Cold Weather - Outdoor Parking, any precautions?

[nyrlath]

Unfortunately I cant really park inside, and right now cant charge at home. Wondering if there are any precautions for parking/driving cold? Is pre-conditioning important if I am going to say, move it from one spot to another? Long commute?

Once I am charging while parked outside, does anything change?


Appreciate any advice/input, thank you!

 

[ucmndd]

There’s really nothing special to do. The car will be just fine. Precondition as necessary for occupant comfort but that’s about it.

If you’re dependent on supercharging, just be aware that it will be much faster when the battery is warm, so when possible do your charging AFTER a drive as opposed to before.

 

[nyrlath]

There’s really nothing special to do. The car will be just fine. Precondition as necessary for occupant comfort but that’s about it.

If you’re dependent on supercharging, just be aware that it will be much faster when the battery is warm, so when possible do your charging AFTER a drive as opposed to before.

Great, thanks a lot! Ill definitely pre-condition before supercharging, just wasnt sure about warming it before driving (like in an ICE vehicle). Good callout on the charging thank you.

 

[jjrandorin]

Great, thanks a lot! Ill definitely pre-condition before supercharging, just wasnt sure about warming it before driving (like in an ICE vehicle). Good callout on the charging thank you.

You arent going to hurt your car, but you should be aware that its possible that part of your battery capacity can be locked out (snowflake icon) when your battery is cold. This capacity returns when the battery is warm, so its not a concern from a battery health thing, but its something you should be aware of.

You can pre condition the car so the cabin is warm when you want to move it (say from one street parking spot to another or something) but you are not pre conditioning it for the battery, but so the car is comfortable for you. Probably 5-10 minutes tops (the car will tell you when the cabin gets to the temp set).

 

[RickW]

One thing I would caution is to see what happens at certain temperatures. For my car, when the outside temp dips to about 42 deg F, the fantom battery drain appears to be higher. At work, if I get there early enough I can park in a garage, which keeps the low to about 55. Outside, I have to choose exactly where to park and noted different temperatures and phantom battery drain depending upon where I park during the day. Night time doesn't make much of a difference (it's cold everywhere) unless it's in the garage.

Again, I'm no battery expert, so someone here can chime in if it's only on my car that I am seeing this.

 

[jrweiss98020]

Trying to precondition the battery prior to a local drive is likely a waste of energy. In nominal cold weather it will take 5 minutes or less to warm up the interior; use DEFROST if needed to clear the windows faster and ensure the doors are not iced shut.

 

[RickW]

Trying to precondition the battery prior to a local drive is likely a waste of energy. In nominal cold weather it will take 5 minutes or less to warm up the interior; use DEFROST if needed to clear the windows faster and ensure the doors are not iced shut.

Does Defrost take care of the iced door issue? I had that problem at 4 am last December. Outside temp was 16 deg F and I couldn't get in my car. At the time I just remotely turned the heater on and it resolved in about 15 minutes. If I know that Defrost will do this, I'll precondition before getting in the car.

Sorry for drifting off topic.

 

[tstolze]

Does Defrost take care of the iced door issue? I had that problem at 4 am last December. Outside temp was 16 deg F and I couldn't get in my car. At the time I just remotely turned the heater on and it resolved in about 15 minutes. If I know that Defrost will do this, I'll precondition before getting in the car.

Sorry for drifting off topic.

Defrost is the best setting to use for removing Ice.
With the latest software updates you can open the drivers door from the Tesla App, hopefully this will help those of us in colder areas that get ice a couple times each Winter.

 

[RickW]

Defrost is the best setting to use for removing Ice.
With the latest software updates you can open the drivers door from the Tesla App, hopefully this will help those of us in colder areas that get ice a couple times each Winter.

Thanks. I think I used it last year on the night that I got iced out, but I resorted to just about everything - a little defrost, a little super heat.
I know that the defrost takes care of the windows, but I didn't know it took care of the handles as well. (Now that I think about it, I suppose it would have to since the window comes down when you open the car).

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Benito1283]

One thing I would caution is to see what happens at certain temperatures. For my car, when the outside temp dips to about 42 deg F, the fantom battery drain appears to be higher. At work, if I get there early enough I can park in a garage, which keeps the low to about 55. Outside, I have to choose exactly where to park and noted different temperatures and phantom battery drain depending upon where I park during the day. Night time doesn't make much of a difference (it's cold everywhere) unless it's in the garage.

Again, I'm no battery expert, so someone here can chime in if it's only on my car that I am seeing this.

It's probably not phantom drain so much as the temperature affecting the state of charge. The charge level will drop with temp... my observation is ~1% per 10 degrees. As the temp rises so will the charge level. Kind of like expanding with heat and...shrinkage with cold

 

[GtiMart]

A lower SOC after a night parked outside does not always equate to "phantom drain" / energy spent. Yes, the car will spend some energy, and more so if it stays awake. On top of that and possibly more significant, as the battery cools less energy can be extracted from it. It's not lost, it comes back when the battery warms again, but it's temporarily unavailable. It's just physics. That can temporarily lower your SOC by as much as 7%. Therefore, plan for that and make sure your car has enough SOC when parking it.

EDIT: The car shows it with the blue snowflake and the blue slice of battery when you go in the charging settings. The app also shows a blue snowflake.

 

[Benito1283]

I've been experiencing a big increase in battery drain (parked/standby) the past few weeks, often 4-6% in 24 hours. Vehicle is plugged in and charges to 65%. The energy app says the drain is due to vehicle standby. Sentry and Cabin Overheat are off. Some nights I don't lose any charge, or maybe 1%. But the big losses are new for my car. I know the car is sleeping properly because TezLab indicates so (it doesn't wake the car up).

I spoke to someone at Tesla who said that this is normal and the car will use energy to keep the battery warm (around 59F) when it's very cold out. I said "So if I park at the airport for three weeks in very cold weather..." and she said "Yes, your battery will be dead when you get back." She also confirmed that by HV and 12V battery were in excellent health.

This has not been my experience. I parked at the airport for ten days over Thanksgiving (2021) and lost 1-2% total. It's my understanding that the car will just let the battery cold soak while it's sleeping - you'll just have snowflake / limited regen.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it possible the car keeps the battery warm when plugged in, but lets it cold soak when unplugged (maybe that's why they recommend keeping it plugged in whenever possible)? I know others have been reporting a similar increase in standby drain recently.

 

[GtiMart]

Depends when you mean by cold. The car doesn't heat the battery when you reach freezing point, it will let the battery go below freezing. Maybe it heats it when under - 20C or something like that, and even that I'm not sure. The manual tells us to not leave it under - 30C for more than 24h. Why would it say that if the car would warm it?

 

[Benito1283]

Depends when you mean by cold. The car doesn't heat the battery when you reach freezing point, it will let the battery go below freezing. Maybe it heats it when under - 20C or something like that, and even that I'm not sure. The manual tells us to not leave it under - 30C for more than 24h. Why would it say that if the car would warm it?

I agree. I think the woman at Tesla gave me bad info.

 

[KenC]

I've been experiencing a big increase in battery drain (parked/standby) the past few weeks, often 4-6% in 24 hours. Vehicle is plugged in and charges to 65%. The energy app says the drain is due to vehicle standby. Sentry and Cabin Overheat are off. Some nights I don't lose any charge, or maybe 1%. But the big losses are new for my car. I know the car is sleeping properly because TezLab indicates so (it doesn't wake the car up).

I spoke to someone at Tesla who said that this is normal and the car will use energy to keep the battery warm (around 59F) when it's very cold out. I said "So if I park at the airport for three weeks in very cold weather..." and she said "Yes, your battery will be dead when you get back." She also confirmed that by HV and 12V battery were in excellent health.

This has not been my experience. I parked at the airport for ten days over Thanksgiving (2021) and lost 1-2% total. It's my understanding that the car will just let the battery cold soak while it's sleeping - you'll just have snowflake / limited regen.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it possible the car keeps the battery warm when plugged in, but lets it cold soak when unplugged (maybe that's why they recommend keeping it plugged in whenever possible)? I know others have been reporting a similar increase in standby drain recently.

I think it may have just been the software. I had a similar weird day where my battery dropped 3.2% due to standby, recently, and it rec'd to keep my car plugged in. It was plugged in. Generally, it says less than 1%, so I just assume it was a software issue.

As for your battery being dead, I think when it hits 20%, whatever it's doing, the car will stop doing.

 

[IHeiz13]

Hey guys! As we all know, it's going to get REAL cold this upcoming weekend. Here in STL, we are supposed to get down to -3 with some -20 degree wind chill. This is my first winter owning a Tesla. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a garage.

Anything special I need to do to take care of my Model 3? I planned on just leaving it plugged into to the simple wall outlet while it sits outside. Is that the best best?

Any tips help. Thanks!

 

[Regaj]

Hey guys! As we all know, it's going to get REAL cold this upcoming weekend. Here in STL, we are supposed to get down to -3 with some -20 degree wind chill. This is my first winter owning a Tesla. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a garage.

Anything special I need to do to take care of my Model 3? I planned on just leaving it plugged into to the simple wall outlet while it sits outside. Is that the best best?

Any tips help. Thanks!

Yes, some pretty extreme temps are rolling across most of North America over the next few days.

Like you, my car sits out in the weather. No garage.

I'd recommend turning climate on 45 minutes to an hour before driving your car. That's to heat the battery pack.

Do any L2 charging immediately upon returning from a drive. Avoid using scheduled departure or scheduled charging which would allow the pack to get cold again.

Avoid Supercharging if at all possible. If you need to SC, first Navigate to your chosen Supercharger for a good 30 minutes or so so the pack can gets lots of heat in it.

Maybe bump the SOC you start with, before the worst weather rolls in, if that would help reduce the need to charge during the most extreme temps. The colder temps will significantly temper the cell stress that we normally worry about at higher SOC's.

Put your car in chill mode... and otherwise drive very gently until/unless you've driven a good long while. Avoid hard accelerations.

Reduce use of regen by using the regular brakes when you need to slow down or stop.

The objective in all these is to minimize current going into or coming out of the battery while the pack is very cold. Once you've been driving for a good while - maybe 30 minutes if you preconditioned, maybe an hour if you didn't - you can go back to driving normally.

 

[brkaus]

Do any L2 charging immediately upon returning from a drive. Avoid using scheduled departure or scheduled charging which would allow the pack to get cold again.

I target 40a L2 to complete around time of departure so the pack is warm ish.

But if charging at a lower level and super cold I can see how it might take forever to actually start to charge.

 

[IHeiz13]

Yes, some pretty extreme temps are rolling across most of North America over the next few days.

Like you, my car sits out in the weather. No garage.

I'd recommend turning climate on 45 minutes to an hour before driving your car. That's to heat the battery pack.

Do any L2 charging immediately upon returning from a drive. Avoid using scheduled departure or scheduled charging which would allow the pack to get cold again.

Avoid Supercharging if at all possible. If you need to SC, first Navigate to your chosen Supercharger for a good 30 minutes or so so the pack can gets lots of heat in it.

Maybe bump the SOC you start with, before the worst weather rolls in, if that would help reduce the need to charge during the most extreme temps. The colder temps will significantly temper the cell stress that we normally worry about at higher SOC's.

Put your car in chill mode... and otherwise drive very gently until/unless you've driven a good long while. Avoid hard accelerations.

Reduce use of regen by using the regular brakes when you need to slow down or stop.

The objective in all these is to minimize current going into or coming out of the battery while the pack is very cold. Once you've been driving for a good while - maybe 30 minutes if you preconditioned, maybe an hour if you didn't - you can go back to driving normally.

Thank you for all the tips! Are you saying I should charge to a higher SOC prior to the weather coming in and then stop charging, or would it better for me to leave car plugged into L1 charger during weather?

 

[Braumin]

Thank you for all the tips! Are you saying I should charge to a higher SOC prior to the weather coming in and then stop charging, or would it better for me to leave car plugged into L1 charger during weather?

If you can leave it plugged in it is always better, especially when it is cold out. You are going to go through more energy though which is why you would need to have more charge in the first place. Small trips are way worse for efficiency in the cold. Trips that I can do for 1-2% in the summer will be 5-10% in the extreme cold.