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How to precondition while near a supercharger

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I asked this of the service advisor at the Maplewood, MN SC and he had no answer for me.

I will be traveling to Seattle from Minnesota soon. I would like to stop for the night at a supercharger city/site but don't want to charge necessarily until morning. I prefer to charge while my wife is still getting ready to leave. The question is, how do I get the car to precondition? I know when going to a super charger, you set the destination to that charger and it preconditions automatically. I would like to tell the car, "I am going to this super charger at 7:00 am. Precondition for me by then". And, I know (or am pretty sure) that setting the environment on for the car does not do this, nor do I think, setting a departure time does it.

Thanks
 
I've been wondering the same thing, except in relation to other brands of DC fast chargers like Electrify America. The car knows that when your destination is a SC, it needs to precondition. I'd like it to do the same when my destination is an EA site, even if it is a manual process to let the car know it needs to start preconditioning.
 
On long trips, I try to stop in towns with Superchargers as a back up, but prefer to find a hotel with L2, J1772 charging. Let it charge overnight.
 
I've been wondering the same thing, except in relation to other brands of DC fast chargers like Electrify America. The car knows that when your destination is a SC, it needs to precondition. I'd like it to do the same when my destination is an EA site, even if it is a manual process to let the car know it needs to start preconditioning.
1) Track mode/launch mode heats the battery.
2) set nav system for the nearest tesla supercharger to get it preconditioning then use your phone to navigate to the EA charger.

I would like to stop for the night at a supercharger city/site but don't want to charge necessarily until morning. I prefer to charge while my wife is still getting ready to leave. The question is, how do I get the car to precondition?
As above, track mode if available, otherwise get up earlier, set the Nav for the supercharger and drive aimlessly till it warms up. Its easier to charge on arrival when the battery is already warm and you have time to precondition. Is charging for 10 minutes on arrival then charging later the following day an option?

Or stay somewhere with a destination charger and charge overnight to avoid the supercharger all together.
 
I asked this of the service advisor at the Maplewood, MN SC and he had no answer for me.

I will be traveling to Seattle from Minnesota soon. I would like to stop for the night at a supercharger city/site but don't want to charge necessarily until morning. I prefer to charge while my wife is still getting ready to leave. The question is, how do I get the car to precondition? I know when going to a super charger, you set the destination to that charger and it preconditions automatically. I would like to tell the car, "I am going to this super charger at 7:00 am. Precondition for me by then". And, I know (or am pretty sure) that setting the environment on for the car does not do this, nor do I think, setting a departure time does it.

Thanks
In all my years of driving Teslas I have NEVER preconditioned my car. The car seems to be able to figure out what it needs just fine.
 
When traveling in winter I’ll try to find a hotel with a Level 2 charger and plugin over night. Failing that I charge up to 90% at the SuperCharger while the battery is still warm and then the next morning go back to the SuperCharger to charge just long enough to heat the battery.
 
As above, track mode if available, otherwise get up earlier, set the Nav for the supercharger and drive aimlessly till it warms up.
No need to drive around. I've sat in a McDonald's parking lot, and set the nav to the next charging stop, and saw the preconditioning battery message pop up, as well as the loud whine the car does when preconditioning, even tho I was still in park.
 
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The OP is from Minnesota and I’m surprised that you can get away with not charging at night during the winter.

I learned firsthand how hard it is to charge a cold cold battery.

i posted this in Jan of 2018 before the days of preconditioning:

Last February I needed to spend the night in Butte, MT and stayed at the Best Western that shares the parking lot with the Supercharger.

A very cold night was forecast so I made sure to charge up to 85% the night before with the intent to finish my range charge in the morning to help warm up the battery.

When I got up it was -6F and when I tried to use the supercharger I got the slowly blinking green ring but zero kW. Same on two other chargers. Thinking it was the very cold battery I turned the heat up full with the car still connected to the Supercharger and went to breakfast.

It took 30 minutes but slowly it began to charge, first 5 kW, 10 kW and finally up to 30 kW



i never leave an empty battery to sit out overnight.
 
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No need to drive around. I've sat in a McDonald's parking lot, and set the nav to the next charging stop, and saw the preconditioning battery message pop up, as well as the loud whine the car does when preconditioning, even tho I was still in park.
That may work. What I did last time was set the destination to the supercharger and went back into the hotel. That did not work since the car shut back down. If I have to stay in the car, then I might as well just got to the charger and sit there on the charger at a lower rate due to not being preconditioned. :)

Thanks
 
1) Track mode/launch mode heats the battery.
2) set nav system for the nearest tesla supercharger to get it preconditioning then use your phone to navigate to the EA charger.


As above, track mode if available, otherwise get up earlier, set the Nav for the supercharger and drive aimlessly till it warms up. Its easier to charge on arrival when the battery is already warm and you have time to precondition. Is charging for 10 minutes on arrival then charging later the following day an option?

Or stay somewhere with a destination charger and charge overnight to avoid the supercharger all together.
Charging upon arrival is the best option and ensuring enough charge in the morning is most likely what I will do.

Thanks.
 
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That may work. What I did last time was set the destination to the supercharger and went back into the hotel. That did not work since the car shut back down. If I have to stay in the car, then I might as well just got to the charger and sit there on the charger at a lower rate due to not being preconditioned. :)

Thanks
Maybe place something heavy on the drivers seat, lol... I've done that before while futzing with my wipers... I know I was in Camp Mode when I did the thing in the McDonalds parking lot... I didn't try to get out of the car tho, so I have no idea if it will continue to precondition if you exit while the car is in camp mode with the navigation set to a SC...
 
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I thought I had this worked out, but I guess not. I'm on a road trip and decided to stay at the hotel that had the Supercharger because the run from here to the next charger is on the limit of what my 2019 SR+ can comfortably do and I wanted the battery to be nice and warm before I started driving. I knew that it was going to be cold in the morning, so when I got in I charged while I checked in to get me to about 50% SOC. I moved from the charger and set the preconditioning to have the car ready to go in the morning. I figured that that would warm up the battery for fast charging and that topping up in the morning would be quick and would give me my best range. Well, it was 28 F in the morning and the cabin was warm when I went out to top up at the V3 charger but I was surprised that I was only getting 28kW. I tried another charger and got the same. Now I've been charging for almost an hour at 28kW and the battery warming icon is still on.

From my reading, it sounds like preconditioning with the car unplugged should still warm up the battery. Does anyone know if that is correct? It also seems like it shouldn't take an hour to warm up the battery while I'm plugged in to a V3 charger. Does anyone have any experience with this? Heck, it's not THAT cold.
 
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I thought I had this worked out, but I guess not. I'm on a road trip and decided to stay at the hotel that had the Supercharger because the run from here to the next charger is on the limit of what my 2019 SR+ can comfortably do and I wanted the battery to be nice and warm before I started driving. I knew that it was going to be cold in the morning, so when I got in I charged while I checked in to get me to about 50% SOC. I moved from the charger and set the preconditioning to have the car ready to go in the morning. I figured that that would warm up the battery for fast charging and that topping up in the morning would be quick and would give me my best range. Well, it was 28 F in the morning and the cabin was warm when I went out to top up at the V3 charger but I was surprised that I was only getting 28kW. I tried another charger and got the same. Now I've been charging for almost an hour at 28kW and the battery warming icon is still on.

From my reading, it sounds like preconditioning with the car unplugged should still warm up the battery. Does anyone know if that is correct? It also seems like it shouldn't take an hour to warm up the battery while I'm plugged in to a V3 charger. Does anyone have any experience with this? Heck, it's not THAT cold.
I could be wrong, but I don't believe that preheating the vehicle has any relationship to preconditioning the battery. Lesson learned...you should have topped off when you arrived. The battery is a HUGE thermal mass and it takes a very long time to warm it up, especially if it's only pulling 28kW (the "waste" heat from the charging process is probably equivalent to a small hair dryer).
 
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Several years back, Bjorn posted a video on YouTube of being in a similar situation (cold soaked battery charging slowly in the morning). The fix was to “drag race” the car a little. Several minutes of full power accelerations, regen braking to slow down, and rhen repeating that helped warm the battery up to take a faster charge rate.

As mentioned, charge to 90% at the end of the day if your battery will cold soak overnight and then top off the battery in the morning before heading out. Attempting to charge a cold battery first thing in the morning will yield poor results.
 
It also seems like it shouldn't take an hour to warm up the battery while I'm plugged in to a V3 charger. Does anyone have any experience with this?
Last winter I had to overnight in Idaho Falls on my way home to Jackson. That morning it was -18ºF and the battery was cold-soaked. It took over an hour connected to a SuperCharger for the battery to warm up enough to begin charging.
 
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I could be wrong, but I don't believe that preheating the vehicle has any relationship to preconditioning the battery.
Well the owners manual explicitly states that setting the climate will condition the batteries. However, I don't think it's for faster charging, I think it's mostly for more efficient driving and regen. I use it for that all the time, since I live on a hill, and driving down the hill in the morning with zero regen is a pain.
 
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The main reason to pre-condition is simply to allow faster charging. Unless you have a big priority to shorten the charging duration or are in unusually cold climate conditions, I think you can skip it at a whim

I have one place that I often charge at while having lunch - it actually works better to purposely not pre-condition so that I don't have to leave the table to unplug before finished eating.