Battery heater and 2017.50.x

[YauKwan]

Im on 50.2. Turned on the climate control and saw the battery heater icon. I fell asleep...So my car was toasty ALL NIGHT. It was plugged in so i was fully charged this morning. Dont know how much electricity i used last night, but probably a lot.

This morning, still limited regen. The cabin was toasty.

Not too sure about the battery warmer. Hopefully will get better.

 

[PatrickCH4313]

Funny you asked, I actually grabbed a screenshot of it. Here ya go:

View attachment 268763

Thanks a lot. I don't see it right now because of the high temperature outside (around +9° Celsius)

 

[lunitiks]

I fell asleep...So my car was toasty ALL NIGHT. It was plugged in so i was fully charged this morning. Dont know how much electricity i used last night, but probably a lot.

Probably. I'm staying plugged in as much as possible from now on.

Thanks a lot. I don't see it right now because of the high temperature outside (around +9° Celsius)

Yes, I think it has to be 'freezing'. Like I said I had -3 and the icon showed up. Someone will soon figure out the exact temperature it kicks in

 

[Xtek]

I normally park my car in my garage which almost never goes below 50F.

However, I left it out overnight after I got the app update to see under what conditions I could then turn it on. After lots of looking through app requests and trying to reverse engineer it I gave up and just turned the cabin heater on from my app.

After about 2 minutes I noticed the "Heater" and battery icon show up. I looked at the app requests and saw the battery heater flag was on and that rpe conditioning was also on. So it looks like there's no way to guarantee to know when the battery heater will turn on. After an hour of letting it warm up I had full regen.

 

[candersoh]

seeing battery icon in both x and p85 - version 50.2. it's 11F currently.

 

[lunitiks]

So it looks like there's no way to guarantee to know when the battery heater will turn on.

I think you just have to know your outside temperature and then you’ll know if battery heater will turn on or not (when enabling cabin heating)

 

[Xtek]

I think you just have to know your outside temperature and then you’ll know if battery heater will turn on or not (when enabling cabin heating)

So I noticed there's also another field in the API, its

usable_battery_level

if the usable battery level was different than the battery_level it kicked on for sure.

This is also what shows the snowflake and reduced battery capacity. However, when I tested mine it was 47/48 so there was no icon visible.

 

[lunitiks]

if the usable battery level was different than the battery_level it kicked on for sure.

Please elaborate for a dense fellow

 

[Xtek]

There is a web service endpoint that the app hits in order for it to function. It returns a giant blob of data. I have a setup that allows me to monitor traffic between my phone's app and the service endpoint. I saw a few new fields.

battery_heater_on,
usable_battery_level

If your battery gets cold enough you will actually lose the ability to use some of your battery. In my case I could only use 47% out of the actual 48% charge it was at. If it gets cold enough you can loose even more and you'll see a snowflake in the app. Give me a moment and I'll make a screenshot.

 

[David99]

Not sure anything has really changed other than it now shows the battery heater is on. It always heated the battery when it was below 8 degree Celsius.

 

[Xtek]

Not sure anything has really changed other than it now shows the battery heater is on. It always heated the battery when it was below 8 degree Celsius.

I'm not entirely sure it did this while turning on pre-conditioning, though.

 

[lunitiks]

It always heated the battery when it was below 8 degree Celsius.

What? When you turn on cabin preheating?

 

[Xtek]

Alright, when your usable battery is low here's what it looks like. Obviously the mileage number isn't real, I was just messing around with the API.

 

[boaterva]

Love it how Tesla can’t explain this and we (for other values of ‘we’ lol) have to reverse engineer this stuff..

Can’t see why they just don’t say if you are losing x% (whatever) of your mileage and turn on the climate to get the car ready, we will now turn on the battery preheat AND show the snowflake. How hard is that?

(Or whatever is really going on....)

 

[Xtek]

Love it how Tesla can’t explain this and we (for other values of ‘we’ lol) have to reverse engineer this stuff..

Can’t see why they just don’t say if you are losing x% (whatever) of your mileage and turn on the climate to get the car ready, we will now turn on the battery preheat AND show the snowflake. How hard is that?

(Or whatever is really going on....)

If I had to guess there are a few things at play here.

1. The development team is probably super stressed right now and frantically trying to get things done. They have AP2, Model 3, Roadster, Model Y, Semi Truck, etc etc to worry about and are trying to add features.
2. They are trying to make it low-touch. There is a delicate balance between control and ease of use and I think they're trying to lean towards the Apple philosophy as much as possible to reduce complexity and make these cars more approachable. Having a ton of options/buttons is going to intimidate new EV drivers and potentially scare them off. So I can see why they would want to abstrac that complexity away from the customer.

However, with that said... they could have just been clearer in their communication.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[GOPJEW]

So i’m Currently in scenic Erie, PA - temp in the teens and 50+ inches of snow in last 24 hours - when I went to the Supercharger yesterday I had limited regen (even though my climate was turned onto HI for an hour before I left - needed to clear off a little snow).

When I first turned on the climate I saw the battery heat icon but then it shut off after like 10 minutes...any thoughts?

When I got to the Supercharger (after fighting with the new port on the new X - 30 tries, 3 Supercharger and orange for every one but the last one) it obviously was slow charging because of the temp of the battery pack. I, once again turned on the climate to HI and the battery heat icon showed, but then turned off in like 5 mins. Car slow-charged for more than an hour and did not ever come close to fully charging - when I got in at 80% still had limited regen...

Not sure how well this is working - perhaps it gets stuck like the charge port does!

 

[boaterva]

If I had to guess there are a few things at play here.

1. The development team is probably super stressed right now and frantically trying to get things done. They have AP2, Model 3, Roadster, Model Y, Semi Truck, etc etc to worry about and are trying to add features.
2. They are trying to make it low-touch. There is a delicate balance between control and ease of use and I think they're trying to lean towards the Apple philosophy as much as possible to reduce complexity and make these cars more approachable. Having a ton of options/buttons is going to intimidate new EV drivers and potentially scare them off. So I can see why they would want to abstrac that complexity away from the customer.

However, with that said... they could have just been clearer in their communication.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hear ya. Comms has always been an issue. Then there’s the post above and it doesn’t even work?!

 

[David99]

Just posted a few measurements here
Energy consumption for Preheating

 

[boaterva]

Just posted a few measurements here
Energy consumption for Preheating

Good to know 46 degrees F (or just under 8 C) is the magic level!

 

[Xtek]

Good to know 46 degrees F (or just under 8 C) is the magic level!

To clarify this is battery pack temp, not internal/external temp. So your battery needs to get cold soaked a bit.