Charging issues below 40 degrees

[Stephan07]

Hi everyone,

First post, 5th year of having a Tesla. First was a Model S p90D, now an X P100D

Back in November I traveled from Boston to Springfield, MA. Temp was in the 38-40 degree range. At the end of the day after a 10 minute drive, I could not get the car to charge at the super charger. The temp was 41 degrees. I had the vehicle towed home and I Uber'd it.

I had the vehicle serviced and they told me the charging system was working fine. Since then I have mostly been home charging. I have noticed that when the temp outside is below 40, the car drives like it is in Valet mode. Perhaps even slower on acceleration.

This last Tuesday I drove up to Burlington, VT. It was cold, 25 degrees. The car was outside all day. I drove 15-20min on the highway to warm up the battery. I plugged in at the SC and the car would not start charging. Spoke to Tesla, and they told me because the battery was too cold. That it should start soon. After 1hour, it slowly started to charge. At 2 hours it was up to 25kW. At 3 hours, I had enough range to get to the next station, 40 miles away. I drove there thinking the battery would be fully warmed. Again, only would charge at 20-30kW. Again, it was mid 20s. After an hour I leaped to the next station, in Lebanon, NH. Same situation. 20-30kW max. another hour and I drove to the station in Hookset NH where I only got 25kW max. I charged for a little over an hour and just made it home. Plugged into my home charger, at 4am, and it charged at the normal home speed.

So, that was 10 hours to get home on what is normally a 3+ hour drive. This morning after being in my garage all night at 55 degrees it seemed to drive fine. I stopped to grab coffee on the way to work, and when I got. back on the highway it again drove like it was in valet mode.

For some reason, there has got to be an internal sensor not working, that is limiting the charge and discharge. I have other cars I can drive, but this can not be simply a home charge vehicle. I will again return to Tesla today and explain this to them.

If anyone has some ideas, please let me know. At this point I may either trade for another vehicle or a new Tesla. I am use to driving all over New England in all temps with meh previous model and the first year with this vehicle.

Thanks,and sorry for the long post

 

[mswlogo]

Range Mode On or Off?

 

[ewoodrick]

Make sure that when you are headed to a charger that you have the nav set to route to the charger. That will allow the car to precondition the battery for better charging.
Also, look for any places that you can plug in while the car is sitting. Many places have plugs to allow for people to keep their engine blocks warm.

 

[jmaddr]

Make sure that when you are headed to a charger that you have the nav set to route to the charger

This. Still, you should not be having all the issues you are seeing. Certainly talking it over with Tesla is needed, especially if the SC pre-conditioning feature does not help.

 

[Stephan07]

Thanks folks. I will be stopping by the center today.

Range mode is off.

I've checked some crazy youtube videos where its zero, and after 10-15 minutes the battery warms itself and charging is good to go.

All 3 centers were 150kW and I was the only vehicle there. I tried multiple stalls.

Will update.

Interestingly, the new Model X seems to be incredibly lower priced than my 2018.

 

[rhumbliner]

@Stephan07, I’ve charged at the SuperCharger here in Jackson many times when the battery temp is waaay below 0º F and have never experienced what you’re describing. Something is wrong.

 

[Cycle11111]

This is not normal. I live in Tahoe CA and charge below 32F all the time with zero issues on either our M3 or MX (note we did have the M3 charger port lock up issue that was fixed last year). If you ever watch Tesla Bjorn on YouTube in Norway he has done tons of cold weather testing and nothing like this. Did you S ever do this? You need to get onto the SC about this and explain what is happening and definitely don't accept it is normal because it is not.

Note I starting charging my M3 this morning on an L2 charger after driving to work - 40F ambient and immediately went to 32amp 6K charge rate.

 

[Rocky_H]

This is kind of sounding to me like the battery heater is not working properly.

I've known people who have been in really cold conditions, like single digits fahrenheit overnight, and then drove just a couple of miles to the Supercharger (so no warmup time) with it really cold soaked like that, and yes, it can sit there looking like it's doing nothing for 20-30+ minutes just trying to heat up the battery. But that is when it's really cold--not up in the 30's and with 15-20 minutes of driving to get it kind of warm.