How are you faring in the cold weather?

[TM3PTN]

Just a thought on this - I have a garage door which has a rubber strip at the bottom of it. It can easily be closed on top of the charging cable so that you can lock the door. Maybe that's worth a try. Alternatively, you could just cut a small notch out of the bottom of the door with a hacksaw. Only needs to be about half an inch diameter.

I don't have that seal at the bottom of mine unfortunately. It is just metal to concrete.
I was thinking about the notch as you describe but my 32A switched socket arrived today and the outdoor lockable box it will be housed in with the UMC is due to arrive tomorrow so we should hopefully be wired up this weekend with a 32A supply to the car
Just need to source the appropriate wire that can manage the maximum current possible from consumer unit to socket.
Can't wait to be able to charge overnight and then precondition while still plugged in! The full benefits of the car in cold weather will be experienced next week (toasty warm in the morning )

 

[TM3PTN]

I posted this in another thread after a drive last Friday:

Yesterday I did a 156 mile round trip to the Yorkshire Dales, the whole drive in heavy rain. Two thirds of the drive was on the motorway. Going there I averaged just under 70, and on the return it was probably under 60mph. There were three people in the car, and the temperature was about 8C. I started out with 98% battery, and had 22% left when I got back. I wasn’t particularly heavy with my right foot. That gave me a range of less than 200 miles in an M3P. HVAC will have made a significant difference. On the way there we didn't use heated seats and the temperature was set to 20C. After more than four hours of walking in heavy rain, though we were all cold and wet, and on the way home we had three heated seats at level 2 and heating at 22C.

I think some people forget that the battery in the car is being used not just to get us from A to B, but for everything else that the car has to do to keep us comfortable.
A lot of my friends and family don't get why I don't get the full 310miles on my P+ all the time, or why the range drops by more than the distance we have travelled for a particular trip. The change in thinking from ICE to electric still hasn't sunk in with them - but that is understandable as I thought the same initially. Plus the impact of the weather on the battery is another factor.

 

[Artiste]

I think some people forget that the battery in the car is being used not just to get us from A to B, but for everything else that the car has to do to keep us comfortable.
A lot of my friends and family don't get why I don't get the full 310miles on my P+ all the time, or why the range drops by more than the distance we have travelled for a particular trip. The change in thinking from ICE to electric still hasn't sunk in with them - but that is understandable as I thought the same initially. Plus the impact of the weather on the battery is another factor.

That’s all absolutely true. It does show, though, that there are some disadvantages to driving an EV. Never before have I had to consider that cold/rain will significantly reduce my range, nor have I had to compromise my personal comfort on a cold day because of the impact on range on a long drive. And that’s starting out with range less than half that of an ICE car in the first place. Not that I’ll be going back to an ICE anytime soon.

 

[MrBadger]

There is clearly a balancing act to be had between range and cabin comfort. We have been getting a huge variance in efficiency recently. We are converging on something right, and in current temperature we are getting around 90% (260Wh/m), 3 up and a boot load as mixed speeds, mostly fast dual carriageway without any cabin discomfort except the odd cold draft when HVAC decides to do what it wants.

What last week we were getting 70-80% efficiency, this week were are getting >100% efficiency (one trip was 180Wh/m:123% vs 288Wh/m:76% and in cooler temperatures too) for nigh on identical trip. The difference was HVAC.

Still playing trying to find that happy medium, ie to avoid intermittent windscreen demist or not feeling cold, but its not easy to fathom the HVAC controls as they seem to have a mind of their own sometimes. Yet to nail what is going on.

 

[VT_EE]

I hear you about the tyre pressure - starting to wind me up. If they are all within 1 PSI of each other the alert needs to go off!

Having said that - since your mileage is a bit tenuous just now... why not pump em up to 45 all round? You will lose a bit of soft comfort - but efficiency should see a measurable bump up.

Go into the service menu and reset the TPMS after you have your desired tire pressure. You’ll stop seeing those warnings.

 

[Big Earl]

There is clearly a balancing act to be had between range and cabin comfort. We have been getting a huge variance in efficiency recently. We are converging on something right, and in current temperature we are getting around 90% (260Wh/m), 3 up and a boot load as mixed speeds, mostly fast dual carriageway without any cabin discomfort except the odd cold draft when HVAC decides to do what it wants.

What last week we were getting 70-80% efficiency, this week were are getting >100% efficiency (one trip was 180Wh/m:123% vs 288Wh/m:76% and in cooler temperatures too) for nigh on identical trip. The difference was HVAC.

Still playing trying to find that happy medium, ie to avoid intermittent windscreen demist or not feeling cold, but its not easy to fathom the HVAC controls as they seem to have a mind of their own sometimes. Yet to nail what is going on.

It doesn’t have to be a balancing act unless you’re on the edge of making it to your destination. For typical daily commutes, just leave the HVAC in auto at a comfortable temperature. Even on long trips, maintaining comfort just means an extra couple of minutes at the Superchargers. I’ve done quite a bit of winter traveling in single digit (°F) temperatures with snow... I don’t sacrifice comfort and I’ve never really been concerned about making it to my destination.

 

[MrBadger]

I didn't mean it was a balancing act getting to your destination.

I meant finding the balance between range vs cabin comfort.

However, following on from your comment, it still takes potentially valuable resources to run an EV and maximising efficiency and reducing duration or number of times you have to spend charging can still be important factors. A 20% efficiency improvement is 20% reduction in resource utilisation and charging costs or stretching another day before needing to charge. Not everyone has convenient access to charging facilities.

 

[LukeT]

I think one of the other things to note is how length of journey affects things differently to ICE. Obviously short journeys are worse for per mile consumption than long ones but because it takes so much longer to warm things up in normal use, eg limiting regen, than an ICE, the definition of "short" is different.

My 220 mile journey yesterday, in pretty poor weather generally, was still ok on average consumption. However my overall average consumption is rising because the short trips consume so much more than they did in the summer.

 

[-DB-]

Chill mode will get you more range for sure if you have a heavy right foot.

 

[Jason71]

I don't have that seal at the bottom of mine unfortunately. It is just metal to concrete.
I was thinking about the notch as you describe but my 32A switched socket arrived today and the outdoor lockable box it will be housed in with the UMC is due to arrive tomorrow so we should hopefully be wired up this weekend with a 32A supply to the car
Just need to source the appropriate wire that can manage the maximum current possible from consumer unit to socket.
Can't wait to be able to charge overnight and then precondition while still plugged in! The full benefits of the car in cold weather will be experienced next week (toasty warm in the morning )

what is it you need 6mm or 10mm? If it's only a short run try Wilkinsons they definitely sell 6mm not sure if they do 10mm but they do it by the meter.

 

[Yev000]

Surely far less efficient than a conventional ICE car.

All heaters, by definition, are 100% efficient. Whether that heat then serves a useful purpose is a separate issue.

With ICE heat is a byproduct of combustion. The heat is essentially 'waste' and you use some of it to warm the cabin. From the point of view of energy preservation it's very wasteful, especially so if you don't need the heat (i.e. in the summer).

With EV you choose to create heat, for your comfort. Converting electricity to heat is 100% efficient, but you can use that electricity for something else instead...

There is a separate requirement to get the battery warm to improve battery efficiency, but that heat does not make much of a difference in terms of comfort.

 

[adsheff]

Still playing trying to find that happy medium, ie to avoid intermittent windscreen demist or not feeling cold, but its not easy to fathom the HVAC controls as they seem to have a mind of their own sometimes. Yet to nail what is going on.

Seems to me that when you set HVAC on 'Auto', it only blows middle and bottom. In order to keep the windscreen clear without using the quick-clear button, you have to switch auto off and tell it to blow on the windscreen manually. I use that combined with the seat heater on long trips.

 

[MrBadger]

Our trip yesterday, we settled on temp 19C, windscreen, A/C on, fan 1 so sounds similar. Then bum warmers for a few minutes. The window kept clear (which was the most important thing), but then suddenly at one point there was a cold breeze over the drivers hands which we had no explanation why that suddenly happened. And what we also find is that if you use the preset window demist, then next time you go back into HVAC controls, it then seems to set everything back to auto.

Otherwise for that trip, 10C outside, early evening, no rain, it seemed to be quite successful. We got 247 Wh/Mile 89.8% Efficiency for a 50 mile trip which was better than both Tesla trip graph and ABP (abetterrouteplanner.com) predicted, but we did have several miles of stop/start traffic, so that may have helped even with lights and HVAC still running.

Definitely would like to be able to define some HVAC presets as its all very fiddly trying to change things whilst driving. Even better if they were voice activated.

Thinking about an earlier comment about heater accounting for approx 3 kW. Our trip was 1:25 and was 18% of battery. So at 3kW, that would have been approx 4.5kWh or 6-1/2% of battery. Almost certainly we were not pulling any where near 3kW of heat as when stationary and TeslaFi shows that when stationary in queue, we were pulling (value rounded by TeslaFi) 2kW most of the time.

 

[adsheff]

+1 for voice activated HVAC, I'd love that.
Can't think what the commands would be though!

 

[TM3PTN]

what is it you need 6mm or 10mm? If it's only a short run try Wilkinsons they definitely sell 6mm not sure if they do 10mm but they do it by the meter.

I’m don’t have a clue that’s what I need experts for
But that’s a good shout for where to get them from. I was going to head to B&Q and probably get hammered by them. I’ll give Wilkinson’s a shout.

 

[Yev000]

Thinking about an earlier comment about heater accounting for approx 3 kW. Our trip was 1:25 and was 18% of battery. So at 3kW, that would have been approx 4.5kWh or 6-1/2% of battery. Almost certainly we were not pulling any where near 3kW of heat as when stationary and TeslaFi shows that when stationary in queue, we were pulling (value rounded by TeslaFi) 2kW most of the time.

Think you misunderstood. 3KWh was for max defrost for 30min.

When the cabin is up to temp it's not pulling that much.

 

[MrBadger]

Think you misunderstood. 3KWh was for max defrost for 30min.

So 6kW then Thats a huge amount of power to heat such a small space.

 

[Yev000]

So 6kW then Thats a huge amount of power to heat such a small space.

Well, give it a go yourself with the new tesla app. The car felt like an oven getting in...

 

[NorfolkMustard]

I haven’t watched it yet, but Bjørn’s new video looks relevant

 

[MrBadger]

Well, give it a go yourself with the new tesla app. The car felt like an oven getting in...

I've done it. I'm not surprised it felt like an oven. Needed about 4 minutes to raise temperature from 5 to 23C with 6C outside temp - although I'm not convinced that it really got to 23C as it soon dropped down to 18C then back up to 21C setpoint but fan ran at 5 on auto. A pretty awful trip at 324/68% efficiency (which won't include the energy used in preheat) - week later 180/123% at 9C outside temp so fractionally warmer. Need to find that happy balance but auto HVAC is not it.

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