Cybertruck Range Edmunds Test

[TessP100D]

Indeed, the total energy content of my vehicle has decreased.


If I leave my vehicle along for one week and then drive it for 3 hours, it will indeed have less fuel than if I just drove it for 3 hours in the exact same conditions.

It takes power to charge the battery back up. ICE drivers never think about it, but it definitely happens.

Hahahah. Your so fuel of it…….

 

[coleAK]

Definitely sounds abnormal. Are you sure you don’t have some sort of scheduled departure set (which should not go off when not plugged in (I assume - I don't use those crazy features), but could be a bug)?

Anyway @AAKEE does not seem to have this bug.

Highly abnormal and certainly no reason for it at all - this behavior is not doing anything but hurting the battery, after all.

I'd just turn off every possible feature and see what happens. Your car should be asleep in 15-30 minutes. If it's not, it's screwed up. The preconditioning stuff (or something else) could cause it to wake up at some other time though.

12V monitor is useful for stuff like this if you have the 12V, because you can see exactly when it is sleeping.

You can judge. Sounds like he is down to -42C this winter.

Cybertruck Range Edmunds Test

Anyway it seems clear your behavior is quite unusual and buggy. The car is not sleeping. Have to figure out why. And why that would be connected to cold temps. If it is sleeping, I would guess it is preconditioning erroneously on a schedule.

Whatever is happening is putting unnecessary wear on the battery and contactors.

Average tem

You can judge. Sounds like he is down to -42C this winter.

Cybertruck Range Edmunds Test

Anyway it seems clear your behavior is quite unusual and buggy. The car is not sleeping. Have to figure out why. And why that would be connected to cold temps. If it is sleeping, I would guess it is preconditioning erroneously on a schedule.

Whatever is happening is putting unnecessary wear on the battery and contactors.

Was it parked for 2 days at -42F?

For Aslo, average low in their coldest months Jan/feb is only 19F (-7F).

Oslo Climate, Weather By Month, Average Temperature (Norway) - Weather Spark

In Oslo, the summers are comfortable and partly cloudy and the winters are long, freezing, snowy, and mostly cloudy. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 19°F to 71°F and is rarely below 1°F or above 80°F.

weatherspark.com

I had 7 weeks this winter where it didn’t get above 10F (-12C).

The warmest I’ve seen in the last 2 weeks is 12F.

It is the long cold (as in parked for at least 5-6 hours) when I see the big loss

And it used to not condition the battery. I’m sure there is a reason and I work around it, keep a higher SOC, plan accordingly,…

 

[coleAK]

Wow, you need to understand how an alternator or generator works. Sure, it sits there and spends based upon the engine RPM level (which in itself is an issue). But when the battery is charging, the alternator exerts more force for the engine to overcome. The engine uses more fuel when it has to push the alternator harder.

It's just like a portable generator for your house. While unloaded, you can hear it purring along. Turn on a 1500-watt space heater and you definitely can hear the generator sag down.

I work on cars, rebuild cars, had track cars,… some cars have a variable clutch alternator many do not. None of mine do.

A generator is a different story, where the engine is only attached to an alternator and its only purpose is to make electricity. On a car the alternator is small and 12v. Ok it may have a minimal Insignificant effect (on small Engines). The discussion here is around full
Sized trucks.

I just replaced the radiator, water pump, serpentine belt, and Idler pulley on my 2013 LX570 last month, on it the alternator is fixed as long as he engine is running the alternator is turning as variable by the engine speed. When a car is idling, yes it can increase engine rpms for demand on the alternator but driving no.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Was it parked for 2 days at -42F?

I think you missed the post I linked to.

It is the long cold (as in parked for at least 5-6 hours) when I see the big loss

He does not see this issue. The

But yes, he left the car for days - however, he had to charge his car to avoid cold soaking the pack below -20C when the temps were very cold.

As I work away for ~ one week at the time and have the car outside during this in real cold ( down to -42C this winter) I even have to start charging to cope with the manual’s maximum one day in -30C or colder.

My M3P had about 1% loss per week, summer or winter, if the car was let sleeping with not too much door opening and wakening.

Had the car at work for one week, first days was very cold, ended up charging to warm the battery.

I know the car still sleeps at -41C with no battery heat at least until the battery temp is -20C. (Around this values I have started charging just to heat the battery without any loss of SOC.

When we have -20 to -25C I just let the car be, and have no issues, nor any phantom drain.

Anyway if you want to figure out this issue, I do not know if you do, I would:

1) first check to see if your car is sleeping.
2) check preconditioning settings. Turn it all off.
3) see whether there is a pattern to when the car starts warming the pack.

As we know, there is no reason for the car to warm the pack at these relatively warm -20C temperatures. So it is weird that anything is happening. I do believe it is happening. Would be good to figure out why.

 

[AAKEE]

Was it parked for 2 days at -42F?

Arrived ~12AM 2 Jan, left ~ 1 PM 5 jan

Artived at -35C, was below -40C for almost all the time, lowest was -42C
The real cold started to ease so only -35C when I left my job. (Airport, all temps are from official metreport/METAR).

I live in a slightly cold area so annual average temp is just above freezing.

I did log my M3P for 2 years and log my MSP now.

Non of my cars has heated the battery when parked without preconditioning/ scheduled dep or charging.

I have used charging with the UMC to heat the battery when the temps has been below -30C for more than one day (per the manual). This has ment letting the cell temp down to ~ -20C before I started charging(to heat).
Despite seeing cell temps down to -15C several times and -20C a few times there has been no battery heating done.

The SOC has stayed ~ at the same, loosing about 1% per week.

 

[AAKEE]

I think I already posted this, but with some extra info

Car parked 23-30th Jan. Wasnt cold at arrival but the day after we got -20C

METAR ESNG 241620Z 31005KT CAVOK M20/M22 Q0996=

During the time between it was -20C or below.

METAR ESNG 260620Z VRB01KT 9999 SCT006 OVC025 M20/M22 Q1011=

The car was parked without being connected:

The light color means the car sleeps and the HV batt is disconnected. No battery warming can be performed.

From parking 23 Jan to 25 Jan about 11 AM, the car was sleeping.
I went out at the ”C” and connected the UMC to only heat the battery. There was a few cars using a split cable from a single circuit breaker so I only set it to 6A /230V.
It could not even keep the SOC from that low power (~ 1 kW)

Day after, battery heating done, I stopped the ”charge”. The wake up at ~18 and about midnight is me going in the car and checking things with scan my tesla. My tablet freezes over so it can not function in the car for several days outside/parked.

This is the day after,

And the days after:

No battery heating except when charging.

 

[coleAK]

Arrived ~12AM 2 Jan, left ~ 1 PM 5 jan

Artived at -35C, was below -40C for almost all the time, lowest was -42C
The real cold started to ease so only -35C when I left my job. (Airport, all temps are from official metreport/METAR).

I live in a slightly cold area so annual average temp is just above freezing.

I did log my M3P for 2 years and log my MSP now.

Non of my cars has heated the battery when parked without preconditioning/ scheduled dep or charging.

I have used charging with the UMC to heat the battery when the temps has been below -30C for more than one day (per the manual). This has ment letting the cell temp down to ~ -20C before I started charging(to heat).
Despite seeing cell temps down to -15C several times and -20C a few times there has been no battery heating done.

The SOC has stayed ~ at the same, loosing about 1% per week.

Thanks. I’ll Have to look closer at when it’s heating. How about when you start driving after it has sat for 2-3 days in the cold unplugged? Does it heat the battery? Do you get 5-10% back as the battery warms?

To be clear I have always lost battery % with the cold (cold soaked battery). The difference is I used to get it back as the battery warmed up from driving. And to be clear the car is not heating the battery while it is parked and unplugged, it starts aggressively heating when I start driving.

Now I think the car uses battery to condition (warm) the battery as I’m driving, the snow flake goes away much quicker then it used to, but my wh/mi can be super high for the first 5 miles or so.

Also how long have you had the 3? I’m on my 5th winter. This could have started 2-3 years ago. The last 4 years have blended together.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

To be clear I have always lost battery % with the cold (cold soaked battery). The difference is I used to get it back as the battery warmed up from driving. And to be clear the car is not heating the battery while it is parked and unplugged, it starts aggressively heating when I start driving.

Ah that is a much different explanation of the issue than I understood.

So the car is likely sleeping fine, and you are losing no range (in an ideal situation of being able to warm up the car without driving, like going into a heated garage), but you just find it to be too aggressive in warming the pack when driving subsequently.

 

[ewoodrick]

I work on cars, rebuild cars, had track cars,… some cars have a variable clutch alternator many do not. None of mine do.

A generator is a different story, where the engine is only attached to an alternator and its only purpose is to make electricity. On a car the alternator is small and 12v. Ok it may have a minimal Insignificant effect (on small Engines). The discussion here is around full
Sized trucks.

I just replaced the radiator, water pump, serpentine belt, and Idler pulley on my 2013 LX570 last month, on it the alternator is fixed as long as he engine is running the alternator is turning as variable by the engine speed. When a car is idling, yes it can increase engine rpms for demand on the alternator but driving no.

Get an alternator, hook it up through some gears or pulleys so that you can spin it at nominal speed.

Hook it up to a charged battery and how hard is it to continue spinning.

Hook it up to a dead battery. You probably won't even be able to keep it at speed.

It requires more energy to charge the battery.

 

[coleAK]

Ah that is a much different explanation of the issue than I understood.

So the car is likely sleeping fine, and you are losing no range (in an ideal situation of being able to warm up the car without driving, like going into a heated garage), but you just find it to be too aggressive in warming the pack when driving subsequently.

Yes but only when the battery is cold soaked. Pretty much only when it has been sitting outside unplugged below 15F (-10C).

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

It takes power to charge the battery back up. ICE drivers never think about it, but it definitely happens.

All that matters is the standby power. The only way what charges it matters is the efficiency with which that is done.

In Tesla is it 3-4W (used to be closer to 7W).

For ICE vehicles it can be easily 10x less. That would allow you to leave the car for a couple months and come back to a car that would still start. Quite common. (Tesla would start too, it just might be down 10-15%.)

Really how it is recharged does not matter. Even if the efficiency is 3x worse due to ICE inefficiency the energy use would still be lower. The energy use is the issue.

Tesla may have a higher phantom drain than some ICE do. But it tends to de more at rest that ICE does. But that's not really the issue,

That really is the issue. And what exactly is the Tesla doing compared to an ICE? Absolutely nothing except running some Bluetooth radios. Yet it still burns 3-7W.

That’s really the issue here. The HV main battery enables EV engineers to be lazy on their power specs.

It’ll probably improve in future generations. No reason it should be any different than a normal car. Nothing additional being done in an EV other than BMS monitoring which of course can be super low power (and likely is), since it is doing basically nothing.

They might even implement a Sentry Mode that just uses a couple watts in future. That would be a huge utility improvement since you could actually use Sentry Mode and not think about it.

Yes but only when the battery is cold soaked.

So you hear all the telltale signs of preconditioning (car makes extremely distinctive noises, making it very obvious even for low warming scenarios)? Is there notification of this on the screen?

And the energy screen that provides the info on where the energy went - that new page shows all the energy went to preconditioning for your subsequent drive?

I wonder why they would do this?

Does it do it if you enable “regen emulation” mode?

I am sure the Cybertruck fixes everything. All new!!!

 

[AAKEE]

Thanks. I’ll Have to look closer at when it’s heating. How about when you start driving after it has sat for 2-3 days in the cold unplugged? Does it heat the battery? Do you get 5-10% back as the battery warms?

Yes, I do.

I see this if the car is left outside and cold soak at home and then backed inside the garage. When it heats you get the % back.

You know you ser the warm SOC and cold SOC in the app?
The blue part of the green line is the difference between warm and cold SOC.

It can also be seen in numbers in for exampke teslafi, or read directly from the BMS.

Also how long have you had the 3? I’m on my 5th winter. This could have started 2-3 years ago. The last 4 years have blended together.

I got it at 30 dec 2020, a refresh with heat pump. Sold it last summer and bought the Plaid.

 

[coleAK]

Yes, I do.

I see this if the car is left outside and cold soak at home and then backed inside the garage. When it heats you get the % back.

You know you ser the warm SOC and cold SOC in the app?
The blue part of the green line is the difference between warm and cold SOC.
View attachment 1024805

It can also be seen in numbers in for exampke teslafi, or read directly from the BMS.


I got it at 30 dec 2020, a refresh with heat pump. Sold it last summer and bought the Plaid.

Mine is a 2018, I got the first AWD in AK later summer 2018. Difference could very likely be the resistance heat in mine vs heat pump in yours.

I’ve always got the “blue line” it issued to be larger. I’m guessing now the energy I would have been getting back is being consumed by more aggressive battery heating.

 

[coleAK]

All that matters is the standby power. The only way what charges it matters is the efficiency with which that is done.

In Tesla is it 3-4W (used to be closer to 7W).

For ICE vehicles it can be easily 10x less. That would allow you to leave the car for a couple months and come back to a car that would still start. Quite common. (Tesla would start too, it just might be down 10-15%.)

Really how it is recharged does not matter. Even if the efficiency is 3x worse due to ICE inefficiency the energy use would still be lower. The energy use is the issue.


That really is the issue. And what exactly is the Tesla doing compared to an ICE? Absolutely nothing except running some Bluetooth radios. Yet it still burns 3-7W.

That’s really the issue here. The HV main battery enables EV engineers to be lazy on their power specs.

It’ll probably improve in future generations. No reason it should be any different than a normal car. Nothing additional being done in an EV other than BMS monitoring which of course can be super low power (and likely is), since it is doing basically nothing.

They might even implement a Sentry Mode that just uses a couple watts in future. That would be a huge utility improvement since you could actually use Sentry Mode and not think about it.


So you hear all the telltale signs of preconditioning (car makes extremely distinctive noises, making it very obvious even for low warming scenarios)? Is there notification of this on the screen?

And the energy screen that provides the info on where the energy went - that new page shows all the energy went to preconditioning for your subsequent drive?

I wonder why they would do this?

Does it do it if you enable “regen emulation” mode?

I am sure the Cybertruck fixes everything. All new!!!

I do get the “wavy lines” when driving and a notification that the battery is being conditioned. However in the energy app it only shows “preconditioning %” when the car is parked and not when the car is driving. Also in the energy app on the graph it shows jumps down of 1-2% every time I park.

It has warmed up to highs around 20F, if it drops down again (it gets very obvious at <0F) I’ll take some pictures.

 

[coleAK]

Also all this phantom drain talk should not be surprising for anyone that has owned something with a battery.

My ski boot and glove heaters lose 50% when they sit over the summer. My lionenergy 6 kWh “solar generator loses 10-20% when it sits through the winter.

 

[zoomer0056]

phantom drain

Vampire drain.
Phantom braking.

 

[TessP100D]

Vampire drain.
Phantom braking.

Sounds scary