33% range loss in cold winter conditions

[thefortunes]

Here's some real data for the last 16 months:

and yes, efficiency does get slightly better in very cold temps if I only report drives over 25 miles (due to battery heating requirements) but gets worse above 40F as the higher wind resistance (due to drives > 25 miles being at highway speeds) causes higher Wh/mi.

 

[ElecFan]

Here's some real data for the last 16 months:
and yes, efficiency does get slightly better in very cold temps if I only report drives over 25 miles (due to battery heating requirements) but gets worse above 40F as the higher wind resistance (due to drives > 25 miles being at highway speeds) causes higher Wh/mi.

The -33% range loss seems pretty accurate (70F vs 5F efficiency drop 95,6 vs 70,8).

 

[RDoc]

That fits pretty closely to our experience as well.

 

[EfficientWatts]

does anyone have some data for cold weather driving around ICE cars? i think it's kind of important to remember that ICE cars suffer from a drop as well, though maybe not as much (based on a quick google search I did)

 

[thefortunes]

does anyone have some data for cold weather driving around ICE cars? i think it's kind of important to remember that ICE cars suffer from a drop as well, though maybe not as much (based on a quick google search I did)

Not as hard data as TeslaFi above, but when we had a Prius we went from 52-55mpg in summer to 40-42mpg in winter. Similar reduction, but most people just do not notice.

 

[sandange]

We don’t have our Tesla yet but we know EV extreme winter driving pretty well.

We live a 1-hour drive North of Montreal, Quebec Canada in the Laurentian’s hilly ski country region
We can get a lot of snow, freezing rain & some pretty cold stretches for a week at a time
& experience highs and lows of
-4 f & -29f , (-20c & -34c)

This is our 5th winter driving an I Miev and we’ve traveled 132,000 miles (213,000km) to date.
The I Miev only realistically gets 60 miles (100 km) in the summer
as little as 30 miles (50km) in winter extreme condition.

We have found ourselves caught in a winter storm blizzard where
A 1 HOUR DRIVE TURNS INTO A 2 ½ HOUR DRIVE
Trapped on the highway we’ve had to choose between heat or not getting there.
At this point EVERY bit of ENERGY & MILE (Km) Counts.

Now this may not be acceptable to many here on the forum.
The solution for us was to install a diesel liquid cabin heater.

The first 2 years we drive with the stock heating system and almost ended in divorce.
This installation transformed our stock heater into a hybrid heater with a choice to use
electricity (The battery) or switch to diesel to heat the cabin.
Choosing depends on our length of trip and or weather conditions.
If we are traveling locally - groceries, bank etc. , we use the stock heater.
If we have a trip pushing it to the limits, we switch to the diesel heater.
Charging stations are very busy in the winter months & not always near by on our travels.
This resulted in only loosing 10 -12% of our regular summer traveling distance capability, mostly due to the denser cold air resistance, slippery road conditions and the snow tires.
Keeps us warmer, & safer leaving the wind shield free and clear of ice build up.
It’s especially appreciated in those freezing rain conditions that won’t quit
building up on your windshield & wipers where you have to run your heater full on defrost.

The M3 short range battery will be plenty for us even with a 45% loss for heating in the winter
We don’t take long trips often in the winter months.

 

[azred]

When yoou the title as 'cold winter' conditions, yuo need to qualify what does cold mean in this context? For many folks even 40F is cold. For some anything less than freezing is cold.

3 to 5F is - freaking deep freeze, arctic like, many ICE cars won't even start - cold. Kind of an extreme case, but you need to qualify it in the title. Otherwise click-bait authors would take the headlines and run with it - unless that was your intention.

200 miles on that weather is pretty good and not unexpected.

Totally agree. It's all relative. Phoenix got into the 40s a couple nights last week and I was freezing. If you live anywhere colder, I'd suggest staying inside.

 

[alseTrick]

How do you "pre-heat" the battery? Serious question.

Also, the adjustable headlights are awesome.

 

[sweter]

The manual is filled with warnings about adjusting the headlights. Basically: don't do this. Oh you really want to do this? Don't. Oh, you know what you are doing? Ok fine, but you aren't getting back to the factory setting. In conclusion, don't do this.

I didn't understand that part tbh. Every (cheap) car I've driven in the last 10 years had adjustable headlights

 

[ZeApelido]

So trying to understand the range loss for Model 3 at different speeds, like these graphs:

A Better Routeplanner plots Tesla range in relation to speed and temperature

People talk about 50% range loss, but this seems to be worst at moderate speeds. But I bet in most cases people are only really concerned about range loss during long trips, so 65-80 mph range loss would be most important.

It seems range loss at these speeds is not terrible, maybe 33% loss. What do we think the power consumption increase is at 70 mph, 0 deg Fahrenheit vs 68 Fahrenheit?

 

[SageBrush]

It seems range loss at these speeds is not terrible, maybe 33% loss. What do we think the power consumption increase is at 70 mph, 0 deg Fahrenheit vs 68 Fahrenheit?

A large fraction of the winter driving energy consumption increase is related to personal comfort, and that is a BIG ymmv. If you can make do with gloves, clothes and heat seating the energy hit is ~ 5% on dry roads and cold ambient conditions.

Once you turn on cabin heating, consumption jumps.

 

[dsvick]

On a semi-related note ... how do you preheat the battery? Is having the car warm up the interior 5 - 10 minutes before I intend to drive good enough? Does it need longer? Do I need to something different?

On an even less related note ... I had heard that the model S and X will eventually learn your routine and have the car ready for you if say, you leave every weekday at 7am. Is that true and, if so, does the model 3 do it?

 

[ℬête Noire]

Possible, but then we're talking about regions with non-winter infrastructure and non-winter ICE fleet.

3-5 F is nothing for ICE cars in cold regions where everything from oils, to fuels, to ICE batteries, to car engine heaters and equipment is geared towards, well, having a winter every year.

Trust me, -15/-16 C (3-5 F), if that stopped cars from running, you'd have wide swathes of Europe, Canada and Russia basically inoperable for several months a year.

Yup, that was about the "switch to long sleeves" point when I was accustomed to it. Though it's pretty close to where some people would start plugging in their block heaters just in-case it got cold overnight. It's definitely better for your vehicle to use the block heater otherwise you've got that minute or two of cold oil that chips away with premature engine wear.

Prolonged -35C (day and night) will get lots of failures-to-start if you don't have means to buffer from that such as plugging in, garage (unheated is enough, as you just need a way to contain warmth coming out of the ground). At -40C and past you'll start getting weird stuff at highway speeds such as unshielded radiators gelling up, used to sometimes get carburetors frosting up (not really a thing anymore). At a certain point you have to leave diesels running to provide warmth to their fuel tanks or they'll gel.

 

[corduroy]

Really glad I got the long range battery! Range still won't be a factor in my normal daily driving.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

In both our last diesel vehicles we would see anywhere from 15 to 25 percent drop in range when it was very cold. Sometimes worse in heavy snow. Rolling resistance etc.

 

[PeterK]

On a semi-related note ... how do you preheat the battery? Is having the car warm up the interior 5 - 10 minutes before I intend to drive good enough? Does it need longer? Do I need to something different?

On an even less related note ... I had heard that the model S and X will eventually learn your routine and have the car ready for you if say, you leave every weekday at 7am. Is that true and, if so, does the model 3 do it?

Scheduled charging in the morning is the best way to pre-heat the battery. I usually set my X for 5:30 start to charge for an hour or two before I leave.

There is a setting called smart preconditioning in the S and X. I don't think it's on the 3, at least not in the current software version. My schedule is too inconsistent to make it useful, however - I turned it off after walking into the garage in the middle of the day and finding the air conditioning on.

For pre-heating, just learn to turn climate on with the app during breakfast - or set your Alexa or Siri to let you do it by voice control.

 

[scaesare]

So trying to understand the range loss for Model 3 at different speeds, like these graphs:

A Better Routeplanner plots Tesla range in relation to speed and temperature

People talk about 50% range loss, but this seems to be worst at moderate speeds. But I bet in most cases people are only really concerned about range loss during long trips, so 65-80 mph range loss would be most important.

It seems range loss at these speeds is not terrible, maybe 33% loss. What do we think the power consumption increase is at 70 mph, 0 deg Fahrenheit vs 68 Fahrenheit?

These graphs help illustrate how various factors play in to the bottom line energy consumption by an EV.

Some loads are largely static: The energy usage by the cars computers,, infotainment, etc...

Some loads are intermittent, but largely linear with time: headlights, cabin heater, air conditioning, seat heaters, battery heater, etc..

Some loads are exponential based on speed/power: power loss in electrical conductors, power loss due to internal battery pack resistance, loss in motors & inverters, wind resistance, etc...


Some combination of the above factors determines the overall draw at any given point, typically with one or two factors being "dominant".Furthermore the overall usage is "amortized" over the entire trip length.

In cold weather, I'd venture that, because th battery heater is a constant(ish) draw over time, that overall, the faster you go, the less time the battery heater needs to be on in order to cover a certain distance.

What's more, because waste heat (in the pack, inverters, and motors, goes up with the square of current, the faster you are pushing the car, the more that loss becomes a dominant factor... and that waste heat can actually be circulated in to the pack, lessening the need for the battery heater to operate.

FInally, as wind resistance also goes up exponentially with speed, that is going have a larger impact on power usage, thus making the cold-weather related draws an overall smaller percentage of the power draw over the course of a trip.


Neat result: Drive faster in cold weather..... but watch out for that pesky ice stuff...

 

[nvx1977]

Here's a range anxiety story for y'all. Ski trip this past winter, 2014 Model S with rated 265mi of range.

I'm going from southern NH to Sunday River in Maine. There are 2 superchargers along the way, pretty much at the 1/3 and 2/3 points of the drive. Sounds great, right?

Well as I started to plan the drive, I checked that the round trip from the Lincoln (2/3) supercharger to Sunday River and back was 150 miles. That seemed really doable if I charged to full at Lincoln.

But as it turned out, the day of the trip, it was cold, snowy, and I didn't factor in elevation gain on the way there. I got to Sunday River with only 90 miles of range left. Add in the local driving I did, by the time I was ready to go home, I would not have been able to make it back to Lincoln.

Fortunately, Sunday River had a couple working destination chargers, and they were free, so I was able to slow charge while skiiing. But This trip really showed me that you really still have to plan your drives well, particularly in winter and adverse conditions, or you could end up stranded. Again this was with an S with 265 rated miles.

So... More range the better for me. No regrets going with the LR Model 3.

 

[PeterK]

Here's a range anxiety story for y'all. Ski trip this past winter, 2014 Model S with rated 265mi of range.

I'm going from southern NH to Sunday River in Maine. There are 2 superchargers along the way, pretty much at the 1/3 and 2/3 points of the drive. Sounds great, right?

Well as I started to plan the drive, I checked that the round trip from the Lincoln (2/3) supercharger to Sunday River and back was 150 miles. That seemed really doable if I charged to full at Lincoln.

But as it turned out, the day of the trip, it was cold, snowy, and I didn't factor in elevation gain on the way there. I got to Sunday River with only 90 miles of range left. Add in the local driving I did, by the time I was ready to go home, I would not have been able to make it back to Lincoln.

Fortunately, Sunday River had a couple working destination chargers, and they were free, so I was able to slow charge while skiiing. But This trip really showed me that you really still have to plan your drives well, particularly in winter and adverse conditions, or you could end up stranded. Again this was with an S with 265 rated miles.

So... More range the better for me. No regrets going with the LR Model 3.

Superchargers are great, but they're not a substitute for destination charging. I always make sure I have a destination charging option, even if it's just at 110v.

 

[dsvick]

Scheduled charging in the morning is the best way to pre-heat the battery. I usually set my X for 5:30 start to charge for an hour or two before I leave.

Thanks for the info. So preheating the cabin doesn't really do anything for conditioning the battery? Good to know, I can just do what you do and set it to start charging a few hours before I plan to leave.

For pre-heating, just learn to turn climate on with the app during breakfast - or set your Alexa or Siri to let you do it by voice control.

How are you doing that through Alexa/Siri? We got Google home so would love to be able to do it that way. Are you using an IFTTT routine?