Huuuuge spike in power usage, over 750 Wh/Mi

[Puffy]

Hi all:
Yesterday I was leaving my office and just cruising around local city road, nothing fancy, no lead foot, no heater seat/dead weight/dead body, just hauling myself in the car, and my MX was showing I was somehow averaging 750 Wh/Mi on last 15 miles and draining the battery like crazy! At one time the chart went close to the 900 mark, it was insane! I normally average maybe 420 around town but for a span of 5 minutes it was averaging 700-800. Had 160 range but it was Projected range of 70, burning thru my juice. I was freaking out, thinking maybe somehow my car is about to burn up but it went away after maybe 5-10 minutes of driving around. Anyone else seen that? I was afraid of pulling to the side and resetting the car and thankfully it went away.....on V9 42.2

 

[astrowunder]

I've seen it that high over a mile or 2 but not for 15 miles

 

[Solarman004]

How cold was it? I've seen this on my X when the battery heater is running in the background on a short drive. It eventually comes down as the battery warms.

 

[travwill]

Temp is key, if cold outside. Heater still has to warm up the battery potentially even if your not using the cabin heater for air. Cold days if not preheating or plugged in can quickly be 1000+ and then start to drop after a bit of driving, definitely 10 miles or so.

 

[Saghost]

6 kW cabin heater; I think the battery coolant heater is about the same. If you're driving at 30 mph, that would add ~400 Wh/mile on top of normal usage (more if you go slower, less if faster.)

But if it's the heaters, you should see massively high numbers when you first turn on that drop over time as the car warms up and you add miles to the denominator. If your experience doesn't follow this pattern it's likely something else (unless you turned the HVAC on in the middle of the drive or something odd like that.)

 

[Big Earl]

Battery heater and/or cabin heater. Heated seats use basically no power (30 Watts?), while the battery and cabin heaters can use up to 6,000 Watts each. The first few miles of any cold-soaked trip will always use more energy as the systems are warmed up, just like a gasoline or modern diesel car uses significantly more fuel during the first couple of miles.

If you're making a bunch of short trips and you don't want to waste energy warming up the battery, you can turn range mode on. Range mode disables the battery heater and reduces the cabin heater power by 50%. Keep in mind that you may not be able to charge in very cold weather with range mode on, since the battery cannot accept any power when it is below freezing.

 

[Puffy]

hmmm, it was 55 outside and a little drizzle and I had used Tesla Plus to preschedule my car to warm up to 71 at 6:45PM so it was already preheated when I got into the car.

 

[jboy210]

hmmm, it was 55 outside and a little drizzle and I had used Tesla Plus to preschedule my car to warm up to 71 at 6:45PM so it was already preheated when I got into the car.

I wonder if the pre-heating Kwatts were included in the data used to compute the average. Using several Kw while traveling 0.0 miles is really messes with the average Wh/mi.

 

[fsch]

Yeah, probably battery and cabin heating. In really bad conditions (cold, slow trafic), I already achieved 4311 Wh/mile

 

[Big Earl]

I wonder if the pre-heating Kwatts were included in the data used to compute the average. Using several Kw while traveling 0.0 miles is really messes with the average Wh/mi.

Pre-heating is not included in the calculations.

 

[bayx]

I had the yellow triangle show up too in the morning, but not the noise that you mention. What does that yellow triangle mean?

It shows up near the kw half circle, which also turns a bit yellow and was -50 kw, Avg 369 Wh/mi past 15 miles. What does it mean; should I be concerned?

 

[Peteski]

I had the yellow triangle show up too in the morning, but not the noise that you mention. What does that yellow triangle mean?

It shows up near the kw half circle, which also turns a bit yellow and was -50 kw, Avg 369 Wh/mi past 15 miles. What does it mean; should I be concerned?

It just limits the amount of regeneration available when cold. Nothing to worry about, it's normal.

 

[Big Earl]

I had the yellow triangle show up too in the morning, but not the noise that you mention. What does that yellow triangle mean?

It shows up near the kw half circle, which also turns a bit yellow and was -50 kw, Avg 369 Wh/mi past 15 miles. What does it mean; should I be concerned?

It means regeneration is limited to the beginning of the yellow portion of the circle. Sometimes if it's really cold or you have a low state of charge, the dashed yellow lines will also show up on the power side of the meter.

 

[Saghost]

It means regeneration is limited to the beginning of the yellow portion of the circle. Sometimes if it's really cold or you have a low state of charge, the dashed yellow lines will also show up on the power side of the meter.

Dashed lines on the power side also come from overheated drive motors, usually due to extends high speed aggressive driving.

 

[bayx]

Dashed lines on the power side also come from overheated drive motors, usually due to extends high speed aggressive driving.

I was going 25m/hr, so its likely regeneration limit, but good to know about the overheated drive motors too.