12 Ideal Miles in Storage Mode on ChargePoint?

[S-2000 Roadster]

I put my Roadster 2.5 into Storage Mode in July and now it's down to 12 Ideal Miles. Is this normal, or should I start looking for a problem?

I leave it plugged in to a ChargePoint system in my apartment garage through a CAN JR adaptor and changed the mode from Time of Day (formerly 2am) to the normal Charge at Plug In. I have the Tesla Motors car cover on the Roadster, and the vents are aligned such that they should allow air flow properly.

I thought that Storage Mode maintained a 50% charge, but searching the forum here I see that it's really about 20% only. 12 Ideal Miles seems to be less than 20%, though, at least according to my math. The car had at least 50% change or more when I stopped driving it daily, so I'm a bit alarmed about the fast drop in charge over just a couple of months, but comments in the forum seem to indicate that the charge level can drop fairly quickly in Storage Mode, even when plugged in all the time.

We have had unusually warm weather here in Seattle of late, with the smoke from Pacific Northwest forest fires covering the skies. Is the charge loss due to heat and/or cooling?

I have noticed that the ChargePoint system didn't seem to work well with the Time of Day mode. It seems that the ChargePoint charger wants to shut down after the first cycle, or at least I never noticed it catch the second cycle when parked over a long weekend. I'm not really sure what's going on there, but I used to plug in at least 5 times a week, so it wasn't much of an issue. The meter shows hundreds of hours now, so I assume that it hasn't cut the power after a single cycle. I also hit the Top Off button inside my Roadster after noticing the low Ideal Miles, but I haven't pulled the car cover to check again since then. Maybe it's time to install OVMS!

p.s. I stopped driving the Tesla only because the license tabs expired, and Seattle rates for a 2011 Roadster have increased to $982.75 per year.

 

[markwj]

12 miles is too low. Something wrong and car is not charging.

 

[wiztecy]

12 miles is low, I'd expect it to have kicked in a charge around 20 at the lower limit.

If you don't live an a climate where its extremely hot or freezing I honestly feel the best way to put the Roadster into storage mode is to pull the ESS service disconnect. The battery holds up for a long time with that pulled. Storage mode can give a false confidence that could brick the ESS.

 

[MileHighMotoring]

I'd just let it charge anytime during Storage Mode. Whatever the difference in electricity rates are, it pales in comparison to hurting the battery..

 

[S-2000 Roadster]

Thanks for the support, folks.

I walked up to the car and noticed that it was trying to charge, fans blowing, and I verified that the current was at the full 30A with voltage around 208V. I even saw the range increase from 10 Ideal Miles to 11 Idea Miles, but I didn't trust that it was going to work based on the prior months.

I unplugged the car, changed to Standard Mode, and sat in it long enough to confirm that it's charging now. Looks like nothing is wrong with the car. It seems to be the fault of the ChargePoint system, which apparently is not designed for long-term (more than one day) charging.

I'd already had problems with Standard Mode on weekends or any time I let the car stay plugged in for more than 24 hours. It seems that the ChargePoint system refuses to engage for a second charging cycle. At that time, I thought it might only be because I'd selected Time of Day, but this recent test seems to show that Charge on Plugin is the same. Looks like I'm going to have to unplug and replug the car periodically to keep it charged. I should contact ChargePoint to see if there's anything they can do to keep the power engaged so that I don't have to manually handle this.

I'd just let it charge anytime during Storage Mode. Whatever the difference in electricity rates are, it pales in comparison to hurting the battery..

That's what I'm doing, although it may not have been clear the way I worded it. Since I'd already had problems with Standard Mode and Time of Day, I didn't even try Time of Day with Storage Mode. If I were still living in a house where the charging system were dedicated, then I assume everything would be working fine.

By the way, PSE stopped their time-of-day electricity rate schedule years ago, but I still prefer to charge in the middle of the night to reduce my personal load on the grid. Funny thing is that I only ever saved about $1 per month, and PSE charged an extra $1 to be on the opt-in time-of-day rate system, so they managed to negate the savings. That was before I got the electric car, though, so perhaps there would be a greater savings if they brought back the program.

 

[bolosky]

You should move to the east side. It's much cheaper to register my Roadster, because I live just outside of the RTA area.

 

[S-2000 Roadster]

Ha! ... but I just left the east side after two decades there.
Tabs aren't the only thing pricing me out of Seattle. I may be your neighbor again soon, Bill.

I'm grabbing the log files so I can get a graph of the charge level and see when it started going south.

 

[S-2000 Roadster]

Well, you gotta love the Roadster logs. There are a lot of clues.

I stopped driving on July 1 and parked the car. Looks like the ChargePoint system does turn on daily, because it maintained the Standard Mode level until August 19th. Now I don't have to call ChargePoint and play the annoyed customer. I can't remember when I decided to switch to Storage Mode, but if someone knows how to decode the Mode messages in the log then I can search for that. Right before the charge level started to drop, the temperature readings seem to have gone up. That could be a cause or an effect. I'm not sure whether those dates correspond to the warm weather that we were having in Seattle. There's also the possibility that Storage Mode has a different (higher) cooling threshold.

Once the battery dropped below about 40%, the ChargePoint system seems to have resumed its daily connection, although it looks like the energy was used for cooling only. The charge continued to drop until it got below 20%, and then the daily sessions show the level increasing, but it seems to drop a lot faster now than it did in July.

Although 10 to 12 Ideal Miles seems rather low, the graph shows that the car maintained around 20% battery capacity and the ChargePoint system resumed daily charging from August 29 to September 9 when I saw the low Ideal Miles and got worried. Perhaps the lost range due to the age of my car is why the Ideal Miles is so low. I get around 170 miles on a Standard charge, IIRC.

I'm a little worried because the cooling fan seems to be running every time I check the garage (before I touch the car), and that's not normal. I'd like to be able to decode more of the log messages, assuming things like fan status get logged.

I'll probably go back to Storage Mode - based on the performance in the log file - but I'll be grabbing logs at least once a month since the details get lost after about 40 days.

My remaining question is why the battery level stayed unchanged from July 4 to August 4, and then started dropping fast. Admittedly, I did change from Standard to Storage, but the rate of loss seems to have increased. Monthly logs will help, since the details for July have already been overwritten, and I only have the Permanent log values to go by.

 

[S-2000 Roadster]

Wait a minute. The drive log reminded me that Management cleaned the garage on August 16, so I drove the car twice. That must have been when I switched to Storage Mode, because it's the first time that Standard levels stopped being maintained.

Daily changing seems to have paused after August 4 and then resumed on August 7. The slight loss in battery level on August 5 was restored by August 8.

None of this explains how Storage Mode is dropping to 10 Ideal Miles. Maybe I need aggressive battery balancing? Isn't there some diagnostic procedure that Tesla Motors has which improves the cell balance?

 

[Chickenlittle]

I put my Roadster 2.5 into Storage Mode in July and now it's down to 12 Ideal Miles. Is this normal, or should I start looking for a problem?

I leave it plugged in to a ChargePoint system in my apartment garage through a CAN JR adaptor and changed the mode from Time of Day (formerly 2am) to the normal Charge at Plug In. I have the Tesla Motors car cover on the Roadster, and the vents are aligned such that they should allow air flow properly.

I thought that Storage Mode maintained a 50% charge, but searching the forum here I see that it's really about 20% only. 12 Ideal Miles seems to be less than 20%, though, at least according to my math. The car had at least 50% change or more when I stopped driving it daily, so I'm a bit alarmed about the fast drop in charge over just a couple of months, but comments in the forum seem to indicate that the charge level can drop fairly quickly in Storage Mode, even when plugged in all the time.

We have had unusually warm weather here in Seattle of late, with the smoke from Pacific Northwest forest fires covering the skies. Is the charge loss due to heat and/or cooling?

I have noticed that the ChargePoint system didn't seem to work well with the Time of Day mode. It seems that the ChargePoint charger wants to shut down after the first cycle, or at least I never noticed it catch the second cycle when parked over a long weekend. I'm not really sure what's going on there, but I used to plug in at least 5 times a week, so it wasn't much of an issue. The meter shows hundreds of hours now, so I assume that it hasn't cut the power after a single cycle. I also hit the Top Off button inside my Roadster after noticing the low Ideal Miles, but I haven't pulled the car cover to check again since then. Maybe it's time to install OVMS!

p.s. I stopped driving the Tesla only because the license tabs expired, and Seattle rates for a 2011 Roadster have increased to $982.75 per year.

Nah I would wait till single mile left. No need to panic

 

[ecarfan]

I leave it plugged in to a ChargePoint system in my apartment garage through a CAN JR adaptor

Can you provide a link to the charger you are using? I don't understand what it is. Apparently it does not properly communicate with your Roadster.

Running the Ideal Miles down that low would make me very very nervous. I would take it out of Storage Mode and leave it in Standard Mode. Whatever you think you are "saving" in Storage Mode is in no way worth risking your battery over.

 

[gregd]

Nah I would wait till single mile left. No need to panic

Presuming this is a serious post (no smiley)... I wouldn't let it get that low. In Standard mode, "zero" miles is actually at about 12% SoC. They have it set that way in order to maintain minimal stress on the battery. Below about 12% and above about about 85% are where the stress zones are. So, if you're down to below 12% (about 25 miles), you're down in that area where Tesla would prefer the battery not sit too long.

I thought that Storage mode kept the battery at about 50%, no? Isn't that the optimal storage charge?

 

[S-2000 Roadster]

I thought that Storage mode kept the battery at about 50%, no? Isn't that the optimal storage charge?

I heard 50% over the years, but before starting this thread I searched the forum and found discussions stating that it only maintains a 20% charge. Look for what djp and markwj have to say:
Storage Mode - urgent-ish issue | Tesla Motors Club

 

[gregd]

I heard 50% over the years, but before starting this thread I searched the forum and found discussions stating that it only maintains a 20% charge. Look for what djp and markwj have to say:
Storage Mode - urgent-ish issue | Tesla Motors Club

Ah, ok. So, 20% should be about 45-50 miles ideal range.
Right number, wrong metric?

 

[S-2000 Roadster]

Ah, ok. So, 20% should be about 45-50 miles ideal range.
Right number, wrong metric?

Except that the display hides the bottom 10% as reserve, unless the car is set to Range Mode, where it actually gives the total range. My VehicleLogs graphing application has a marker at 25% (not sure how I calculated that, exactly) and my charge seems to be maintained around 20% according to that. I should update the code to place a marker at 20%.

 

[gregd]

Except that the display hides the bottom 10% as reserve, unless the car is set to Range Mode, where it actually gives the total range. My VehicleLogs graphing application has a marker at 25% (not sure how I calculated that, exactly) and my charge seems to be maintained around 20% according to that. I should update the code to place a marker at 20%.

Oh, ok. So if Storage Mode reports range like Standard mode (I had assumed range mode for some reason), then it would show something around 20-25 miles of range. I've never had the occasion to use that mode yet. Good to know.

So circling back to the original subject, 12 miles of displayed range means that something had gotten stuck, and the car wasn't charging properly. Now that it's been charged in Standard mode (and presumably balanced the cells by doing so), hopefully all is right with the world.

Is your VehicleLogs application available for others to use? I've been mostly happy with the Tesla Graphical Log Parser and VMSParser tools, but would love additional tools.

 

[markwj]

After my recent experience, I think it is good to occasionally do a full charge and check the diag screens for ESS/SOC looking at lim, min, and max. Make sure the spread is not too much (which would indicate a balancing issue). Particularly so if the car is not charging up to levels it used to.

 

[S-2000 Roadster]

Oh, ok. So if Storage Mode reports range like Standard mode (I had assumed range mode for some reason), then it would show something around 20-25 miles of range. I've never had the occasion to use that mode yet. Good to know.

So circling back to the original subject, 12 miles of displayed range means that something had gotten stuck, and the car wasn't charging properly. Now that it's been charged in Standard mode (and presumably balanced the cells by doing so), hopefully all is right with the world.

I think that I'm missing something, because the logs say that the car was charging nearly every day and the battery level was maintained around 20%. Perhaps the Ideal Miles calculation is out of calibration. I'll be taking Mark's advice.

Is your VehicleLogs application available for others to use? I've been mostly happy with the Tesla Graphical Log Parser and VMSParser tools, but would love additional tools.

Read this thread: Tesla Vehicle Log Graphing application for Mac OS X | Tesla Motors Club

 

[supersnoop]

I think that I'm missing something, because the logs say that the car was charging nearly every day and the battery level was maintained around 20%.

Sounds like it's working as expected to me.

 

[gregd]

Sounds like it's working as expected to me.

Except that it was only reporting a range of 12 miles, not 20-25. Hoping the charge / balance procedure corrects this.