Canada: Results/stats for 107km drive to Supercharger at -36c

Date of delivery: Dec 10 2022
Software: 2022.40.200
sunny day but temperature -34/ -36 c
Model Y 20" (came with all season tires) seven seater
Location: Alberta (St Paul to Vegreville supercharger)

Preconditioned at start.
Battery: 59% at start from St paul.
Showed 3.4% on tesla navigation on arrival at Supercharger.
Sunny day but temperature -34/ -36 c
Road conditions: Icy slick, hilly
Sterring mode: chill and rolling regen, off road occasionally if there was some thick snow sheets or packed rocky snow.
(Had more confidence in driving with Off road assist as without that it felt like rear wheel drive and was fighting with traction control sometimes if accelerated or released gas pedal quickly.)
Drove at 90-100kph ,no music, turned off climate only heated seat and steering wheeel were on. Turned on climate for last 20 minutes of the total 70minute drive.

Reached with 11% battery remaining.

Consumption towards:
10% was used to precondition the battery for supercharge
1% was lost due to low tire pressure.
(Heated garage had 42psi but at -36c the pressure was at 37psi)
1%elevation
Rest 37% consumed for the actual drive.

Return trip same day same weather and road condition.
107 km drive.
99% charged.
warmed cabin to hi and kept it at 21c when started drive, streaming music was on at 80% speaker volume.
Battery on arrival was 56% (43% consumed)
No precondition of battery was done.

Hope this helps.

"Tesla Model S in snow (front view)" by Kirill Borisenko is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog thumbnail.

 

[jcanoe]

Wind could have been a factor.

 

[yessuz]

Why did you have heating off? Model Y same as post 2020 model 3 has heat pump. It is barely noticeable on battery

 

[Shadowclone]

Why did you have heating off? Model Y same as post 2020 model 3 has heat pump. It is barely noticeable on battery

Thank you for the information. I did not know heat pumps have low battery usage. I was under the impression turning off climate would save battery as
it showed 4% battery remaining at the start of trip so I turned it off and it went up to 11% (saved 7 % battery overall).

 

[yessuz]

Thank you for the information. I did not know heat pumps have low battery usage. I was under the impression turning off climate would save battery as
it showed 4% battery remaining at the start of trip so I turned it off and it went up to 11% (saved 7 % battery overall).

New battery graph shows the usage. Just try it and you will see at the end of linger journey

 

[GoldenBoy]

I drove around Edmonchuck that day it was -37.5C too and got better performance than I expected, even with full heat blasting (21.5C), heated seats running on 1 bar, heated steering going a lot. I wanted to see how the heat pump performed in those ultra cold temps

The differences in my drive were:
My tires were adjusted, so I still had ~41-42 psi for all of the journey.
I was not heading to a super charger, so would have saved the 10% you probably used pre-heating the battery.
With the aftermarket wheels and Michelin winter tires I loose a about 4-5% percent to that as well.
I was able to stay around 50% efficiency in that temp in highway driving for almost 2 hours.
That amazed me as I get about 60% at -20C so far this year on average driving around the city, and 70%+ at -10C

I've also gone to Jasper and back in -23C pretty easily and got 58% efficiency uphill into the wind with battery pre-conditioning running 1/2 the trip, and 71% in -16C with wind at my back on the return trip.

 

[Andy B]

-37, jesus. I think the UK would cease to exist if it got that cold!

 

[Crypto Dent]

This is nuts. Thanks for sharing!

 

[GoldenBoy]

Nice to know the heat pump works just fine down past any extremes most Tesla drivers may face.

 

[ResHacker]

I'd like to add that heat pump doesn't work at all in such low temps. It works best (with highest efficiency) in temps between 0 - 10C and stops working around -10C I think, where classic heating (most likely PTC) element must substitute.

 

[jcanoe]

I'd like to add that heat pump doesn't work at all in such low temps. It works best (with highest efficiency) in temps between 0 - 10C and stops working around -10C I think, where classic heating (most likely PTC) element must substitute.

The heat pump in the Tesla Model Y can function at temperatures well below -10C. There is no PTC heating unit in the Tesla Model Y. The heat pump can scavenge heat from the outside air, onboard computers and the battery coolant' possibly even itself.

 

[GtiMart]

You might want to listen to this:

 

[ResHacker]

The heat pump in the Tesla Model Y can function at temperatures well below -10C. There is no PTC heating unit in the Tesla Model Y. The heat pump can scavenge heat from the outside air, onboard computers and the battery coolant' possibly even itself.

Yes, sorry, my fault, there're really no PTCs in TM Y. And also so far as I remember TM 3 used motors as heat generators for heating the battery. TM Y seems to be nevertheless a different story. I have found nice article describing, how it works.. There's nowhere mentioned the heatpump to work directly using ambient when outside temps around -30C (-20F). TM Y works pretty smart with heat using for example battery mass as heat storage. But when outside temp goes under approx -10C, the heat pump is used to scavenge the heat also from the components you mentioned as if using only ambient air temp, the working COP would be too low... That was what I meant...

 

[jcanoe]

Yes, sorry, my fault, there're really no PTCs in TM Y. And also so far as I remember TM 3 used motors as heat generators for heating the battery. TM Y seems to be nevertheless a different story. I have found nice article describing, how it works.. There's nowhere mentioned the heatpump to work directly using ambient when outside temps around -30C (-20F). TM Y works pretty smart with heat using for example battery mass as heat storage. But when outside temp goes under approx -10C, the heat pump is used to scavenge the heat also from the components you mentioned as if using only ambient air temp, the working COP would be too low... That was what I meant...

I wish the video would have included preconditioning via the Tesla app for both the PTC equipped Model 3 and the heat pump equipped Model 3. They could have done so from the comfy confines of the Rivian while checking on the cabin temperature in each Model 3 using the app. Once the battery was sufficiently warm the Model 3 could have shunted the warm coolant to the cabin heat exchanger. Another thing I thought could have improved the test would have been to set Recirculate Cabin Air to ON in both Tesla Model 3. The heat pump would not have had to work as hard to warm the cabin using recirculated cabin air. Off hand I would estimate the time needed for the cabin to reach ~70F would have been reduced by ~30% or more, so 20 minutes (or less) would have been needed instead of 30 minutes.

 

[GoldenBoy]

Yes, sorry, my fault, there're really no PTCs in TM Y. And also so far as I remember TM 3 used motors as heat generators for heating the battery. TM Y seems to be nevertheless a different story. I have found nice article describing, how it works.. There's nowhere mentioned the heatpump to work directly using ambient when outside temps around -30C (-20F). TM Y works pretty smart with heat using for example battery mass as heat storage. But when outside temp goes under approx -10C, the heat pump is used to scavenge the heat also from the components you mentioned as if using only ambient air temp, the working COP would be too low... That was what I meant...

I've run mine after the car has sat in -30C or colder temps for over 8 hours at the end of my workday several times. The heat pump warms up the car just fine in a Model Y, even in -35C. Very quickly too.