Battery conditioning model 3

[PrometheusFire]

I have a question on preconditioning before arriving at a supercharger. While i have only had to use supercharger 2 times with my model 3 long range as i have a wall connector at home, when you route plan the charger into your route, why does it start preconditioning an hour from the destination charger? I have read that it takes between 20 minutes and half an hour to precondition the battery for supercharging, and it ended up taking around 36 miles of the range. Would it be better to route the supercharger destination in half hour before arriving? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[brancky3]

I have a question on preconditioning before arriving at a supercharger. While i have only had to use supercharger 2 times with my model 3 long range as i have a wall connector at home, when you route plan the charger into your route, why does it start preconditioning an hour from the destination charger? I have read that it takes between 20 minutes and half an hour to precondition the battery for supercharging, and it ended up taking around 36 miles of the range. Would it be better to route the supercharger destination in half hour before arriving? Any advice would be appreciated.

Mine is normally 30 minutes out. But I’ve only supercharged in the summer, maybe it’s different with colder temps? Or maybe different depending on how long you’ve already been driving?

 

[Big_D]

I’ve wondered the same thing. This week - with temperature around freezing - my M3 started preconditioning as early as 60 minutes before the expected arrival at the supercharger, stopped for 15 minutes or so, and switch back on again 10 minutes before.

 

[Lockey]

Pre-conditioning is very variable depending on the ambient temperature and the sort of roads you're driving on, In the Summer it can be for as little as 10 mins (possibly less) if you're on the motorway. However when it's cold a lot more energy is required to get the battery up to temp (60degC?) to allow rapid charging. If you don't pre-condition the battery you will probably find the charge rate is limited.

That said I'm not sure why the car needs to start pre-conditioning so early (I've had it around 2 hours before I was due at the supercharger!) and pulse it on and off.

 

[Burley]

Tesla changed the way pre-conditioning works a few months back. It looks like it starts earlier, but is more on and off to build up the temperature over a longer period rather than flat out for the last 20 mins. At the time it was claimed it was more energy efficient. Mine started about an hour before on Thursday night, it was around 0 degrees, so I guess it needed longer to warm up. With the Octovalve, it is also good to see it using that available battery heat after charging to heat the cabin. I noticed a significant reduction in whpm after the charge session.

 

[spdpsba]

I have a question on preconditioning before arriving at a supercharger. While i have only had to use supercharger 2 times with my model 3 long range as i have a wall connector at home, when you route plan the charger into your route, why does it start preconditioning an hour from the destination charger? I have read that it takes between 20 minutes and half an hour to precondition the battery for supercharging, and it ended up taking around 36 miles of the range. Would it be better to route the supercharger destination in half hour before arriving? Any advice would be appreciated.

There is a detailed thread related to battery precondtioning and supercharging and if you search you can go thro’ the various factors. Btw, in short, other than routes, temperature and other external variables, Tesla mainly focuses on preconditioning as this helps to charge as fast as you could (less time spent on charging) but at the expense of spending more money on charging - this results in conservative estimate of range and supercharging destinations (again less risk taking) resulting in frequent stops etc., However, there are more ways to get around this including using - ABRP route maps, using nearby destination to superchargers rather than using supercharger as destinations etc., I haven’t elaborated the full discussion here as there are other threads related to this.

 

[Fursty Ferret]

I don’t bother any more. It doesn’t help if you’re sharing a V2 charger and on my last drive it used 12kWh to pre-condition for a charge that never exceeded 80kW.

Even V3 chargers will still deliver 160kW to a cold battery so why spend the money? Might be different if you own the car as I can’t imagine it’s brilliant for the battery, but my car is leased.

 

[spdpsba]

I don’t bother any more. It doesn’t help if you’re sharing a V2 charger and on my last drive it used 12kWh to pre-condition for a charge that never exceeded 80kW.

Depends on where you are driving btw, if you have to use navigation then it does include supercharger destinations - yes, of course, you can dismiss destination stops etc., - but if you don’t know where you are going then you got to use the maps and that again brings super charger destinations and preconditioning and all the faff!

Even V3 chargers will still deliver 160kW to a cold battery so why spend the money? Might be different if you own the car as I can’t imagine it’s brilliant for the battery, but my car is leased.

You are not going to get many upvotes for this comment

 

[Forty_Two]

Is the sole reason for preconditioning (warming up the battery) to be able to charge up more quickly or is there some others reason(s)

 

[PrometheusFire]

There is a detailed thread related to battery precondtioning and supercharging and if you search you can go thro’ the various factors. Btw, in short, other than routes, temperature and other external variables, Tesla mainly focuses on preconditioning as this helps to charge as fast as you could (less time spent on charging) but at the expense of spending more money on charging - this results in conservative estimate of range and supercharging destinations (again less risk taking) resulting in frequent stops etc., However, there are more ways to get around this including using - ABRP route maps, using nearby destination to superchargers rather than using supercharger as destinations etc., I haven’t elaborated the full discussion here as there are other threads related to this.

Thanks for the info i have now been through some of the threads and come to the conclusion that i will try putting the charge destination into the route when 30 minutes away and see how that goes. I do a lot of miles but usually within the cars range, but now its winter i will probably have to make a few charge stops. Took delivery on the 28th Sept this year and already done 10700 miles!

 

[MovingSouth]

Thanks for the info i have now been through some of the threads and come to the conclusion that i will try putting the charge destination into the route when 30 minutes away and see how that goes. I do a lot of miles but usually within the cars range, but now its winter i will probably have to make a few charge stops. Took delivery on the 28th Sept this year and already done 10700 miles!

You can put the charge destination in at the start of the drive and touch the message saying that preconditioning has started to turn preconditioning off. When you later want to start preconditioning, cancel the route and restart it immediately from 'Recents'. Preconditioning should then start again.

 

[PrometheusFire]

You can put the charge destination in at the start of the drive and touch the message saying that preconditioning has started to turn preconditioning off. When you later want to start preconditioning, cancel the route and restart it immediately from 'Recents'. Preconditioning should then start again.

I did try that, so the message disappeared but on the energy app the loss of range continued on the preconditioning section as it was doing when the message was there, so i presumed it was still preconditioning. Maybe im missing what you mean

 

[Louis0w]

Preconditioning is automatic, if required, when navigating to a Supercharger. It can’t be manually turned off via the touch screen. Pressing the preconditioning message only removes it from your view. The only way to cancel preconditioning is to stop navigating to the Supercharger.

 

[PrometheusFire]

Preconditioning is automatic, if required, when navigating to a Supercharger. It can’t be manually turned off via the touch screen. Pressing the preconditioning message only removes it from your view. The only way to cancel preconditioning is to stop navigating to the Supercharger.

Thanks i thought as much

 

[MovingSouth]

I did try that, so the message disappeared but on the energy app the loss of range continued on the preconditioning section as it was doing when the message was there, so i presumed it was still preconditioning. Maybe im missing what you mean

Preconditioning is automatic, if required, when navigating to a Supercharger. It can’t be manually turned off via the touch screen. Pressing the preconditioning message only removes it from your view. The only way to cancel preconditioning is to stop navigating to the Supercharger.

I experimented this when we first got the car in 2021 and cancelling the message seemed to stop preconditioning. There was no way to check, without a third party tool. However, I'm pleased that the updated energy app lets us check. Apologies if my assertion was incorrect.

 

[brancky3]

I experimented this when we first got the car in 2021 and cancelling the message seemed to stop preconditioning. There was no way to check, without a third party tool. However, I'm pleased that the updated energy app lets us check. Apologies if my assertion was incorrect.

It should be relatively obvious though, shouldn't it? When mine preconditions you can definitely hear fans / battery whine slightly

 

[Louis0w]

I experimented this when we first got the car in 2021 and cancelling the message seemed to stop preconditioning. There was no way to check, without a third party tool. However, I'm pleased that the updated energy app lets us check. Apologies if my assertion was incorrect.

No problem . I’ve verified via Scan My Tesla.

 

[Gatsojon]

If I know I’m stopping for a bite to eat then it’s best to not precondition to buy a bit more eating time. I do that by navigating to somewhere near but I’ll try out that cancel option. Never knew about it so thanks.

 

[MovingSouth]

It should be relatively obvious though, shouldn't it? When mine preconditions you can definitely hear fans / battery whine slightly

Nothing that I've noticed on our post-refresh Model 3, with the octavalve and heat pump. I'll listen in on the next long trip.

 

[Adopado]

It should be relatively obvious though, shouldn't it? When mine preconditions you can definitely hear fans / battery whine slightly

Any whine isn't from the battery. It's normally from the motors which switch to an "inefficient" mode of operation which produces surplus heat that can then be recirculated.