in extreme cold it appears the pack is allowed to cool a little towards the end of the charge cycle. That could simply be because you're relying only on the pack heater instead of the charging process.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

The thing with GM cars, is you can do this from the car without even needing the tool. It's a bit of a convoluted process.

And same with Audi, and BMW, and Mercedes, and, and, and...

It's really ridiculous Tesla doesn't expose a TPMS reset through the car's UI. This is something we should all press for. Hopefully it's just something they deprioritized doing until next winter rolls around to buy more time to fix other UI issues now.

 

[RichardC]

+1 PatP.

A the very least, winter / summer bi-yearly wheel changes with TPMS reprogramming should be included in the maintenance package, especially for owners (like us) where winter tires are mandated by law...

Having to pay my Toyota dealer $50 twice per year for a 5 minute TPMS code swap is annoying enough!

+1 PatP and Jeeps17

I have had the same experience / aggravation with our Priuses for the past seven years (and my local Toyota dealer keeps trying to increase the semi-annual cost to $100 - which I have resisted), so I had raised this as an issue with Tesla before purchasing the Model S. I have been pursuing both the TPMS programming tool purchase option (which Tesla has indicated that they plan to offer) as well as the inclusion of this work as part of the prepaid annual service (they had told me at the time of pickup that it is not included in the current package - I told them that I thought it should be, as it is a necessary part of annual services - there is no way that the 21 inch wheel / tire combination should be used through the winter in Canada).

I am following up on both options as the ability to support TPMs for two sets of wheels is an important function (which should have been included in the car at the design phase) and shouldn't be a source of aggravation that it seems to have become.

 

[jerry33]

I am following up on both options as the ability to support TPMs for two sets of wheels is an important function (which should have been included in the car at the design phase) and shouldn't be a source of aggravation that it seems to have become.

It should be, but these guys are in California where two sets of wheels are as exotic as a 100% chromed exterior. What they need is to have several design centres: one in Europe, one in Canada (not Vancouver though), one in Texas. That way they get the input they need rather than having to find out that California != world after the cars are in production.

 

[RichardC]

I doubt Tesla is going to share details about the pack heating, etc. They seem to be aiming for a "plug and forget" model, hiding all the "car stuff" from the user. Heck they don't even show us the tire pressures, which is bordering on moronic IMHO.

If the car is fully charged, then you want to turn on the pack heater for half an hour or so. One way is to simply turn the car on. You have to leave the door ajar slightly to keep it powered up. That will of course drain power from the battery.

Of course the second technique doesn't work if you needed a Range mode charge in the first place... in that case leave as soon as it finishes. It has been my observation, though, that in extreme cold it appears the pack is allowed to cool a little towards the end of the charge cycle. That could simply be because you're relying only on the pack heater instead of the charging process.

+1 Doug_G

My preferred approach is to plug in the car in the evening at full power (40A or 70A) and then unplug before turning in for the night. Half an hour before leaving, get in the car, turn on the heater (I leave it set to 23 degrees C in Range mode), leave the door slightly ajar to keep the heater running, and then plug it in at full power to top up the charge (and to heat the pack and the interior at the same time). If I can't leave the door ajar, I do the heating and charging sequentially - get in the car, turn on the heater, put the car in Neutral and set parking brake, after which you can exit the car and shut the door and leave the heater running (but can't put the car on charge). After ten or fifiteeen minutes, when the interior is warm and the battery run down enough to take a charge, put the car in Park and shut the door (which will turn off the heater), and then plug it in at full power to top up the charge (and heat the battery pack).

It would be great if Tesla would either enable the heater to continue to run when the car is in Park (perhaps only when plugged in or for a limited, preset period of time) or allow the car to charge when in Neutral with the Parking Brake on (which seems to be functionally equivalent to being in Park).

 

[Doug_G]

Yes I've done the neutral plus parking brake trick before, could be handy in a public place.

 

[PatP]

+1 PatP and Jeeps17

I have had the same experience / aggravation with our Priuses for the past seven years (and my local Toyota dealer keeps trying to increase the semi-annual cost to $100 - which I have resisted), so I had raised this as an issue with Tesla before purchasing the Model S. I have been pursuing both the TPMS programming tool purchase option (which Tesla has indicated that they plan to offer)

I'm surprised as I directly asked Tesla and they said there's no plan to sell the TPMS tool contrary to the Roadster.