A very unpleasant surprise.

[ℬête Noire]

Maybe searching for cell service causes drain??

That corner of the world can indeed kill batteries fast because there's often very poor cell service. Several miles of rock in the way tends to lead to poor reception. However it shouldn't be any worse than parked in an underground garage or such?

Also, even if it drained 10 cell phone batteries worth a day that'd still only be 50Wh/day, which is only about couple of km total for a whole week. The only way I could see it creating an issue is if a lack of cell phone coverage lead the car to not go into a deeper sleep mode, and again it's no different than underground garages.

 

[ℬête Noire]

Driving AP on the highway is a joy. Tesla service is outstanding.

Nice to hear.

Hope you haven't had any A/C induced range worries. Talking to my mom yesterday (Sunday) and she mentioned the Okanagan was in the midst of a heat wave and I immediately wondered if you'd been caught up in that.

 

[devilmountain]

I am running 2018.21.9 and have been since day 2 of owning the car. I went to Hawaii for ten days and left my car plugged in the entire time. During my trip the temperatures were conistently over 100 degrees at home, my garage door faces west, including one window, I have two other windows which face south. My garage gets very warm during the summer.

I remember checking on the car a lot while I was on my trip since it was brand new. I was shocked how little mileage it lost. Of the ten days I was gone the car charged at midnight (Monday) of the day I left to replenish its charge from the day before , then the car charged again on Friday morning but it was very brief, and finally the car charged briefly on the morning of the day I came home which was a Thursday.

I don't always plug my car in overnight. Sometimes I forget and other times I just don't feel like going back into the garage. I notice my car doesn't always lose mileage overnight. Granted I no longer check the app on my car.

I have a ranch house and it is a bit of a larger home, the garage is located on the opposite side of the bedrooms and bluetooth will not reach the garage if we are in the kitchen or family room. My car is pretty much isolated from our phones and I do not have Teslafi installed. Vampire drain hasn't realy been an issue for me. I would feel confident leaving my car for a week, build date is 5/18.

 

[Electric700]

... The car showed 312 km of range.

When I returned to the car a week later, I was aghast to see that I had 92 km of range remaining, with the nearest supercharger 140 km away in Revelstoke. I made it back to Nakusp, where there is a J1772 charger, but it required a card, which I don't have, and when I called the service number on the charger, it just put me on perpetual hold...

You can contact [email protected] about the significant drain. They can check your car's logs. Also I understand the Model 3 doesn't have Energy Saving and Always Connected settings like the X and S do, but you can request they add those in an upcoming software update.

Also if the J1772 charger was a ChargePoint model, I believe it costs very little (it may even be free) to sign up, and they'll send you new cards. Just go to ChargePoint.com.

 

[smatthew]

Isn't the battery drain issue largely solved with the BMS bootloader update? That seems to be what I'm hearing.

 

[Electric700]

Isn't the battery drain issue largely solved with the BMS bootloader update? That seems to be what I'm hearing.

That would be really good news if so. Thank you!

 

[jsmay311]

Isn't the battery drain issue largely solved with the BMS bootloader update? That seems to be what I'm hearing.

I had missed the thread last week discussing this. (Here it is: Battery Management System (BMS) Bootloader Update )

Seems like there's a lot more we need to learn about this before claiming "mission accomplished". But fingers crossed!

 

[Rosalind]

@Electric700, I was told that the ServiceHelpNA desk is about 4 to 6 weeks behind in replying to messages. Just an FYI.

 

[Evoforce]

@Electric700, I was told that the ServiceHelpNA desk is about 4 to 6 weeks behind in replying to messages. Just an FYI.

Ha! If only it were true and would be that short of time!

 

[daniel]

I'm back in Revelstoke after ten days at a hiking lodge near Golden, BC. Since there's a supercharger in Golden, I parked the car with a nearly full battery. Of the ten days I was gone, the first week was extremely hot in town (typically over 30 C) and the next three were cooler. I have version 2018.24.8, which Tesla pushed to the car when I phoned them about the issue. I was very careful to turn everything off, and I shut down the car from the screen. Walk-away-lock didn't seem to function, so I locked the car with the key card. As several people have noted above, the Model 3 does not have an energy-saver mode.

The car lost just over 100 km of range in the ten days, which left me with plenty of range to get back to Revelstoke, where I am now. This is half as much as it lost while I was at the lodge near Burton, BC, but twice as much as the 4 miles per day it lost when parked at the airport a few months age.

To answer some of the questions raised above:

I have no third-party apps.

I have not noticed any issues with the charge-port door or the brakes.

The car was definitely outside of cell phone range. (My phone, which is on Verizon in the US and Telus in Canada had service, but the car, which I think is on AT&T in the US and maybe Rodgers in Canada, did not have service.)

The J1772 charger in Nakusp is by a company called Flow. As noted in my OP, they didn't answer their phone.

This is all a big disappointment, as it means I may have to cancel my last week of hiking, which will again be the the lodge near Burton. If I lost only 100 km of range that week, I'd be fine. But if I lost 150 km I'd be unable to make it to the nearest charger. In a few days I'll be going up to another hiking lodge here, where I'll only be 5 or 10 km from the supercharger, so I'm not concerned. But that last week looks like it's shot. I'd have to find an indoor parking spot, and that seems unlikely. And the report above of the car parked in a hanger and still loosing a lot of range, makes me even more wary.

The Model 3 with EAP is marvelous to drive. I'd say that over 95% of my highway driving is on AP and the car is driving itself. But unless there's actually some defect in my car, which I doubt, as I know the car has to cool its batteries to preserve their lifespan, it looks as though, at least for the time being, the Model 3 really has to be plugged in if the weather is hot. This means that for back-country trips, the car is not yet practical. I wish there was an option to truly shut off everything but the Bluetooth and RFID card reader, for this kind of use. If I had known then what I know now, I'd have driven the Prius up here. The lesson I've learned will cost me a week of hiking, and there's no refund. It's an expensive lesson. Until chargers are as common as gas stations, there are places it will be risky to take an EV.

Well, the week of hiking I lose will give me an extra week to do my breath-hold exercises for my upcoming freediving trip.

I still love the car. I'm just learning its limits.

 

[jsmay311]

This is all a big disappointment, as it means I may have to cancel my last week of hiking

Jeez... that's a really sad realization. And you saw only 2%/day which is only double what the manual warns people to expect as "normal".

Was the car parked mostly in direct sunlight or mostly shade or a mix? And do you know if you got the latest BMS Bootloader software?

And does anyone know for a fact the internal battery temperature at which cooling kicks in when the car is off? If not specifically for the Model 3, then for the S/X? (I wouldn't be surprised if it was significantly higher than 30C/86F and that this is just good ol' regular vampire drain. But idk.)

 

[eprosenx]

I'm back in Revelstoke after ten days at a hiking lodge near Golden, BC. Since there's a supercharger in Golden, I parked the car with a nearly full battery. Of the ten days I was gone, the first week was extremely hot in town (typically over 30 C) and the next three were cooler. I have version 2018.24.8, which Tesla pushed to the car when I phoned them about the issue. I was very careful to turn everything off, and I shut down the car from the screen. Walk-away-lock didn't seem to function, so I locked the car with the key card. As several people have noted above, the Model 3 does not have an energy-saver mode.

The car lost just over 100 km of range in the ten days, which left me with plenty of range to get back to Revelstoke, where I am now. This is half as much as it lost while I was at the lodge near Burton, BC, but twice as much as the 4 miles per day it lost when parked at the airport a few months age.

To answer some of the questions raised above:

I have no third-party apps.

I have not noticed any issues with the charge-port door or the brakes.

The car was definitely outside of cell phone range. (My phone, which is on Verizon in the US and Telus in Canada had service, but the car, which I think is on AT&T in the US and maybe Rodgers in Canada, did not have service.)

The J1772 charger in Nakusp is by a company called Flow. As noted in my OP, they didn't answer their phone.

This is all a big disappointment, as it means I may have to cancel my last week of hiking, which will again be the the lodge near Burton. If I lost only 100 km of range that week, I'd be fine. But if I lost 150 km I'd be unable to make it to the nearest charger. In a few days I'll be going up to another hiking lodge here, where I'll only be 5 or 10 km from the supercharger, so I'm not concerned. But that last week looks like it's shot. I'd have to find an indoor parking spot, and that seems unlikely. And the report above of the car parked in a hanger and still loosing a lot of range, makes me even more wary.

The Model 3 with EAP is marvelous to drive. I'd say that over 95% of my highway driving is on AP and the car is driving itself. But unless there's actually some defect in my car, which I doubt, as I know the car has to cool its batteries to preserve their lifespan, it looks as though, at least for the time being, the Model 3 really has to be plugged in if the weather is hot. This means that for back-country trips, the car is not yet practical. I wish there was an option to truly shut off everything but the Bluetooth and RFID card reader, for this kind of use. If I had known then what I know now, I'd have driven the Prius up here. The lesson I've learned will cost me a week of hiking, and there's no refund. It's an expensive lesson. Until chargers are as common as gas stations, there are places it will be risky to take an EV.

Well, the week of hiking I lose will give me an extra week to do my breath-hold exercises for my upcoming freediving trip.

I still love the car. I'm just learning its limits.

Is there no chance you could plug the car in somewhere while you were hiking to just a basic 120v 15a service? Even a 5a 120v charge rate would probably be more than sufficient to keep the car topped off... Or are you parking it in the woods at trail heads? No campgrounds anywhere that would rent you a car parking spot for a week?

I wonder if there would be a value to unpairing all bluetooth connected phones? I wonder if there is any chance that it would not bother trying to look for potential phones and hence lower power draw? (or does it only look for phones when you touch a door handle?)

I have 26.3 now. I wonder if they could push you that if you found WiFi or signal somewhere so you could at least get to latest? (not sure there is anything in the new version that might fix what you are seeing?)

Good luck!

 

[Chris350]

Interesting....

I dropped my car off for service last Friday morning (8/3) with 195 miles of range on it..... Florida..... HOT!

This morning, I have checked the car via the app (it's still at the Service Center) and it reports 150 miles of range.

That's a 45 mile drop in 4 days..... Average... 11.25 miles of drain a day.... I assume that's normal.

 

[daniel]

Was the car parked mostly in direct sunlight or mostly shade or a mix? And do you know if you got the latest BMS Bootloader software?

The car was parked in direct sunlight at all three locations. The first week, when there was no problem, the second, when I lost 200 km in a week, and the third one, when I lost 100 km in ten days.

I have no idea what BMS Bootloader software is.

BUT!!!

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!!!

I phoned Flo again, the operator of the Level 2 charging station (and many others in Canada) and this time they returned my call. As a result I've downloaded their app to my phone and now I can use that charger. There are two ways to use the charger. A physical card that unlocks it, or the mobile app, that can also unlock it providing you have a cell connection with data.

This means I can top off the car on my way down to the staging area for the lodge, and if I lose too much range to make it back to the Tesla Supercharger in Revelstoke, I can charge up again at the Level 2 charger. It will be slow as molasses, but I can read a book or go for a walk, and I will not lose the last week of hiking.

Thanks to Tesla for including a J1772 adapter with the car!

The excessive use of energy to cool the batteries is still a problem if you need to leave the car parked in hot weather where there's no plug, but the availability of the Flo chargers throughout Canada opens up a lot more possibilities than if we were limited to only Tesla chargers.

Oh, and no, there's no 110/120-volt plugs available at any of the places I have to leave the car.

 

[Rocky_H]

as I know the car has to cool its batteries to preserve their lifespan,

The excessive use of energy to cool the batteries is still a problem

No, this is all misguided and should not be correct. It's not battery related.

And does anyone know for a fact the internal battery temperature at which cooling kicks in when the car is off? If not specifically for the Model 3, then for the S/X? (I wouldn't be surprised if it was significantly higher than 30C/86F and that this is just good ol' regular vampire drain. But idk.)

I don't have a Model 3, but have had a Model S for almost 4.5 years. The temperature at which it needs to do active battery cooling is way higher than 30 degrees C (86 degrees F). The battery cooling levels are more like if it's over 100 degrees F (38 degrees C), and even then, it will be "opportunity cooling". What I mean there is it sits in the hot parking lot at work, over 100 degrees, and it's not actively cooling, but when I get home and plug into the wall at home, it sometimes decides that since it does have the wall connection to energy and wouldn't be draining down range, it will run some cooling for a while.

So there do seem to be two categories that the S and X have as far as battery temperature ranges. There is preferred, where it is OK sitting, but if it has access to wall power, it may do some heating or cooling to get it to a more ideal level, but if it's not plugged in it won't take your range to do that.
And then there is the farther level of the real extremes, where it will use its own energy even if it's not plugged in to heat or cool to really try to save the battery from damage. These are like the "barely survivable for humans" levels of temperature, but I don't remember what the numbers are right now.

I think overall this is just a problem with how the Model 3 is a big new design with a new set of hardware, and a lot of different sources of vampire drain, and Tesla is taking a while to catch up with software in figuring out and refining how to manage and get all that under control in their software versions. The Model S went through this same thing in 2012 and 2013, with several revisions to get it down from about 10+ miles per day down to about 1-2 miles.

 

[SSonnentag]

My Bolt = nearly all other Bolts when it comes to the vampire drain issue.
The dearth of "Massive Bolt EV Vampire Drain" articles seems to back up my assessment.

Neither of my Volts had any noticeable vampire drain either. They could sit for days and have the same EV range available that I parked them with. And mine were here in the HOT Arizona desert. No range loss either. You can knock Chevy for a lot of things, but their battery maintenance, efficiency and long-term reliability aren't among them.

 

[daniel]

@Rocky_H: What you say makes sense. I imagined that sitting in direct sun makes a difference, especially with this stupid glass roof. But even one of the service guys at Tesla didn't think it should have kicked in battery cooling at 30 C.

Fortunately for me, access to the Flo J1772 charger network solves my immediate problems, and hopefully Tesla will fix this in a future update. OTA updates are certainly a great feature.

 

[SMAlset]

Interesting read as I’ll be getting my Model 3 shortly and have been use to using the cabin overheat protection on our Model S. I assume it will be something that gets added to Model 3 over time just like it was for the Model S at some point. I can tell we’ll have a learning curve when the new car arrives.

 

[ord3r]

I left my model 3 unplugged in my garage and lost 0 miles overnight, 259-259.

At work with cabin overheat set to a/c and 90+ degree weather I lose tens of miles in 8ish hours. Same situation but set to fan only, I lose about 5 miles.

Theres some data for ya.

 

[Candleflame]

probably all software. there was this arab who posted on here the other day and said without cabin overheat protection his Model S doesn't really lose any range at all in 40 degrees heat.