Battery Drained 30% overnight..Big Flaw, Easy Fix

[CactusOne]

I woke up this morning and was excited to drive my M ≡ Performance, but the battery was completely dead!

Last night in the garage, I took the kids in the car and I was showing off the new “fart” update. Lots of giggles with some father and son bonding moments

Here is the problem (Flaw). My youngest son was in the back seat. The three of us exited the car at the same time and apparently he didn’t use enough force to close his door all the way and it remained “ajar” all night. As a result, the car NEVER went to sleep, and the radio, interior/exterior lights, A/C etc..were all ON all night long which resulted in the drain. I did not have it plugged in obviously.

Tesla needs to address this issue. The app should notify you if a door remains open after a certain time. Better yet, the app should notify you ANYTIME a door is open or opened. That way it will also serve as a notification of potential thief.

I’m glad this happened in my garage and not on a road trip somewhere.

I finally got use to the fact that you don’t really turn off this car..you put in Park and just get out and walk away. BUT, if a door is not fully closed the vehicle will stay on!

Please Fix this with the next update Tesla. Easy fix to a potentially big problem. IMHO

Thanks..

 

[richrootes]

Or....

Lesson learned, check your doors are closed?

 

[X Fan]

A happy Tesla is a plugged in Tesla...another important safeguard....

 

[zhu-]

A happy Tesla is a plugged in Tesla...another important safeguard....

But the problem still exists and should be addressed. In situations like valet parking where you also can't just plug it in afterwards when you realize its dead.

 

[silentsnow31802]

All cars do this. If you leave the door open the dome light will drain the 12V battery and you will be unable to start it the next day.

Ive come out to my trunk not closed all the way. Was my mistake. I do not expect them to do anything about it. I didn't close it hard enough. My bad.

Learn from it and don't do it again. Thats what I did.

 

[EVSteve]

All cars do this. If you leave the door open the dome light will drain the 12V battery and you will be unable to start it the next day.

Ive come out to my trunk not closed all the way. Was my mistake. I do not expect them to do anything about it. I didn't close it hard enough. My bad.

Learn from it and don't do it again. Thats what I did.

No, the vast majority of cars do not do this. Leaving the door open will cause the dome light to be lit for a period of time but the car will eventually turn the light off to prevent this from happening. Even the 1998 Grand Prix I had as a teenager had this protection in place.

Furthermore Chevrolet released an update which switches off any Volt accidentally left turned on after 120 minutes to prevent the main battery from draining and starting the generator to maintain low soc. Why can't Tesla?

 

[Vintre]

How much was your SOC when you left the car? I would be interested to know how much is lost overnight when this happens.

Thanks,

Vin

 

[trmmcd]

While other cars do this as well, Tesla should address this situation. The back doors require quite a bit of force to close and it is easy to leave them slightly open. The trunk as well can look closed when it isn’t. There are very few circumstances where one intentionally leaves a door or trunk open for an extended period of time. Why not send an alert?

 

[eprosenx]

I am kind of surprised this would drain you all the way overnight. What was your starting and ending State of Charge?

In the garage I would assume the heater would not have to work all that hard?

 

[Garlan Garner]

All cars do this. If you leave the door open the dome light will drain the 12V battery and you will be unable to start it the next day.

Ive come out to my trunk not closed all the way. Was my mistake. I do not expect them to do anything about it. I didn't close it hard enough. My bad.

Learn from it and don't do it again. Thats what I did.

That's not true. My ICE car will turn off the dome lights and radio and everything.

I just tested my Model 3 and it did also. Everything turned off after 15 min.

 

[Gavyne]

Without input the car is supposed to shutoff after awhile I thought?

 

[Garlan Garner]

Without input the car is supposed to shutoff after awhile I thought?

Yep...mine does.

My P3D+ even turns itself off when I'm sitting in the drivers seat after about 30 min. I then have to step on the brake to wake it up.

 

[Gavyne]

The mystery deepens, we need more info OP.

 

[Snow Drift]

The OM says the car will power off after 15 minutes, even if you are sitting in it. But...when supercharging it continues to play music, etc. So...the 12 Volt is still being used and that’s what I’d guess died.

 

[smicker]

I’ve left my door ajar (twice) at long-term parking for ten days and loss was no more than usual.

 

[JeffK]

I've done this a few times and the battery did not drain..

Are you absolutely positive while trying the new features no one enabled the new "Keep climate on" feature?

 

[CactusOne]

Wow, I’m getting spanked for this post on both sites...

YES normally the car does power down after about 15 min. BUT the rear door was open..so the vehicle stayed on.

We were playing around with all the new features. The temp did drop down to around 40 last night so we had the heater on. The SOC I want to say was low around 30%. So the “Keep climate on feature” should have come off at 20%. For everyday use I like to charge to 80% them drive down to 20% before I plug in my wall connector.

I suspect the combination of the upgraded abstract interior lights, radio, heater and not sure what else, staying on contributed to the drain. All because the door was left open.

The whole purpose of the post was to have Tesla incorporate a feature in the app to simply send you a notification if a door was left OPEN in my case or is OPENED to notify a possible theft situation. Bad guys have been breaking the little window in the rear to gain access to the car.

I have read here a happy TESLA is a plugged in TESLA. Maybe I will just keep her plugged in at home now.

 

[whatthe2]

Wow, I’m getting spanked for this post on both sites...

YES normally the car does power down after about 15 min. BUT the rear door was open..so the vehicle stayed on.

We were playing around with all the new features. The temp did drop down to around 40 last night so we had the heater on. The SOC I want to say was low around 30%. So the “Keep climate on feature” should have come off at 20%. For everyday use I like to charge to 80% them drive down to 20% before I plug in my wall connector.

I suspect the combination of the upgraded abstract interior lights, radio, heater and not sure what else, staying on contributed to the drain. All because the door was left open.

The whole purpose of the post was to have Tesla incorporate a feature in the app to simply send you a notification if a door was left OPEN in my case or is OPENED to notify a possible theft situation. Bad guys have been breaking the little window in the rear to gain access to the car.

I have read here a happy TESLA is a plugged in TESLA. Maybe I will just keep her plugged in at home now.

I gotta check out the other site. Who doesn’t like a good spankin’?

 

[SMAlset]

Yep...mine does.

My P3D+ even turns itself off when I'm sitting in the drivers seat after about 30 min. I then have to step on the brake to wake it up.

I do think I remember reading something like that in one of my "manual" reads now that you mention it. But I also know some people have posted about climate control being on with a trunk or door not fully closed and really draining the battery by morning.

 

[skitown]

OP - I agree Tesla's native app should notify us if doors are ajar. Great feature add. In the meantime, you might consider the 3rd party app "Stats: for Tesla Model S/X/3" as it has this feature. No affiliation on my part.