Has anyone noticed longer time for limited regen to go away?

[xrayvsn]

Well here in TN it just started getting cold enough for the dreaded dashed yellow lines signaling limited regen to pop up again.

I've had my car one year now and have experienced the same thing last winter, however this time around it seems that it is taking forever for the dashed yellow lines to go away (before maybe 5 minutes of driving and currently I can go 70+ mph on the highway for 30 min and still have the dashed yellow lines persist).

I actually contacted Tesla and they looked at how the battery was warming up and said everything was fine and likely due to a new firmware update. Just curious if other people are experiencing this prolonged regen limited scenario.

 

[BEEZR]

I noticed the same thing, but it's been quite cold here (for Seattle, that is) so I attributed it to the temps. However, this is my first winter with my car so I have nothing to compare against.

 

[RiverBrick]

I haven't driven enough this Winter to notice a difference, but it's possible there has been software change which changes the heating or the restrictions.

Another possibility is that range mode has been activated in your cars, which reduces battery warming.

 

[jerry33]

It's perfectly normal. You can minimize the effect by:

1. Charge with Range Mode OFF.
2. Set the timer to end at about the time you are going to leave.
3. Preheat the car with the App. (I set it as high as it will go)

 

[xrayvsn]

It's perfectly normal. You can minimize the effect by:

1. Charge with Range Mode OFF.
2. Set the timer to end at about the time you are going to leave.
3. Preheat the car with the App. (I set it as high as it will go)

I definitely time my charge in the morning to end close to leaving for work, so that definitely has worked in the past and continues to work. It's mainly the drive home from work that I run in to the problem of extended limited regen. I am guessing it as at least 5x longer under similar conditions to what it was last year.

One thing I didn't know that the service advisor told me was that the vehicle speed has nothing to do with warming up the battery faster (I told him I had been doing about 30 miles of highway at 70 mph and still see the yellow markers about 25 min into my drive).

I am not sure if they did this change to protect the battery but it definitely wastes a lot of good regenerative opportunity on my drive home.

 

[odguy]

this is my first winter 60D, in WI temps are very cold and they don't go away even when returning home. I noticed with a loaner i got from tesla 2016 75 D it seems to heat the battery faster or get the regen back faster. not sure if due to software limited battery vs full 75?

 

[whitex]

It's perfectly normal. You can minimize the effect by:

1. Charge with Range Mode OFF.
2. Set the timer to end at about the time you are going to leave.
3. Preheat the car with the App. (I set it as high as it will go)

1. I never used Range Mode yet (in over 3 years)
2. Not always possible
3. Doesn't work. Recently on a road trip in October went through some low (mostly high 30's F) temperatures where the car was parked outside. Tried heating the car to the max for well over an hour a couple of times, restarting it when it timed out. Once I ended up melting some chocolate bars I left in the car, but the battery was still cold - so cold in fact that when I connected to a SC it was crawling for some time before ramping up. Lesson learned, supercharge your battery before you go to a hotel, unless you need 100% the next day.

I did notice regen being limited much longer that past 3 years, however I also attributed it to the fact that's it's been colder than usual lately in Seattle (so much for global warming? ;-) ).

 

[RiverBrick]

It's perfectly normal. You can minimize the effect by:

1. Charge with Range Mode OFF.
2. Set the timer to end at about the time you are going to leave.
3. Preheat the car with the App. (I set it as high as it will go)

1. I never used Range Mode yet (in over 3 years)
2. Not always possible
3. Doesn't work.

Even if you've never used range mode, it's worthwhile to verify every now and then that it hasn't been switched on by ghosts or whoever (for example by a firmware update).

2. Agree.

3.Jerry forgot to mention that you have to be plugged in for it to work. Tesla should offer us the option of battery warming even when unplugged, but they don't. Probably something to do with warm Winters in Palo Alto and Fremont.

 

[The_Mike]

Same behavior here. My car was cold soaking at work for 12 hours at 20 degrees yesterday and got properly cold. I have a 35 mile commute and it wasn't until about 30 miles in that my regen totally returned.

 

[grichard]

Also, to clarify: preheating the car will preheat the battery only up to a point. If the car is cold enough to have little or no regeneration, preheating it will get the regen up to about 25 kW or so. As far as I can tell, you can preheat indefinitely and not warm the battery further than that.

I think this behavior is also visible when driving a very cold car. When I start to drive, the car has a very high current draw even when stopped, and the regeneration reappears rapidly. After a few minutes (and ~25 kW of possible regeneration) the current draw drops dramatically, and the regen then recovers much more slowly.

 

[cpa]

Yes, I have noticed it as well. Our winters are not that cold. This winter, the dashed lines have appeared even though the air temperature was 55-60. If I remember correctly, in prior winters, the dashed line was only visible when the temperatures were below 45 degrees or so.

 

[jerry33]

3.Jerry forgot to mention that you have to be plugged in for it to work. Tesla should offer us the option of battery warming even when unplugged, but they don't. Probably something to do with warm Winters in Palo Alto and Fremont.

You're right. Plugged in. I don't think of preconditioning the car when it's not plugged in, so I didn't think about specifying it.

 

[jerry33]

Also, to clarify: preheating the car will preheat the battery only up to a point. If the car is cold enough to have little or no regeneration, preheating it will get the regen up to about 25 kW or so. As far as I can tell, you can preheat indefinitely and not warm the battery further than that.

Right. But it definitely makes a difference (when plugged in). Easy to verify on two consecutive nights with similar temperatures. And if it's -20 and you park outside, I'd guess the difference is going to be minimal (no first hand experience with the Tesla in those kind of low temperatures).