Todd:
Do you leave the lights on and the tv running all day? Keep your criticism and your uninformed statements about my finances to yourself. You don't know me.
You missed my point. I'm not criticizing you, nor do I claim to know anything about your finances. What I was saying--rather tongue in cheek--was that the cost of accessory use during peak periods is going to be no more than a blip in an electric bill, if it's visible at all. That's what my comment was directed at.
The power usage by the touchscreen/radio is very, very small. We're talking equivalent to maybe a few hundred watts total. I'm sure you know that. Now multiply that by the amount of time you sit in your car fiddling with the screen and listening to the radio in the garage while plugged in. Maybe what, 15 minutes a day? I'm sure that's probably an overestimate, but let's roll with it. Ok, that's 300W*.25= 75 Wh. Now, consider that when you use the touchscreen/radio, the UMC doesn't typically go on right away. That's because it will only go on when the 12V battery that powers it drops below some threshold requiring a top off from the main pack. Likely you won't even hit this threshold, so the actual use is much less, perhaps even zero. Ok, so there's a contribution of maybe 0-45 Wh....and that's an overestimate...on a daily basis. Remember, this assumes you sit in your car for 15 minutes a day in the garage, listening to the radio and fiddling with the touchscreen.
Ok, let's look at HVAC next. This could be significant power draw, so I can see the argument for user control here...but how much are you all conditioning your car for? For me, it's no more than about 10 minutes. Given about 1kW average for the heat pump, that's about 200 Wh used in those 10 minutes. The winter is worse. Maybe 5 kW, let's say. So in about 15 minutes, we're talking maybe 1,250 Wh.
As for battery pack conditioning, there is very minimal active thermal management unless the car is in very high or low temperatures (I believe the numbers were ABOVE 120°F or below 30°F, or something to that effect). I actually believe there's much less of this in recent firmware updates. But regardless, to my knowledge 4.5 did not change any of this behavior. Active pack management still draws from the battery, unless specifically preheating or cooling the car. I have never seen my UMC click on while the car was just sitting in the garage. I could be wrong, but I don't believe it's doing this.
