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Can't leave car at airport... battery dies

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#121
Evoforce said:
The more you awaken your car with apps, the more energy it will use also...
Click to expand...

My car is set for always stay connected. Not so sure how much visiting the car by app in this context uses up "extra" battery ...

When I connect with app, it doesn't take more than 10 seconds to refresh. Doesn't go into "awakening car" waiting.. like our model 3 always does and takes longer to get in and update.

In this mode, I've measured 21 Watts steady state usage... which might rise a bit when I actually connect to the car, and then settle back down again when I leave it alone.

21 Watts is not anything to worry about in my mind.
 
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#122
scottm said:
So my S85 is sitting at airport right now in -23C and 82% SOC with some blue bar on battery. It is plugged into 120V and I have battery charge limit set at 90%.

The app says "starting to charge" and has been like that for a few hours. It says car is pulling 2/12A right now.

I left the car at 70ish% and actively charging as I walked away and it made it up to 90 and stopped as normal, and is now on the decay sitting there. Still plugged in.

I checked yesterday and was at 85%, no sign of wanting to charge, and I was beginning to wondering how much lower before the car recognizes it is below 90 limit and kicks itself into charging again to get back to 90?

Today its 82 and that seems to have been the call to try.

So, when does charging really start? And what is it doing with 2A right now?

Do I have to turn on climate to spend juice warming the car and battery to get rid of the blue bar, before it can actually take any more than 2A?
Click to expand...

..bit of an update. Car has been pulling its whopping 2A for several hours today and I see SOC has risen from 82 to 83, still have blue bar. So it looks like it is onboarding charge from 120v even with blue bar.

I am resisting urge to turn climate on and precondition battery just to see what the car does on its own. For now.
 
#123
..another status update. 6 hours have passed and the weather where my car is parked is about six degrees warmer nowm -17C.

Something triggered with the car and I see it is now charging at 12A on 120v and currently at 87% heading for 90 again and will hit it in a few more hours.

No blue bar on the battery either.

The car must have just decided to do a battery heat on its own, using battery juice to do it, got itself out of blue bar territory, and this enabled full 12/12 A draw to start up and has been chugging along since.

We'll see what she's at in the morning again after the charge completes and it sits cold soaking in -17C again overnight.
 
#124
..another update, the weather has been warming and is now -8C (weather site, not interior temp). Last night the car was charging 12/12A up to 90... I didn't actually check to see that it made it but trust it did.

Just checked now and it is 86% with blue bar and a snowflake. So its on the downward ramp again. App says "charging complete" and car is not drawing any power from UMC.

I think this cycle is repeating itself. At some point after declining to maybe 80-82 Im predicting charging will begin on its own again. We'll see.

Again, I have not touched any controls through the App, just observing charge state.
 
#125
scottm said:
..another update, the weather has been warming and is now -8C (weather site, not interior temp). Last night the car was charging 12/12A up to 90... I didn't actually check to see that it made it but trust it did.

Just checked now and it is 86% with blue bar and a snowflake. So its on the downward ramp again. App says "charging complete" and car is not drawing any power from UMC.

I think this cycle is repeating itself. At some point after declining to maybe 80-82 Im predicting charging will begin on its own again. We'll see.
Click to expand...
I think this shows that it's using a bit more sensible logic in when it is deciding to do its recharging, given that it knows the power level it's plugged into.
The normal operation would allow about a 3% drop, to 87%, and then it would refill back to 90%. Well, if it only has a 1.4kW power source to draw from for charging, and it knows that the battery is very cold soaked again, maybe they did adjust the programming to sensibly let it go down farther before a recharge cycle. It would be stupid to spend 2X or 3X the energy just to warm the battery up versus the little 3% rise in charge state. It would be far more efficient then to let it go down 5-10%, and then warm it up for a more decent sized charge that is actually worthwhile.
That sounds like a good common sense cold weather adjustment to its charging methodology.
 
#126
..another update. The weather has been warming and is now -2C. The car is sitting at 86 and is saying charging complete. No blue bar. No snowflake.

It's at the same charge level as 6 hours ago. I'm not sure if the charger even came on since last time I checked.
 
#128
I agree its managing fine.

I do posts like this as a record for me and others to see what its like to leave car in cold weather at the airport.

Its my first away trip with Tesla parked outside for so long doing nothing.
 
#131
smilepak said:
In this long thread, what settings should you turn on or off for a week worth of unplugged parking? I might be at 60% on 70D when I leave it. Thx
Click to expand...
I have a 70D and leave it parked outside all winter. I should think that leaving it for a week would not require any special action. Just do not contact the car frequently, or at all, from your cellphone. That wakes it up and uses energy. In your area (So. Cal) you should expect little battery drain in a week.
Second thought: If the car is parked outdoors in the sun, you may want to turn off the cabin overheat protection, just to avoid the car running the AC due to solar heating of the cabin (even in what passes for winter in California). The cabin overheat protection would shut off at 20% SOC in any case.
 
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#132
smilepak said:
In this long thread, what settings should you turn on or off for a week worth of unplugged parking? I might be at 60% on 70D when I leave it. Thx
Click to expand...
Turn OFF -
Cabin overheat protection
Standby Summon (if FSD enabled). Car will never sleep if enabled.
Sentry Mode (again, car will never sleep if enabled)

Then do not access it via the app (or other monitoring programs).
 
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#136
FWIW- Cabin Overheat only operates for about 1 day - or at least that is how it used to work when we would park in the PHX airport in the Summertime. By the 2nd day the energy usage pretty much went to zero I believe the longest we left the car there was 21 days and I think we used 20-25 miles of range in that time most of it the first 24 hours. Of course this was an non-AP car from 2014 and several major software revisions ago- ( I think it was 2018 and 2019 time frame) We don't fly anymore, so I don't know what happens now- I suspect Sentry mode is the big power hog, I know it used several miles a day until I disabled it a home.
 
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