Battery Drain

[Forty_Two]

The owners manual suggest watching this You Tube Clip:

The clip refers to the entry in the manual under:

High Voltage Battery Information

The Battery can discharge at a rate of approximately 1% per day, though the discharge rate may vary depending on environmental factors (such as cold weather), vehicle configuration, and your selected settings on the touchscreen. Situations can arise in which you must leave Model 3 unplugged for an extended period of time (for example, at an airport when travelling). In these situations, keep the 1% in mind to ensure that you leave the Battery with a sufficient charge level. For example, over a two week period (14 days), the Battery may discharge by approximately 14%.

The guy doing the YouTube clip suggest he got a better result than 1% a day. I have measured the loss in my car over the past 2 months. I have measured miles lost rather than Kwh. Because of personal circumstances I have not been doing a lot of driving miles. In May and June I took note of the miles I put in on charging and the miles I drove and over both months I lost 40% of the miles I put in i.e. I am getting 60 miles on the road for every 100 miles I put in the tank.

Reading the para from the Tesla manual which talks about 1% a day and 14% over 14 days then that would equate to a loss of 30% over 30 days (yes / no?). But I have driven an average of 300 miles in each of those months, does that affect the amount of drain or is it still 1% a day AND should I be complaining that I am losing 1.3% a day?

 

[Jason71]

I think this has been pointed out before but you are mixing too many different things here to get a meaningful answer.
you cannot conflate a difference between miles covered vs estimated with phantom drain they are not the same thing. That difference is partly down to the estimate being based on EPA range estimates and you not driving as they do in an EPA test.

If you really want to do a phanton drain test
park the car (sentry off) . leave it to cool. check the battery % ( not the miles the %) leave the car for a long period. ideally 24 hours. Do not use the app. Check the % when the ambient temp is the same as when you started the test.
That will give you a true measure of phantom drain
mine is between 0.5% and 1% I would say.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Loss is largely typically linked to whether the car sleeps or not. A number of things can stop it, sentry mode, overheat protection, downloading a map or software update, uploading data for some reason.

So depending on what your car is doing and what setting you have set that could be good or bad. It doesn’t seem particularly unusual.

As an aside, I very much doubt the user manual suggests watching any 3rd party video

 

[Durzel]

Apropos of nothing but I am completely and utterly done with YouTube thumbnails like that. I know it apparently works best for algorithms, but I don't care, it's grating.

 

[scdoubleu]

Apropos of nothing but I am completely and utterly done with YouTube thumbnails like that. I know it apparently works best for algorithms, but I don't care, it's grating.

100% with you on that. Even if it's someone I watch regularly, if there's any whiff of a clickbait thumbnail and/or description, the content stays unwatched.

 

[KennethS]

100% with you on that. Even if it's someone I watch regularly, if there's any whiff of a clickbait thumbnail and/or description, the content stays unwatched.

Same here. Until such tactics stop generating views they won't end. So all I can do is avoid giving them air.

 

[mdunc]

Here are some Teslamate numbers. If allowed to go onto standby/sleep the car looses only as few miles of range over the course of as week. Things that have a negative impact are sentry mode, cabin overheat protection, waking the car up via the app, 3rd party apps waking the car up, Intelligent Octopus not letting it sleep firmware updates and the big one for me is going out to the car to get something from it.

 

[Leejmoff]

I recently went on holiday. Charged up to 100%. After 10 days I come back and had lost 2% of charge. I thought that was pretty impressive to be honest.

 

[orangespoon]

In my case you have to account for new owner syndrome. The inability to stop checking on the app for updates/battery% and finding any excuse to sit in it and play with the settings to ‘learn’ about the car

The last time I kept coming up with excuses to drive a car all the time was when I first passed my test nearly 30 years ago!

 

[MrT3]

Software updates that occured a number of months ago significantly reduced drain when leaving your vehicle unattended. Before it was very common for vehicles to wake up every 24 hours for nearly an hour and waste 0.5% every day until it noticed you weren’t using the vehicle for several days and stopped.

Now you can leave your vehicle for 6+ days without it waking up once, and only lose 0.5 to 1.0% for the whole time.

 

[Drew57]

I have just picked the car up from Heathrow Terminal 2/3 Long Stay after nearly six weeks.

• It was charged at the Hilton Heathrow SC to 92% so that when I parked up it was on 90%
  
  
• I left the app open on my phone for the first two weeks & checked on the car three or four times.
  
  
• Sentry was off apart from four hours just after I parked it (space next to me empty at the time). It was turned off as I boarded the flight.
  
  
• The app was turned off at the end of two weeks and not opened again until I reached the car yesterday.
  
  
• Both app and car screen reported 87% SOC
  
  
• The car recognised my phone, the doors opened immediately as normal & the journey home only required a brief supercharger/coffee stop at Keele for 12 mins (SOC 21% -> 51%)
  
  
• I arrived home to Chester with 37% SOC.

I can be as critical as anyone of Tesla but a 3% loss of SOC when parked & unplugged for 5 weeks 4 days in late Autumn is extremely impressive.

Maybe my particular Model 3 was an unusual Fremont build, it has been basically faultless and without doubt the most enjoyable vehicle I have ever owned. Efficiency, range and the Supercharging network still easily beat any of the numerous annoyances I have with Tesla as a corporate entity (& that includes Musk).

This afternoon I'm off to The Trafford Centre to pick up a red Model Y LR/20" and the 3 will then be sold at some point. I can't help feeling that I surely won't be as fortunate with the next one.

 

[Jason71]

I have just picked the car up from Heathrow Terminal 2/3 Long Stay after nearly six weeks.

• It was charged at the Hilton Heathrow SC to 92% so that when I parked up it was on 90%
  
  
• I left the app open on my phone for the first two weeks & checked on the car three or four times.
  
  
• Sentry was off apart from four hours just after I parked it (space next to me empty at the time). It was turned off as I boarded the flight.
  
  
• The app was turned off at the end of two weeks and not opened again until I reached the car yesterday.
  
  
• Both app and car screen reported 87% SOC
  
  
• The car recognised my phone, the doors opened immediately as normal & the journey home only required a brief supercharger/coffee stop at Keele for 12 mins (SOC 21% -> 51%)
  
  
• I arrived home to Chester with 37% SOC.

I can be as critical as anyone of Tesla but a 3% loss of SOC when parked & unplugged for 5 weeks 4 days in late Autumn is extremely impressive.

Maybe my particular Model 3 was an unusual Fremont build, it has been basically faultless and without doubt the most enjoyable vehicle I have ever owned. Efficiency, range and the Supercharging network still easily beat any of the numerous annoyances I have with Tesla as a corporate entity (& that includes Musk).

This afternoon I'm off to The Trafford Centre to pick up a red Model Y LR/20" and the 3 will then be sold at some point. I can't help feeling that I surely won't be as fortunate with the next one.

View attachment 880090

Am I the only M3 to MY swapper who misses their old M3 ?
Yes the build quality is way better and the boot space is soo useful ( that is the reason I got it)
but it does not look as good or drive as well ( suspension) and just feels really really big.

 

[Zilla91]

I think the Y is much better looking than the 3, but the 3 is miles better to drive

 

[Drew57]

Yes, my opinion too @Jason71 (& I haven’t even got it just yet, on the way to pick it up soon).

My wife had a new hip in the summer and getting down into the Model 3 is too much for her. The long drive from Heathrow yesterday will probably be the last journey we do & even sitting on booster cushions she was uncomfortable.

Both cars have the same ugly nose, made worse by the height of the Y and I accept that it will be a more sedate drive but I’m OK with that.

I won’t post pictures of the first kerb rash on the black 20”s because my phone is already low on battery & may be flat before that happens later.

 

[Jason71]

Yes, my opinion too @Jason71 (& I haven’t even got it just yet, on the way to pick it up soon).

My wife had a new hip in the summer and getting down into the Model 3 is too much for her. The long drive from Heathrow yesterday will probably be the last journey we do & even sitting on booster cushions she was uncomfortable.

Both cars have the same ugly nose, made worse by the height of the Y and I accept that it will be a more sedate drive but I’m OK with that.

I won’t post pictures of the first kerb rash on the black 20”s because my phone is already low on battery & may be flat before that happens later.

My mother in law has two robohips.
She complained the M3 was hard to get up out of. Now she complains the MY is hard to get up into