Does turning on the climate control before leaving home precondition the battery as well?

[SGM1980]

On the weekends when trips are spur of the moment I turn on the climate manually from my phone to warm up the car.

Is that also warming up the battery and any other associated systems?

I still have limited regenerative breaking when I leave so i wasn't sure if there was something else i should be doing. The coldest it's gotten in my garage is the mid forties.

 

[imperalix]

Looks like it.

Winter Driving Tips

 

[doghousePVD]

On the weekends when trips are spur of the moment I turn on the climate manually from my phone to warm up the car.

Is that also warming up the battery and any other associated systems?

I still have limited regenerative breaking when I leave so i wasn't sure if there was something else i should be doing. The coldest it's gotten in my garage is the mid forties.

It can take several hours to preheat a really cold battery. Best way is to set up charging so it completes about the time you want to depart. I use Stats.

 

[Ol'Blue]

Short answer “yes”

longer answer:

preheating is considered preconditioning. The heater on board the car draws a lot of power. While plugged in and preheating, you can actually still lose range if your charging amps aren’t that high. (This is the case for me and I charge at 24-28amps)

while plugged it, it has double the benefit, 1 is the massive draw from the heating system, the other is the heating of the batteries being simultaneously charged.

using a program like stats (or Teslafi) you can preprogram the car to do both preheat or end it’s charge around your time of leaving. It is not necessary to use these programs if you’re good at remembering to preheat before leaving.

On a pleasant day 15 minutes will do a lot, on a cold day, it can be a lot longer and yet never fully warm the batteries.

using the cars built in departure time, I have found that it charges the car so early that the batteries have time to cool, and it only heats the cabin up to the temperature you had last set, so it isn’t stressing the batteries enough to warm them much. So I personally stopped using this feature.

Preconditioning and regenerative breaking fall under 2 categories that have a slight overlap in this conversation. It all depends how high you charge your batteries normally. If you keep them at 60% and preheat, your regen will be fairly effective quickly.

If you charge to 85% routinely, don’t expect to have full regen from preconditioning. It helps, but not enough.

And in cold climates, batteries can take hours to warm enough to be fully efficient.

 

[toolman335]

Short answer “yes”

longer answer:

preheating is considered preconditioning. The heater on board the car draws a lot of power. While plugged in and preheating, you can actually still lose range if your charging amps aren’t that high. (This is the case for me and I charge at 24-28amps)

while plugged it, it has double the benefit, 1 is the massive draw from the heating system, the other is the heating of the batteries being simultaneously charged.

using a program like stats (or Teslafi) you can preprogram the car to do both preheat or end it’s charge around your time of leaving. It is not necessary to use these programs if you’re good at remembering to preheat before leaving.

On a pleasant day 15 minutes will do a lot, on a cold day, it can be a lot longer and yet never fully warm the batteries.

using the cars built in departure time, I have found that it charges the car so early that the batteries have time to cool, and it only heats the cabin up to the temperature you had last set, so it isn’t stressing the batteries enough to warm them much. So I personally stopped using this feature.

Preconditioning and regenerative breaking fall under 2 categories that have a slight overlap in this conversation. It all depends how high you charge your batteries normally. If you keep them at 60% and preheat, your regen will be fairly effective quickly.

If you charge to 85% routinely, don’t expect to have full regen from preconditioning. It helps, but not enough.

And in cold climates, batteries can take hours to warm enough to be fully efficient.

Best recap I've seen on this topic. I've experienced all of it to be true.

 

[SSedan]

This is a current big discussion in the S section.
Cabin preheat used to activate the dedicated pack heater the S and X have but that seems to have been turned off in recent software updates and the regen curve has been raised several degrees.

Those of us with S and X are seeing fairly drastically different winter behavior this year vs years past.

Between the pack being warmed less and now the pack needing to be warmer for Regen to work I am seeing Regen limiting already this year that I typically wasn't seeing till colder weather. Already this year I am seeing Regen disabled regularly.

 

[SGM1980]

Excellent replies! Thanks so much!

 

[gaswalla]

I adjust the amperage so that the car hits desired miles (SOC) about 10-30 minutes before I leave. On the S (at 240v), 40 amps gives back 29 miles per hour (use 0.75 x amps = miles/hr). On the 3, it’s 1:1 at 240v.
Start charging at MN (time of use pricing) and then turn down the amps so that car is charged slowly per above calculation (theory is this is better for battery, but a bit less efficient from the plug), always a warm battery (recent early morning temps in 30s no problem, but I realize this isn’t really cold for many folks), and no vampire losses first thing in the morning. Just sharing

 

[SSedan]

Yeah, some of us live in places that actually get cold.
Many folks think Bjorn of YouTube Tesla fame lives somewhere wildly cold but Oslo is really no worse than Chicago, a LOT of the USA and Canada are colder.
Here near Green Bay we have seen a little below zero already. If you don't drive a lot the amount of warming you get from charging 30miles when it is single digits out results in Regen being so low it might as well be disabled.

 

[toolman335]

I talked with an S owner at the carwash last week. He was complaining that not only is the car different this year for the stated reasons above, but he swears his S literally feels different to drive after every update(and not always in a good way).
I told him that my updates don't seem to make the car feel any different while driving it. Obviously the software keeps changing, but we were only referring to the handling of the car.

 

[SSedan]

The drastically different Regen will affect cornering feel if off the throttle in a curve. I have already seen a lot of acceleration limiting this season as well, and the line is just when the computer is limiting, doesn't account for sluggish amperage due to slowed chemical reactions due to cold. Also keep in mind they reduced max cell voltage which costs power.

 

[linuxguyInMD]

using a program like stats (or Teslafi) you can preprogram the car to do both preheat or end it’s charge around your time of leaving. It is not necessary to use these programs if you’re good at remembering to preheat before leaving.

What setting(s) do you make in stats??? I see the preheat setting

 

[Ol'Blue]

There’s “smart battery prep” and there’s “smart heating/cooling” right over top of each other on the settings tab.

The battery prep, you set a battery % higher then you actually intend to charge to, and a time to turn on.

then you set a % you actually want so it falls back to that level after a set time. (Took me a few minutes to figure out. But I have a young baby at home, so everything takes longer then it should at this point)

I find the battery prep much more useful for preconditioning. But you can program both to turn on before leaving and you’ll get most of the charge and a warm car (not max heat, but whatever your climate was set to)

hope that helps, and sorry if there was a delay in the reply, I’m out of country visiting in-laws.

 

[mswlogo]

This is a current big discussion in the S section.
Cabin preheat used to activate the dedicated pack heater the S and X have but that seems to have been turned off in recent software updates and the regen curve has been raised several degrees.

Those of us with S and X are seeing fairly drastically different winter behavior this year vs years past.

Between the pack being warmed less and now the pack needing to be warmer for Regen to work I am seeing Regen limiting already this year that I typically wasn't seeing till colder weather. Already this year I am seeing Regen disabled regularly.

Model 3 does not "actively" heat the batteries like Model S/X does.

Currently the "bug" on Model S/X is that it behaves like a Model 3 and won't run the battery heater when Cabin is heating while parked (plugged in or not, range mode or not). It used to.

Drawing power and/or charging heats the battery some on all cars. But nothing like the Model X/S battery heater does or when Model 3 can heat the battery using the Motors.

When preconditioning (turning on Cabin heat) the Models S/X used to also turn on the battery heater (if Range Mode is off).

If the battery is too cold to charge I believe all cars will heat the battery.

Model S/X while driving with Range Mode off heats the battery (if regen limited). Model 3 always heats the battery by using Motors normally and has no range mode to control battery heating.

 

[linuxguyInMD]

There’s “smart battery prep” and there’s “smart heating/cooling” right over top of each other on the settings tab.

The battery prep, you set a battery % higher then you actually intend to charge to, and a time to turn on.

then you set a % you actually want so it falls back to that level after a set time. (Took me a few minutes to figure out. But I have a young baby at home, so everything takes longer then it should at this point)

.

15% difference between the higher and departure charge was recommended in a reply from the stats developer. I wish he would fully document these features.

 

[Ol'Blue]

Good info on the 15% frightens!

I did less. It still works, but probably more useful work a more extreme difference.

 

[mswlogo]

There’s “smart battery prep” and there’s “smart heating/cooling” right over top of each other on the settings tab.

The battery prep, you set a battery % higher then you actually intend to charge to, and a time to turn on.

then you set a % you actually want so it falls back to that level after a set time. (Took me a few minutes to figure out. But I have a young baby at home, so everything takes longer then it should at this point)

I find the battery prep much more useful for preconditioning. But you can program both to turn on before leaving and you’ll get most of the charge and a warm car (not max heat, but whatever your climate was set to)

hope that helps, and sorry if there was a delay in the reply, I’m out of country visiting in-laws.

I hope that feature isn’t “aborting” a charge that is set higher but at an earlier time. That is not good for the battery.

 

[Ol'Blue]

I hope that feature isn’t “aborting” a charge that is set higher but at an earlier time. That is not good for the battery.

I feel like the “ready to go” stock Tesla setting aborts and then just preheats the carb. I’ve not liked using that feature.

I can’t speak for the Stats app, I haven’t read up too much on it. I usually just preheat the car myself and adjust time depending how cold it is outside.

 

[jrweiss98020]

I live near Seattle, and my car is in a garage that may get down to 45F at night. I've tried preconditioning (just to warm up the inside) for 5 or 10 minutes before driving, but I haven't seen much difference in Regen. Frankly, Regen seems to take a LONG time to get back to normal, even when driving 20+ miles. I guess I'll just have to get used to using the brake pedal again until spring...

 

[camalaio]

I could swear one of the recent updates suddenly includes much more aggressive pack heating on our LR AWD.

We keep it in the garage, but that's not enough to stop regen limiting. We almost always preheat before we go anywhere, but that was never enough to make a noticeable difference in regen. It would take a good hour or more of driving to get the pack warm enough to get full regen.

Recently, two things were very noticeable that did not happen before:

1. The noise/whir from Supercharging/L3 charging is now present when preheating the car. This seems to imply the heating of the battery based on other threads.
2. We now usually have most if not all regen power available prior to departure, implying the pack was warmed.

It does this even if not plugged in and somewhere else (e.g. parked downtown). I have mixed feelings about this because the amount of power being used to heat the battery for short in-town trips is quite a lot, and I don't benefit from most of that wasted power.