Battery Drain - Cold Weather

[m3lol]

Has anyone noticed more than normal battery drain during cold days/nights?

2 recent observations.

1. Overnight scheduled charging begins at 2am, usually stops at 80% by 5am to take advantage of off-peak rates.

Precondition set at 8am for departure around that time.

Got in the car and there was 71% only.

2. Parked the car inside the garage after a trip - 65%. 3 hours later, jumped in the car to start another trip and it is down to 61%

Cabin pre-heat is set to fan only, sentry mode is off at these locations.

Is it just the cold weather? I’m in Wellington so its been 2-6 C overnight the past few nights.

 

[Ecoli]

If your shore power hasn't got enough juice the battery will makeup the shortfall
I think heating is about 3kw

 

[Audietron]

I parked with 83% BATTERY at Auckland domestic airport for Monday morning to Friday evening... picked up with 28% battery left, likely with cold weather. in recent I would collect car with least 45% battery left.

as car heats the battery to maintain at certain temperature, probably draining the battery. as I had overheat protection at no A/C (like it will over heat in winter - lol)

 

[RobDickinson]

The 3 can use up to 12kw for heating

 

[Audietron]

The 3 can use up to 12kw for heating

adds up... left at 83% and collect with 28%... 4 cold nights car was out there (48%) and other time 7%.... car is already 9 months old with 11K KM on display(no meter - lol), so probably battery health is not as good as when delivered with car.

 

[Matt_NZ]

To have only 28% left after parking with 83% indicates to me that you left Sentry mode on.

As for battery %s, it's pretty normal for battery charge levels to display differently after the temp drops. The voltage reported while the pack is at 20ishC (around what the car usually keeps the temp while driving) is going to be different to when the pack is at 5c after its been sitting not being used for a while. This is the usual explanation for "charge level creep" during the colder months

 

[RobDickinson]

The car will only draw the 12kw whist on warm up if you tell it. Bjorn has left his 3 for months without significant drain in Norway winter

 

[Audietron]

To have only 28% left after parking with 83% indicates to me that you left Sentry mode on.

As for battery %s, it's pretty normal for battery charge levels to display differently after the temp drops. The voltage reported while the pack is at 20ishC (around what the car usually keeps the temp while driving) is going to be different to when the pack is at 5c after its been sitting not being used for a while. This is the usual explanation for "charge level creep" during the colder months

obviously what's the use of Sentry mode if one is forced to turn it off when vehicle in uncommon location.
Last time I went away for 14 days and it was something similar battery loss, so huge difference. both time car parked in same location EV parking facing the hedge means not much Sentry activity to record... this time I had only 3 recordings from one instance where someone was too near and saying goodbye...

 

[Matt_NZ]

The power usage of Sentry mode isn't affected by how many events it records. Sentry Mode is always recording while active - you'll notice on the storage drive that there is a recent folder with footage from the last hour. When Sentry detects an event, it takes the last 10mins of footage from that Recent folder and moves it to its own event folder. The car could record 1000 events and it would use the same amount if Sentry mode was active and recoded 0 events.

If you are parking at an airport for an extended period you're best to turn off Sentry and don't open the app. For a week away you will likely only lose around 3% charge with sentry off. Park in a carpark that has security cameras

 

[Audietron]

The power usage of Sentry mode isn't affected by how many events it records. Sentry Mode is always recording while active - you'll notice on the storage drive that there is a recent folder with footage from the last hour. When Sentry detects an event, it takes the last 10mins of footage from that Recent folder and moves it to its own event folder. The car could record 1000 events and it would use the same amount if Sentry mode was active and recoded 0 events.

If you are parking at an airport for an extended period you're best to turn off Sentry and don't open the app. For a week away you will likely only lose around 3% charge with sentry off. Park in a carpark that has security cameras

That's valuable information... lot to learn and very little time.

side effects of having fancy tools with cameras poking out of every direction... specially goes against the wishing that Sentry mode way allowing remote access so it's not stupid but useful to check why it recorded something or why alarm triggered... knowing remotely that alarm triggered is like totally useless without any reason or evidence attached to it.

 

[Ecoli]

That's valuable information... lot to learn and very little time.

side effects of having fancy tools with cameras poking out of every direction... specially goes against the wishing that Sentry mode way allowing remote access so it's not stupid but useful to check why it recorded something or why alarm triggered... knowing remotely that alarm triggered is like totally useless without any reason or evidence attached to it.

In the US you can view the cameras remotely via the app, not enabled for NZ

 

[m3lol]

Yeah definitely just the cooler weather. Overnight parked in the garage with sentry off, no preconditioning on a saturday and lost 3%.

Thanks for the feedback