Baffled by preconditioning

[Mullermn]

Thanks to to the OP and the responders for the info on this topic. Since getting my M3 a month ago, I've been slowly learning all the ins and outs of the battery. I've long too been debating the cost/benefit of preconditioning the battery versus not.

What i've concluded is the follows:

- Preconditioning is important to me, because it drives me mad to have reduced regen-braking, even for relatively short journeys


Thanks!

As someone also in the UK, if you're not charging to >90% you shouldn't need to precondition the battery to get regen (assuming that what you're talking about is preventing the 'wheel with a lightening bolt in it' icon) because it doesn't routinely get that cold here. Just thought I'd point that out in case you bought the car in a cold snap and end up leaving preconditioning on all year round thinking it's always necessary..

Also, some don't like this because there is a small additional cost involved, but if you use the Tessie app you can set up your own automations that are a lot more nuanced than the ones built in to the Tesla. I have the climate start on a schedule to warm the cabin but it doesn't start anywhere near as early as the Tesla does, because I'm not trying to warm the battery too. FWIW you can also do location based automation triggers, so I have all the routine events we do each week with the kids configured such that the climate starts 10 mins before we get back in to the car after swimming, football, etc..

 

[starharbour]

As someone also in the UK, if you're not charging to >90% you shouldn't need to precondition the battery to get regen (assuming that what you're talking about is preventing the 'wheel with a lightening bolt in it' icon) because it doesn't routinely get that cold here. Just thought I'd point that out in case you bought the car in a cold snap and end up leaving preconditioning on all year round thinking it's always necessary..

Also, some don't like this because there is a small additional cost involved, but if you use the Tessie app you can set up your own automations that are a lot more nuanced than the ones built in to the Tesla. I have the climate start on a schedule to warm the cabin but it doesn't start anywhere near as early as the Tesla does, because I'm not trying to warm the battery too. FWIW you can also do location based automation triggers, so I have all the routine events we do each week with the kids configured such that the climate starts 10 mins before we get back in to the car after swimming, football, etc..

I do get re-gen, but its the amount of regen I get. The icon with the wheel and lighting bolt only comes up when regen is significantly reduced, but its more often than not that my battery status bar at the top of the screen is notably to the right with . . . . . . . .. , indicating that regen is impacted, but perhaps not enough to pull the icon up on the dashboard.

Yes its worse when its 2C instead of 13C, but i find that preconditioning still makes quite a difference. I may change my opinion when the summer months roll around.

I removed Tessie because Tesla told me it was having a big impact on my battery drain. They said third party apps that "wake" the car regularly have a pretty significant detrimental impact on battery drain. I might do another controlled test as this was back when i was a real newbie (still am), but that was within 2 weeks of ownership so can't say I had things like Sentry mode off at that stage.

 

[linkinruss]

I do get re-gen, but its the amount of regen I get. The icon with the wheel and lighting bolt only comes up when regen is significantly reduced, but its more often than not that my battery status bar at the top of the screen is notably to the right with . . . . . . . .. , indicating that regen is impacted, but perhaps not enough to pull the icon up on the dashboard.

Yes its worse when its 2C instead of 13C, but i find that preconditioning still makes quite a difference. I may change my opinion when the summer months roll around.

I removed Tessie because Tesla told me it was having a big impact on my battery drain. They said third party apps that "wake" the car regularly have a pretty significant detrimental impact on battery drain. I might do another controlled test as this was back when i was a real newbie (still am), but that was within 2 weeks of ownership so can't say I had things like Sentry mode off at that stage.

I've used Tessie for the last few months and had noticed after a few weeks of use that it was checking in every 15 minutes or so which would wake the car up from sleep. I only realised that in settings you could toggle off wake up option. This option though is per device which means if you log on to the web browser, or apple watch you have to toggle the same option.

After doing this, the only way the Tesla wakes up is via app or if you force wake the Tesla via Tessie. Once I had done this, found that battery drain i.e. phantom drain went back to normalised levels.

 

[Adopado]

I removed Tessie because Tesla told me it was having a big impact on my battery drain. They said third party apps that "wake" the car regularly have a pretty significant detrimental impact on battery drain. I might do another controlled test as this was back when i was a real newbie (still am), but that was within 2 weeks of ownership so can't say I had things like Sentry mode off at that stage.

I use Tessie and it has never woken the car unless I've asked it to. In fact that is one of the aspects that I find more helpful than the Tesla app ... if I open the Tesla app it automatically wakes the car whereas if I open Tessie it doesn't. This means that I can check charging info, location, activity status without waking the car. Accessing Tessie on the web is the same. I find the Tesla widget is less reliable in giving present status.

 

[Adopado]

I've used Tessie for the last few months and had noticed after a few weeks of use that it was checking in every 15 minutes or so which would wake the car up from sleep. I only realised that in settings you could toggle off wake up option. This option though is per device which means if you log on to the web browser, or apple watch you have to toggle the same option.

After doing this, the only way the Tesla wakes up is via app or if you force wake the Tesla via Tessie. Once I had done this, found that battery drain i.e. phantom drain went back to normalised levels.

The default behaviour for Tessie is not to wake the car so you shouldn't have to change anything (maybe this is something that changed in more recent versions, I don't know). I've never had an issue with spurious waking caused by Tessie over the 5 months I've been using it.

 

[AndyWarrington]

Looking for some advice from more experienced owners about 'preconditioning'. Apologies in advance if this comes across as incoherent ramblings!

As I understand it, preconditioning warms the inside of the car and preheats the battery, meaning the car is already primed before you drive off and as a consequence this leads to increased efficiency. Am I correct?

I've read that the car should be plugged in when preconditioning - I assume this is so that the energy required to precondition is provided by the charging unit rather than the car's battery? Again, am I correct?

I plugged the car in last night and drove to work today after preconditioning and was suitably impressed by the efficiency. However, have I simply just used (and paid for) additional electricity to precondition. Would I have been any better off preconditioning without being plugged in, or perhaps not preconditioning at all?

How often do you precondition? is it all the time? Only under a certain temperature? etc... Does anyone precondition all the time in winter in the UK?

In case it makes any difference my daily commute is 28 miles each way, about 19 of which are on a motorway. I'm planning to ensure I start every Monday morning with the battery topped up to near 100% and then perhaps stick it on charge again mid week to get me through until going home on Friday evenings. I'd rather not plug it in just to precondition if i'm not actually looking to charge it but perhaps the answers to this post will educate me a little better. This week looks set to be a cold one for us Brits so it should be a good experiment for the new owners amongst us.

Thanks.

I schedule mine prob 3 times day... Being on a satisfactory tariff at home I'm not really bothered about the costs.
It's always nice to get in the car at a desired temp etc ...

 

[starharbour]

I've used Tessie for the last few months and had noticed after a few weeks of use that it was checking in every 15 minutes or so which would wake the car up from sleep. I only realised that in settings you could toggle off wake up option. This option though is per device which means if you log on to the web browser, or apple watch you have to toggle the same option.

After doing this, the only way the Tesla wakes up is via app or if you force wake the Tesla via Tessie. Once I had done this, found that battery drain i.e. phantom drain went back to normalised levels.

that's useful thank you. i'll try that.

 

[YEGYEG]

in my part of Canada, the winter can be very cold. Granted I have only had my car for a few weeks, but in the first few days on my ownership, my garage (detached and not insulated) went down to -5C every night. I kept my car plugged in every night and preconditioned the car for 10 min before I leave the house in the morning. This helps to restore the regenerative braking. When the battery is too cold the regen braking is also severely affected, not just the driving efficiency, the car feels different with or without preconditioning when the temperature dip below 0C. I use the S3xy buttons/commander to track the battery pack temperature by the way.

 

[starharbour]

in my part of Canada, the winter can be very cold. Granted I have only had my car for a few weeks, but in the first few days on my ownership, my garage (detached and not insulated) went down to -5C every night. I kept my car plugged in every night and preconditioned the car for 10 min before I leave the house in the morning. This helps to restore the regenerative braking. When the battery is too cold the regen braking is also severely affected, not just the driving efficiency, the car feels different with or without preconditioning when the temperature dip below 0C. I use the S3xy buttons/commander to track the battery pack temperature by the way.

THanks for this. Regarding the S3xy buttons - just had a look - £210 for 4 buttons... seems very pricey.... what else do you use the buttons for? Is it really worth that money?

 

[YEGYEG]

THanks for this. Regarding the S3xy buttons - just had a look - £210 for 4 buttons... seems very pricey.... what else do you use the buttons for? Is it really worth that money?

adjust the regen level from 0-100%. shutdown the annoying auto windshield wiping during autopilot, which is a life saver. I would spend that $240 for just those two functions

 

[starharbour]

adjust the regen level from 0-100%. shutdown the annoying auto windshield wiping during autopilot, which is a life saver. I would spend that $240 for just those two functions

what's the use case for adjusting auto regen?
The thing that annoys me about regen braking is leaving the house early morning and the battery is cold so significantly reduced regen. are you saying you can force regen to work in that instance?
when else would you want to tweak it up/down?
if you wanted to shut it off wouldn't you just use a different braking system instead of "hold"?

 

[WannabeOwner]

what's the use case for adjusting auto regen?

I think: turning it off and being forced to use the brakes so that, periodically, the brake discs get "cleaned"

Supposedly the car now applies light brake pressure periodically which means driver doesn't have to do that ...

The thing that annoys me about regen braking is leaving the house early morning and the battery is cold so significantly reduced regen. are you saying you can force regen to work in that instance?

Current version, but only in North America AFAIK, blends in the brakes if regen is limited (cold weather / 100% battery charge). So basically you "lift off" and get the same amount of retardation, regardless of whether its 100% regen, or reduced-regen+some brakes.

Whilst lack of regen, in cold weather, always catches me out at the end of our road I like being able to be sure I am using 100% regen, and no brakes, for efficiency. I think that any system that blends regen+brakes (for example, some brands use the first part of brake travel to be regen, and brake harder for physical brakes) make it difficult to get max range (i.e. using regen as much as possible). I can press the brake pedal if lift-off regen isn't enough

Only really makes a difference on long / range-challenged trip, so I suppose an option to turn on/off would be fine.

 

[Mullermn]

Current version, but only in North America AFAIK, blends in the brakes if regen is limited (cold weather / 100% battery charge).

Is this only a USA thing then? I spent ages looking for this in the settings after reading a post on here that said this existed. I’d love this - consistent one pedal driving irrespective of actual regen.

 

[YEGYEG]

what's the use case for adjusting auto regen?
The thing that annoys me about regen braking is leaving the house early morning and the battery is cold so significantly reduced regen. are you saying you can force regen to work in that instance?
when else would you want to tweak it up/down?
if you wanted to shut it off wouldn't you just use a different braking system instead of "hold"?

winter time here in Canada, it is safer to have lower regen. also it is important to use the physical brake once in a while to keep the calipers clean. some passengers also have less motion sickness with less regen.

 

[Adopado]

winter time here in Canada, it is safer to have lower regen. also it is important to use the physical brake once in a while to keep the calipers clean. some passengers also have less motion sickness with less regen.

This is my hobby horse I’m afraid! The amount of motion sickness transferred to passengers is down to the driver, whatever the regen level. My earlier model has 2 levels that I can choose from. Neither results in motion sickness for passengers. Your right foot can set any level from coasting to maximum retardation; only the maximum being controlled by the set level and the car’s battery status. If passengers are experiencing stop/go discomfort then the driver is just lifting off the pedal without any measure of control.

 

[waltonmark]

Hello all, just had a read through of this thread as having owned my model y RWD for 5 weeks now I’ve not preconditioned once. Being in the uk it’s not exactly cold so hadn’t considered the need. On Tuesday I need to do a 215 mile round trip for work and this will be right at the limit for my range. Should I precondition for this journey to maximise the range? All advice would be most welcome

 

[Adopado]

Hello all, just had a read through of this thread as having owned my model y RWD for 5 weeks now I’ve not preconditioned once. Being in the uk it’s not exactly cold so hadn’t considered the need. On Tuesday I need to do a 215 mile round trip for work and this will be right at the limit for my range. Should I precondition for this journey to maximise the range? All advice would be most welcome

No need to second guess it ... just use the nav and the car will decide the rest. I suggest becoming familiar with how the car works things out before you come to the conclusion that you can do better! If it thinks precondition is necessary then that's what it will do. My other recommendation is not to get too drawn into planning trips to use every last mile of range ... there lies "range anxiety"! It's generally much more relaxing to do a few minutes Supercharging than to have to drive home with your buttocks clenched.

 

[YEGYEG]

This is my hobby horse I’m afraid! The amount of motion sickness transferred to passengers is down to the driver, whatever the regen level. My earlier model has 2 levels that I can choose from. Neither results in motion sickness for passengers. Your right foot can set any level from coasting to maximum retardation; only the maximum being controlled by the set level and the car’s battery status. If passengers are experiencing stop/go discomfort then the driver is just lifting off the pedal without any measure of control.

of course, then you don't need those buttons. But they are still helpful for others.

 

[WannabeOwner]

On Tuesday I need to do a 215 mile round trip for work and this will be right at the limit for my range. Should I precondition for this journey to maximise the range?

I would. If outside temperature is OK then precondition won't do much ... otherwise it will help. I would charge battery to 100% timed to finished shortly before departure (but beware that the last "little bit" can take ages - 30+ minutes). The actual power used is tiny during that final phase - but the act of a 100% charge will rebalance the cells, which will give you more accurate range prediction - so worth doing once-in-a-while. I increase from 90% to 100% 1h30m before departure and turn on climate 15 minutes before departure (and turn it off if departure is delayed significantly! and if your trip is cancelled think about how long the car will be sat at 100% - once in a while won't hurt, but if you aren't needing to go anywhere for days you might choose to go-to-shops or similar)

Even if it is likely that I will need a Supercharge I'd still do the precondition. I would not be trying to arrive on fumes! but I would be wanting to reduce any stop to "minimum".

On a borderline range journey a number of things can happen:

Road is clear Ha!Ha! and you make better progress than expected - use more kWh and have to stop. Overall (assuming charger is not full and you get decent kW) your journey will be shorter (than if you drove slowly to avoid charging)

More likely you will hit traffic / roadworks. Your miles/kWh consumption will improve ... and that may mean you can comfortably get to your destination without stopping.

Summer thunderstorm. Your range will fall fairly dramatically (pushing all that water out of the way; slowing down won't help, other than aero, still the same number of miles-of-water to clear). Same if there was unexpected snow on the road.

I use the TRIP graph to see what the prediction is for arrival. If it falls below 10% I slow down (or decide to Supercharger). If it climbs above 10%, and more so the nearer I am to destination (including waypoint superchargers), I speed up. The other thing that can happen is that you intend to stop at Supercharger A, but your consumption is better than expected so you stop at the (more distant) Supercharger-B.

Stopping to Supercharge nearer to your destination is much better - easier to predict, and more accurately, how much you need (i.e. what contingency you need). So you will likely top-up less. Cheaper, and less time sat still.

Caveat: Folk with a cheap Off Peak rate may choose not to precondition (on shore-power) before departure, 'coz cheaper to use battery (charged overnight) than grid at Peak tariff. However, for a range-challenged trip I personally would always precondition - to reduce the needs for a stop / duration of the stop.

 

[waltonmark]

I would. If outside temperature is OK then precondition won't do much ... otherwise it will help. I would charge battery to 100% timed to finished shortly before departure (but beware that the last "little bit" can take ages - 30+ minutes). The actual power used is tiny during that final phase - but the act of a 100% charge will rebalance the cells, which will give you more accurate range prediction - so worth doing once-in-a-while. I increase from 90% to 100% 1h30m before departure and turn on climate 15 minutes before departure (and turn it off if departure is delayed significantly! and if your trip is cancelled think about how long the car will be sat at 100% - once in a while won't hurt, but if you aren't needing to go anywhere for days you might choose to go-to-shops or similar)

Even if it is likely that I will need a Supercharge I'd still do the precondition. I would not be trying to arrive on fumes! but I would be wanting to reduce any stop to "minimum".

On a borderline range journey a number of things can happen:

Road is clear Ha!Ha! and you make better progress than expected - use more kWh and have to stop. Overall (assuming charger is not full and you get decent kW) your journey will be shorter (than if you drove slowly to avoid charging)

More likely you will hit traffic / roadworks. Your miles/kWh consumption will improve ... and that may mean you can comfortably get to your destination without stopping.

Summer thunderstorm. Your range will fall fairly dramatically (pushing all that water out of the way; slowing down won't help, other than aero, still the same number of miles-of-water to clear). Same if there was unexpected snow on the road.

I use the TRIP graph to see what the prediction is for arrival. If it falls below 10% I slow down (or decide to Supercharger). If it climbs above 10%, and more so the nearer I am to destination (including waypoint superchargers), I speed up. The other thing that can happen is that you intend to stop at Supercharger A, but your consumption is better than expected so you stop at the (more distant) Supercharger-B.

Stopping to Supercharge nearer to your destination is much better - easier to predict, and more accurately, how much you need (i.e. what contingency you need). So you will likely top-up less. Cheaper, and less time sat still.

Caveat: Folk with a cheap Off Peak rate may choose not to precondition (on shore-power) before departure, 'coz cheaper to use battery (charged overnight) than grid at Peak tariff. However, for a range-challenged trip I personally would always precondition - to reduce the needs for a stop / duration of the stop.

Thanks for the detailed response. I’ll charge to 100% tonight for be ready for 06:30 in the morning. So to precondition do I just go onto the Tesla app, schedule, precondition, set departure time to 06:45 and click precondition to on?