DC charge pins cover - a warning

[Neilman]

On the basis that Tesla is not infallible (auto wipers and headlights are a good example of that), and other manufacturers use DC ports covers, I'd say it's worth considering. Definitely don't bother with 3D printed hard covers though.

I haven't bothered, yet, but I'm inclined to as it gets colder.

I did 3D print a cover for my 3's DC pins and thought it was a 'good idea' and it fitted over the pin section without interfering with the AC plug however it was a day or so later I noticed the cover flap wouldn't fully close flat. Either the print was wrongly sized or the top part a bit too fat, either way I took it off and the flap closes perfectly again.

Wonder if those silicon rubbery covers work without problems?

 

[Glan gluaisne]

I did 3D print a cover for my 3's DC pins and thought it was a 'good idea' and it fitted over the pin section without interfering with the AC plug however it was a day or so later I noticed the cover flap wouldn't fully close flat. Either the print was wrongly sized or the top part a bit too fat, either way I took it off and the flap closes perfectly again.

Wonder if those silicon rubbery covers work without problems?

There's very little clearance under the charge port door when it's closed, barely a couple of mm. I tried to fit a 3mm diameter betalight under there and that was enough to stop the door closing flush. There's no problem with the silicone rubber cover, though, I've had one fitted to my car for several months now.

 

[dan223]

I had a hard plastic one from ev accessories and it was hard to get out, some other people also had some from there and suggested it was pretty loose, as they are 3D printed I guess it depends which ones you get. They sent me some silcon cover which seems to be much better and I've had it on for months with no issues.

Charge port on Model 3 is warmed by air blowing through it when pre heating. Part of my concern with covering the CCS pins is that it would significantly reduce this air flow. That said, on limited use, I never found it particularly effective although at the time we did have several air leaks in the roof glass seals that may have reduced the pressure and effectiveness.

The charge port is only heated on fairly new M3's, older ones do not have it. I'm also unsure if it blows warm air to do so. There was always a weird rumor that this was what happened with M3's, but never proven or shown. And then in the 2020.40 update tesla release an update for a charge port heater, though its isn't clear when they started installing that hardware, but it seems unlikely to be too long before that release for the M3, the MY maybe always had it.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

There's an air leak from the interior through the charge port drain, and some have speculated that it's to heat the charge point. Some quick arithmetic using the likely max volumetric airflow rate and the specific heat of air shows this isn't really at all possible. The amount of heat that can be transported via the small leak of internal air is miniscule, and certainly not enough to de-ice a frozen or snowed up charge port in any sort of reasonable time. The amount of stuff circulating as fact, that can be quickly disproven by a couple of taps on a calculator keyboard never ceases to amaze me.

 

[MrBadger]

The charge port is only heated on fairly new M3's, older ones do not have it. I'm also unsure if it blows warm air to do so. There was always a weird rumor that this was what happened with M3's, but never proven or shown.

I have seen the warm airflow it in action.

This is the US version in action, but I have tested it on ours. Its not perfect, took a couple of goes to open charge port on one occasion.

 

[dan223]

I have seen the warm airflow it in action.

On an AC charge? I've never seen it, also never had any issues caused by the silcon cover and why would tesla then add a heater on if it was blowing warm air?

 

[MrBadger]

You have to pre condition the car on HI.

I added a video to show.

 

[dan223]

You have to pre condition the car on HI.

I added a video to show.

I see, but 99% of the time that I would precondition the cable would be plugged in anyway, and in the case of US socket that would fill the whole socket so no air could escape anyway, so I don't really think there is any issue caused by using a cover, and i've done so for over a year now to. The silcon cover I have on is pretty light, and its never blown it off.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

I have seen the warm airflow it in action.

This is the US version in action, but I have tested it on ours.

Tried pressing a few calculator keys to see how much heat it can shift?

The arithmetic isn't hard. Being generous, and ignoring the area filled by the connector pins, and being even more generous and assuming that the flow velocity is 2m/s (it's nowhere near that, from that video), then with a car interior temperature of 25°C there would be just 1.9 W of heat flowing out of that area. Anyone that thinks that less than 2 W can actually make any difference at all needs their bumps felt.

Quite why some (like the bloke in that video) cannot be arsed to press a few buttons on a calculator before posting such crap is beyond me. Even worse is that the bloke's from North America, where forced air heating is commonplace. Anyone that's lived there knows that literally tonnes of warm air needs to be blown around to move enough heat to warm anything up, it's why homes there have massive ducts running all over the place, with big grilles to get enough warm air into each room.

 

[MrBadger]

I didn't need a calculator. I've witnessed its benefits myself. If I preheat the car for 20-30+ minutes, as I do if it looks like we had a heavy wet frost, we don't have any significant issues. I learned my lesson from early days when I didn't preheat long enough when car was wet frozen (we get sudden wet freezes here) and since then I have never had a stuck door handle or a charge port so frozen that it wouldn't open second attempt. If I left it too late and only managed 10 minutes, or I just went out to check from curiosity, we would often get frozen handles.

It's intentional behaviour, first released in 2018.50.6 Official Tesla Release Notes - Tesla Software Updates (notateslaapp.com) - this version predated UK Model 3's. I don't think Tesla would have bothered to mention it in their release notes if it didn't have a worthwhile positive effect.

Tesla releases software update to help unfreeze charge port - Electrek - explains the two relevant releases. Not locking the charge port latch, released iirc when they added the function to not fully close the windows slightly when cold (requires doors to be closed when its already cold so not perfect), and soon after by using "the climate system will better thaw your charge port in freezing conditions".

 

[Glan gluaisne]

I didn't need a calculator. I've witnessed its benefits myself. If I preheat the car for 20-30+ minutes, as I do if it looks like we had a heavy wet frost, we don't have any significant issues. I learned my lesson from early days when I didn't preheat long enough when car was wet frozen (we get sudden wet freezes here) and since then I have never had a stuck door handle or a charge port so frozen that it wouldn't open second attempt. If I left it too late and only managed 10 minutes, or I just went out to check from curiosity, we would often get frozen handles.

It's intentional behaviour, first released in 2018.50.6 Official Tesla Release Notes - Tesla Software Updates (notateslaapp.com) - this version predated UK Model 3's. I don't think Tesla would have bothered to mention it in their release notes if it didn't have a worthwhile positive effect.

Tesla releases software update to help unfreeze charge port - Electrek - explains the two relevant releases. Not locking the charge port latch, released iirc when they added the function to not fully close the windows slightly when cold (requires doors to be closed when its already cold so not perfect), and soon after by using "the climate system will better thaw your charge port in freezing conditions".

Sorry, but I call BS. There's no way that less than 2W of heat (being very, very optimistic) is going to have any observable effect. Holding your hand on the connector would probably transfer around 5 times more heat at a rough estimate. This isn't something to argue over, it's bog simple physics, Air just doesn't have a high volumetric heat capacity, it's around 3,300 times less than water. It's why we use water to shift heat around heating/cooling systems, as it would need around 3,300 times more air to shift the same amount of heat.

 

[MrBadger]

Call what you want. I don't BS. I just say what I have observed. There are other factors at work too.

 

[dakaix]

To be fair @VanillaAir_UK and @Glan gluaisne may both be correct, Tesla could also have a small heating element within the proximity of the charge port.

Bjorn Nyland recently broke out his thermal camera and documented the M3 MY19 heated charge port. If you jump to around 10:00 in the video below you'll see the car actually heated the chargeport to around ~2C.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

A heating element in there makes massively more sense that trying to blow miniscule amounts of warm air around the area. I'm near-certain that the warm air thing is just accidental, a consequence of that area, like the door handle pivots, not being air-sealed because of the way they've been designed.

 

[dakaix]

It is true that the cabin vents are around that area, it's in the bumper underneath the charge port. It wouldn't surprise me if the breeze through the chargeport is the cabin air - but having been assisted by a heating element too.

You can see the vent in the Electrified Garage video below at 9:15 where they're fitting a power trunk with the bumper off. You'll notice this exactly ties up with a hotspot in Bjorn's video.

 

[Big Earl]

To be fair @VanillaAir_UK and @Glan gluaisne may both be correct, Tesla could also have a small heating element within the proximity of the charge port.

Bjorn Nyland recently broke out his thermal camera and documented the M3 MY19 heated charge port. If you jump to around 10:00 in the video below you'll see the car actually heated the chargeport to around ~2C.

All of those warm spots appear to be a result of cabin air leaks from preheating. The spot on the rear bumper is from the relief vent in the back of of the car. You can even see where the body of the car is starting to heat up in some areas. With enough preconditioning, it’s certainly possible to melt ice and snow on the windows, body panels and charge port.

 

[Durzel]

To be fair @VanillaAir_UK and @Glan gluaisne may both be correct, Tesla could also have a small heating element within the proximity of the charge port.

Bjorn Nyland recently broke out his thermal camera and documented the M3 MY19 heated charge port. If you jump to around 10:00 in the video below you'll see the car actually heated the chargeport to around ~2C.

Maybe that’s different to the “charge port heater” that was in recent patch notes, but not visible on MY20 cars. I assumed it was MY21-on only and they probably arrived with firmware a few versions past that now anyway, so they wouldn’t see it in the most recent patch notes.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

If I had to guess, then I'd suggest that it would take at least 20 to 30 W of heat to have any noticeable effect on deicing the charge port, or the door handles, come to that. A typical heated rear window will be around 100 W or so, heated wing mirrors are around 30 W each. 1 to 2 W from a bit of warm air leaking isn't going to do anything useful.