It is being temperature managed, but the exact methods depend on what the conditions and temperatures are inside and outside. All Tesla battery packs do have a liquid cooling system built into them, so they can cycle that liquid out to remove some of the heat through some radiator areas. And if that isn't keeping up enough, there is the capability for active cooling, where it can use the air conditioning system to actually chill that liquid to remove heat from the battery even faster, and that will usually involve some fans that you can hear blowing that hot air out.
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Does anyone charge from a regular outlet?
- Thread starter ejkcy25
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I am not as familiar with the exact behavior on that with the Model 3 and Y. The power level of that is so low that it doesn't usually need to do much of any heating or cooling for that. I think it probably does pump the coolant through the system while it's charging just to easily keep it near ambient temperature. And sure, using 120V low power charging does make charging take a lot longer. It's pretty inefficient, too, since there is some overhead energy usage of keeping the car awake and running the charging process while it takes several times longer to do than some higher power circuit, but it's overall not a very bad thing either way.
If the Tesla vehicle determines that the battery needs to be cooled (or heated) while charging or any time the Tesla vehicle is powered on this happens automatically. The Tesla vehicle can circulate coolant through the battery pack and run the AC compressor and/or the radiator fan as required.
One thing you may want to look into is if it's possible to swap in a NEMA 5-20 outlet and 20A breaker, which can increase your charging rate as much as 33% (possibly more in cold weather). If the branch wiring to the outlet is 12 AWG or larger, and doesn't have any other substantial loads on it, the cost of the higher-rated hardware and the adapter will pay for itself, especially in colder weather.
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roblab
Active Member
I'm pretty sure Tesla has proofed their cars to handle lightning strikes nearby while charging. Lightning is common in Central/Eastern US, and there are thousands of drivers who park their cars and plug them in, then go to bed. Nothing happens. I'd like to know of anyone who has had damage to their car simply because lightning struck within a mile of their charging car.
It's like saying you need to unplug your refrigerator and air conditioner whenever there's a storm. It's not a thing.
I remembered at least one lightning damage, although she was Supercharging:
So, my car was hit by lightning at the Grove City, OH supercharger...
I was there charging and a thunderstorm rolled in extremely quickly. There were two of us at the charger at the moment. I hear an extremely loud boom and saw some lightning. I'm not sure if it hit my car directly, but it was extremely close. My car flipped out and gave 9 errors. The other guy...
teslamotorsclub.com
Lightning has an insane amount of electrical power. Something like 30,000 Amps and 300,000,000 volts of electricity.
That’s so much power you really can’t expect to prevent issues with the many electrical systems on the car. It is orders of magnitude more power than the car is designed to handle while supercharging (~250kW = 800 amps). You can’t really engineer away that much power. Tesla engineers don’t have magic voodoo to protect the internal systems. Lightning has so much power and is so unpredictable, you can only dissipate so much energy and it will still overpower almost everything.
Your fridge or your air conditioner don’t take six months of queue, and $60k to replace. And they don’t drive you to work/school/store. So it’s less of a big deal when they go out. You just get a new one.
Lightning strikes commonly wreak havoc on things in homes when they strike nearby. Every homeowner should place a whole house surge protector in their main electrical panel to give them the maximum amount of protection against random surges.
But a best practice would definitely be to safe guard your vehicle if there are reports of lightning in your area, or high chances of electrical storms. I would rather not charge and 100% have my car the next day, than take the chance something could happen to it in the unlikely event of a direct lightning strike.
I can't tell if you're being serious or just playing dumb and pretending to not understand.
You make these specific references of "nearby" and "within a mile" as if you think that a nearby strike is ITSELF the danger that is going to damage the car. That's not what people are talking about, and surely you should know that. This is like someone hearing a growl of an animal or a hiss of a snake. The growl or hiss sound is not what's going to hurt you. That's just an indication that something dangerous is nearby, and the risk is increased.
The concern is for an actual lightning strike to someone's house or to a utility line connected to their house that causes a huge electrical spike in the wiring of their house.
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