Extreme Cold, Battery Management

[CraDavis]

Its about to get realllllly cold in MN. Expecting lows in the mid -30F and highs in the negative teens F for several days straight. We likely will not be above 0 until the weekend.

I have a 2017 S75D. I was thinking of doing a couple things to manage cold weather battery issues. I've read that -25F for 24 hrs can be really bad on these batteries. Just seeing if anyone has any comments or thoughts on a better approach. For reference my car is in a garage, but it is not heated. Typically stays only 5-10 degrees warmer in the garage than outside.

1. Is it better to leave it fully charged or at my normal 75-80% ?
2. Should I "trickle" charge it overnight. Dial the charge rate way down to maybe 5-10 amps so it charges over a 5-8 hour period.
3. Can I just let it climate control all night? Bad energy use, but it'll keep the battery warmer?

 

[Big Earl]

Charge at the normal rate and leave it plugged in. It will heat the battery as necessary to protect it from freezing. Charging slowly will waste a lot of energy keeping the battery warm enough to allow charging, with no benefit.

 

[N..8]

Youtuber Bjorn Nyland lives in Norway and I'm sure it gets just as cold as you will in Minnesota and all he's done was keep in plugged in. I wouldn't worry about it as long as it's plugged in.

 

[Rocky_H]

From being plugged in, the car will know it has access to energy to do what it needs to do if it needs to do any warming to keep itself safe, so you won't need to worry about doing anything special for it. That might be a different issue if you were having to leave it outside unplugged for weeks in cold like that.

 

[CraDavis]

Thank you very much everyone! I appreciate your time in responding!

 

[Snowstorm]

Don’t worry too much and plug in. It will use plug to prevent cold damage. If plug is not available, then the battery will use its own energy to preserve itself (until it runs out).

 

[SSedan]

I might try and do a long warmup the -20f and below mornings to get the pack warm before parking it outside all day at work.

Far as how cold it gets in Norway record in Oslo is only -15F Green Bay sees that basically every single winter. Yes northern Norway with few folks gets colder but the populous parts are no colder than MUCH of the continental U.S.

 

[Jetstreamsky]

Mine lives outside 24 hours a day in the Montreal area, it’s been -25C for a few days at a time, battery shows up frozen on the app and I would set a small 5% level of charge increase to force it to warm over a couple of hours, but just recently it’s warmed itself to recover a small charge level drop so I’m wondering if this is part of the recent cold weather changes, certainly it seems to be managing itself lately.

 

[Lasttoy]

For everyone when home.

 

[dark cloud]

Mine lives outside 24 hours a day in the Montreal area, it’s been -25C for a few days at a time, battery shows up frozen on the app and I would set a small 5% level of charge increase to force it to warm over a couple of hours, but just recently it’s warmed itself to recover a small charge level drop so I’m wondering if this is part of the recent cold weather changes, certainly it seems to be managing itself lately.

Just to clarify, seeing the snowflake on the touchscreen or the app does not mean the battery is frozen, but it does mean it is damn cold outside. The snowflake probably means the battery is being used to keep itself from freezing.

 

[yobigd20]

Just to clarify, seeing the snowflake on the touchscreen or the app does not mean the battery is frozen, but it does mean it is damn cold outside. The snowflake probably means the battery is being used to keep itself from freezing.

or the snowflake the snowflake never goes away and you're having problems charging, you could have a dead battery coolant pump which is preventing the pack from warming up enough to accept a charge such as the case with mine right now...

 

[Jetstreamsky]

The snowflake on the app is accompanied with a blue section of the charge representing the range reduction due to the cold, I use the term frozen as a characterisation not literally frozen. So from what I see, the charge level will drop to a point where it will self initiate a recharge and in so doing warms itself up. I also hear the motor running sometimes while its not charging, this I guess is the cold level protection kicking in.