Departure schedule & preconditioning?

[JAR897]

Hi guys,

I scheduled my M3P last night for departure at 0900. When I got in the car, the battery was charged as required but the pre-conditioning wasn’t - in particular there were lots of dots and regen breaking was limited until the battery warmed up.

am I right in thinking that scheduled departure doesn’t pre-condition for maximum battery efficiency on the road? And if so, is there a way to do this either via Tesla app, car or third party (stats)?

 

[SirRob]

So far as I can remember, the logic had been mostly around orchestrating when the charging ended rather then scheduling your departure. Even that isn't guaranteed to get a fully pre-conditioned battery.

 

[fancealot]

IIRC the dots and limited regen braking is usually when there is insufficient space in the battery for regen braking to recharge, was your battery level at 100%?

 

[Mr H]

IIRC the dots and limited regen braking is usually when there is insufficient space in the battery for regen braking to recharge, was your battery level at 100%?

They also appear if the battery is too cold

 

[Jeeves]

Remember that the scheduled departure charging stops at 06:00 (presumed end time of low-cost leccy in the US). The manual says it does precondition the cabin and warm the battery before the scheduled departure time, but I seem to recall it did not take more power from the wall after 06:00 to help when I tried it (someone correct me if I’m wrong).

It takes about an hour to warm the battery and cabin in cold weather and uses over 7kW to do it (11kW if I remember the Bjørn Nyland videos right). So you might pay a heavy price for the preconditioning and battery warming in terms of %charge if your scheduled departure time is some time after 06:00, the battery gets cold and it isn’t drawing power from the wall to help. Not great when reduced winter efficiencies often need plenty of battery charge for your day.

This is one of the reasons I was motivated to find other means for scheduled departure charging and discovered the ev.energy app that has a mixed reception on here (works fine for me). This app has an optional setting to make sure the car is charging in the last hour before departure, but I haven’t had the chance to try it in very cold weather yet because I only discovered the app when winter was over. If the app assumes it can net 7kW into the battery, it might do the wrong sums when some of that is diverted into cabin heating.

As others have said, a fuller and colder battery increases the number of regen dots, and it takes longer for them to disappear when the battery and weather is cold. So, battery warming is sometimes a trade off. I think Nyland’s conclusion was that it’s worth it if you plan on a long journey.

 

[Godsense]

Remember that the scheduled departure charging stops at 06:00 (presumed end time of low-cost leccy in the US). The manual says it does precondition the cabin and warm the battery before the scheduled departure time, but I seem to recall it did not take more power from the wall after 06:00 to help when I tried it (someone correct me if I’m wrong).

It takes about an hour to warm the battery and cabin in cold weather and uses over 7kW to do it (11kW if I remember the Bjørn Nyland videos right). So you might pay a heavy price for the preconditioning and battery warming in terms of %charge if your scheduled departure time is some time after 06:00, the battery gets cold and it isn’t drawing power from the wall to help. Not great when reduced winter efficiencies often need plenty of battery charge for your day.

This is one of the reasons I was motivated to find other means for scheduled departure charging and discovered the ev.energy app that has a mixed reception on here (works fine for me). This app has an optional setting to make sure the car is charging in the last hour before departure, but I haven’t had the chance to try it in very cold weather yet because I only discovered the app when winter was over. If the app assumes it can net 7kW into the battery, it might do the wrong sums when some of that is diverted into cabin heating.

As others have said, a fuller and colder battery increases the number of regen dots, and it takes longer for them to disappear when the battery and weather is cold. So, battery warming is sometimes a trade off. I think Nyland’s conclusion was that it’s worth it if you plan on a long journey.

This may help you: