15 Miles of Vampire Drain in 24 Hours - What Do I Win?

[BozieBeMe2]

I have Energy Savings on, and I usually see a loss of about 5 rated miles over 24 hours when the car sits idle, even though it's plugged in. It will automatically connect to WiFi and seems to frequently contact the mothership. I think the car also plays music whenever it wakes up (or at least advances the current track), since I come back in the morning to find the currently selected track is well beyond where I left off listening.

I seem to be having close to the same loss in our 2015 85D
We have 6400 miles on it and as much as I would Love to be Driving THE CAAAR,
it has been parked for the last three weeks. Stupid Snow
It takes me about 4.5 hours to clean it and I haven't quite come to grips with the fact, it's okay to play in the snow.
Because the car hasn't moved in three weeks, I started noticing my Tesla app notifying me about her charging times.
When we were driving it daily, charging was to be expected.
At the end of charge, the app reports 'charge completed at 200mi.'
Then in about 1.5 days, it will drop down to 193mi and start another charge.
I do have Energy Savings On, climate off, radio - muted.
One peculiar thing I did notice happened when we received the 7.1 update.
Our garage isn't heated and was around 54 degrees on that day, but when I entered the car to install the update,
the radio was on, climate was off but the temperature in the car was at 74 degrees, not 54 or so.
Go Figure,
The car didn't want me to be uncomfortable?

 

[AWDtsla]

Ok, all of that makes sense but I can't see how any of it has anything to do with vampire losses. If the EPA says a car gets 30 miles per gallon it gets 30 miles per gallon whether it has 10 gallons of gas in it or 20. The EPA wouldn't take vampire loss into account because a) it has no relation to range relative to charge state and b) it's an unknown variable that was largely coined as a result of early Model S owners complaining about power loss. As you can't know what you don't know, it would be very surprising to me if vampire losses were ever even a blip on their radar.

Read the test procedure.

 

[Mike K]

I don't see anything that relates to vampire loss. You're making the claim but you don't seem to be able to back it up with any kind of actual data. If I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected but I don't see anything anywhere that backs your assertions and on their face, they don't make sense. This is the only reason I'm being somewhat stubborn here.

 

[AWDtsla]

I don't see anything that relates to vampire loss. You're making the claim but you don't seem to be able to back it up with any kind of actual data. If I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected but I don't see anything anywhere that backs your assertions and on their face, they don't make sense. This is the only reason I'm being somewhat stubborn here.

Well it's the second paragraph of the document I linked, since that didn't work, here's a badly formatted quote:

"Electric Vehicle - City Test Procedure Summary -
Following SAE J1634 Recommended Practice, the
battery is fully charged, the vehi
cle is parked over night, and then t
he following day the vehicle driven
over successive city cycles until t
he battery becomes discharged (and the vehicle can no longer follow the
city driving cycle). After running the successive city
cycles, the battery is recharged from a normal AC
source and the energy consumption of the vehicle is
determined (in kW-hr/mile or kW-hr/100 miles) by
dividing the kilowatt-hours of energy to recharge the ba
ttery by the miles traveled by the vehicle."

 

[eloder]

It's disappointing. People are quick to calculate their gas savings but I bet they're completely ignoring the fact that this is basically the equivalent of a 30mpg car leaking a half gallon of gas every day.

If I'm losing 15 miles per day and that's normal, what in the world were people losing when everyone was complaining about vampire losses?

My phone loses significant portions of its battery life too while idling if I don't have energy saving modes on.

My Leaf doesn't have any vampire loss whatsoever that I can notice (if there's one, it's less than a mile a week). But my Leaf also can't regulate its battery temperature when not plugged in, has no OTA functionality of any sort, and it also can lose a significant amount of capacity every year.

Don't look at it as losing half a gallon of gas every day. Think of it as saving money from ever having to replace your battery pack due to capacity degradation while simultaneously having advanced tech available. I'm sure if you turned off always connected, automatic AC use, etc. your car will have very little vampire drain.

 

[dsm363]

Agree. If you don't want that much power drain turn on energy savings and always connected off.

 

[yobigd20]

If I'm losing 15 miles per day and that's normal, what in the world were people losing when everyone was complaining about vampire losses?

back in 2013 before their improvements I was losing 3mph, so during a 10 hour work day for me I would lose 30 miles just sitting in a parking garage while I worked.

 

[Mike K]

back in 2013 before their improvements I was losing 3mph, so during a 10 hour work day for me I would lose 30 miles just sitting in a parking garage while I worked.

Good LORD. I'm eating my words. That's painful.

 

[green1]

I just did the calculations, I'm losing 12km per 24 hours (7 miles) I have energy saving on, but also always connected on.

seems high to me. Is there a way to tell if my car is ever actually sleeping? I have a feeling that, despite energy savings on, it isn't actually sleeping.

 

[AWDtsla]

I just did the calculations, I'm losing 12km per 24 hours (7 miles) I have energy saving on, but also always connected on.

seems high to me. Is there a way to tell if my car is ever actually sleeping? I have a feeling that, despite energy savings on, it isn't actually sleeping.

VisibleTesla

 

[skboston]

I lose about 4-6 miles overnight, but around here temperatures drop to 10-15F at night with wind and other perks of the winter.

 

[green1]

VisibleTesla

Any chance you could provide some more detail with that answer?
I do have VT, however it is on a computer that is only on for an hour or 2 a day, and I rarely run VT at all, so I doubt it's keeping the car awake 24x7. If you meant I could use it to see if the car ever gets some sleep, I'm not sure how to use it for that purpose, where would I look?

 

[AWDtsla]

Any chance you could provide some more detail with that answer?
I do have VT, however it is on a computer that is only on for an hour or 2 a day, and I rarely run VT at all, so I doubt it's keeping the car awake 24x7. If you meant I could use it to see if the car ever gets some sleep, I'm not sure how to use it for that purpose, where would I look?

Not having the computer on is not a problem I can help with. The power consumption is usually quite lumpy, you can have it logging continuously with "always connected" and monitor the energy usage and when it happens. If you're worried about it waking the car up itself, run it after charging is done, then run it again before you are ready to leave.

Another useful counter is the kWh added, which is reported in Remote S. VisibleTesla should be able to get that but I haven't found it yet. Basically, after you charge it starts counting down energy until a new drive cycle. I.e. you add 12kWh, wait a day, it might say 11.5kWh added.

 

[green1]

Not having the computer on is not a problem I can help with. The power consumption is usually quite lumpy, you can have it logging continuously with "always connected" and monitor the energy usage and when it happens. If you're worried about it waking the car up itself, run it after charging is done, then run it again before you are ready to leave.

Another useful counter is the kWh added, which is reported in Remote S. VisibleTesla should be able to get that but I haven't found it yet. Basically, after you charge it starts counting down energy until a new drive cycle. I.e. you add 12kWh, wait a day, it might say 11.5kWh added.

Ok, now I get it, I didn't understand your answer because you were not answering my question.

I know how much energy is added and subtracted, I know when. That's not in question. The question is, how do I know if the car ever sleeps?

I have a 7mile per night drain every night whether the car sits for one day, or a week. Is this "normal" when others report less than half that with the same settings? or is my car not actually sleeping, and if so, how can I actually check that?

 

[Mike K]

Just an update on this. Car is in for service right now and the SC seems to agree that 15 miles of loss in a day is excessive, even with energy savings off. I will report back when I have an actual response from them on it.

 

[green1]

Ranger is visiting me this week for something unrelated, and the service centre says they noticed my 12v battery is low so they're going to replace that while they're at it. I suspect this explains my higher than normal vampire draw, constantly waking up to charge the 12v system.

 

[Mike K]

Ranger is visiting me this week for something unrelated, and the service centre says they noticed my 12v battery is low so they're going to replace that while they're at it. I suspect this explains my higher than normal vampire draw, constantly waking up to charge the 12v system.

I wonder if that's my issue. Can you post back when you have resolution?

 

[Mike K]

Just an update on this for anyone that finds themselves in this boat. The main battery pack kept going into "support mode" which basically means it's charging the 12v battery. The car also had stored codes for low 12v voltage.

So whoever called that one, you win one internets.

 

[Roadrunner13]

Just an update on this for anyone that finds themselves in this boat. The main battery pack kept going into "support mode" which basically means it's charging the 12v battery. The car also had stored codes for low 12v voltage.

So whoever called that one, you win one internets.

You could give reputation points to 'ItsNotAboutTheMoney' who did call it on the first page, slightly more interesting!

 

[Mike K]

You could give reputation points to 'ItsNotAboutTheMoney' who did call it on the first page, slightly more interesting!

Good call. Will do.