Is my 3 sucking juice all day to maintain 80%?

[Wdlfbio]

This is not a question about what’s best for the car. This is about my electricity usage being much higher than before getting the car, even when I rarely drive it.

I was out of town nearly 1/2 of December. My GF was gone almost the entire month. My electrical usage was the highest it’s ever been. Gas use was notably down. Furnace, stove, water heater are gas. Lights are LED, which a few were left on 24/7 wile we were away.

I leave the car in the garage, plugged in, 80% max. It probably wasn’t driven more than 5 times in December. Sentry is off at home. I’m thinking that leaving it plugged in is sucking some juice every day. A little amount that’s adding up over 30 days.

Am I right?

Should I drop it down to 30-40% and then just tell the app to bump it to 80% a couple hours before I know I’ll need to use the car? I just don’t want to be throwing away $30-$40 a month.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

This is not a question about what’s best for the car. This is about my electricity usage being much higher than before getting the car, even when I rarely drive it.

I was out of town nearly 1/2 of December. My GF was gone almost the entire month. My electrical usage was the highest it’s ever been. Gas use was notably down. Furnace, stove, water heater are gas. Lights are LED, which a few were left on 24/7 wile we were away.

I leave the car in the garage, plugged in, 80% max. It probably wasn’t driven more than 5 times in December. Sentry is off at home. I’m thinking that leaving it plugged in is sucking some juice every day. A little amount that’s adding up over 30 days.

Am I right?

Should I drop it down to 30-40% and then just tell the app to bump it to 80% a couple hours before I know I’ll need to use the car? I just don’t want to be throwing away $30-$40 a month.

It should use about 10-15W on average, very roughly. In California this is very expensive, but in Western WA where electricity is free, it should not be an issue. 10kWh or so per month. $1 or whatever.

It doesn’t matter very much what percentage you have it at, or whether you have it plugged in.

You can make sure it is sleeping via various means. If not, that would increase usage by about 10-20x depending on the severity. But nothing to do with being plugged in or the charge level.

 

[Black306]

What does your Charge Stats show? Didn’t drive my car for a couple weeks. It was plugged in and left at 75%, but the app doesn’t indicate any charging activity. (I did drive it on the 8th and afterwards) Checked my energy usage too; no signs of charging.

 

[derotam]

This is not a question about what’s best for the car. This is about my electricity usage being much higher than before getting the car, even when I rarely drive it.

I was out of town nearly 1/2 of December. My GF was gone almost the entire month. My electrical usage was the highest it’s ever been. Gas use was notably down. Furnace, stove, water heater are gas. Lights are LED, which a few were left on 24/7 wile we were away.

I leave the car in the garage, plugged in, 80% max. It probably wasn’t driven more than 5 times in December. Sentry is off at home. I’m thinking that leaving it plugged in is sucking some juice every day. A little amount that’s adding up over 30 days.

Am I right?

Should I drop it down to 30-40% and then just tell the app to bump it to 80% a couple hours before I know I’ll need to use the car? I just don’t want to be throwing away $30-$40 a month.

A little more info would be nice for us...

Define "highest its ever been"..... by how much? Preferably giving us your kWh usage for Dec this year vs Dec last year would probably be the most helpful...as long as you didn't have any other major changes between this year and last year.

If you can only say $30-40 increase, then we need your gross electricity rate to roughly calculate out the kWh... Gross electricity rate would be total bill charge divided by kWh used for the month.

Other helpful info would be how many total miles did you drive the car in December. The number of times driven doesn't really help.

When are you charging, immediately after driving, or later after the car has had time to cool down?

Are you preconditioning the car/cabin before driving?

 

[DuncanM]

This is not a question about what’s best for the car. This is about my electricity usage being much higher than before getting the car, even when I rarely drive it.

I was out of town nearly 1/2 of December. My GF was gone almost the entire month. My electrical usage was the highest it’s ever been. Gas use was notably down. Furnace, stove, water heater are gas. Lights are LED, which a few were left on 24/7 wile we were away.

I leave the car in the garage, plugged in, 80% max. It probably wasn’t driven more than 5 times in December. Sentry is off at home. I’m thinking that leaving it plugged in is sucking some juice every day. A little amount that’s adding up over 30 days.

Am I right?

Should I drop it down to 30-40% and then just tell the app to bump it to 80% a couple hours before I know I’ll need to use the car? I just don’t want to be throwing away $30-$40 a month.

How many miles did you put on the M3 during the billing period? Driven '5 times' could mean 500 miles driven and ~150 kwh consumed. The increased electrical bill must be understood in terms of reduced gas or diesel fuel costs.

The car should use about 1-2 kwh per day when charged to the set limit and parked with sentry mode and climate control off.

 

[ucmndd]

The car should use about 1-2 kwh per day when charged to the set limit and parked with sentry mode and climate control off.

In my experience it’s more like half that if the car is properly sleeping.

 

[davewill]

Yes, if the battery goes low enough, it will wake back up to charge. However, leaving it unplugged doesn't change anything. At some point, you're going to plug it in and the battery will get recharged and use essentially the same amount of power.

 

[jjrandorin]

Should I drop it down to 30-40% and then just tell the app to bump it to 80% a couple hours before I know I’ll need to use the car? I just don’t want to be throwing away $30-$40 a month.

1. The lowest you can set the charger in the app is 50%.

2. The amount of electricity lost needs to be made up somewhere. It wont matter whether you set it to 50% and charge it up right before you use it, or just leave it plugged in and let the car top up when it wants to. The amount of energy the car is using will need to be replenished either way so from a cost perspective it wont matter (you mentioned this is not about battery health).

Here is an analogy for what I am saying above in point #2. If you were out at dinner at a fine dining restaurant, with a glass of water on the table and its the type of place that has wait staff that refills the glass for you when they pass by, it wont make a difference if you gulp the whole glass at once and they come fill it, or you take small sips out of the glass during the entire meal and they fill it up each time you put the glass down. The amount of water you drink would be the same.

3. To know whether you are using more energy or not, you would need to know (among other things) if the car is properly sleeping. Its pretty common for new owners who find these forums before their delivery to also feel like they need to "gather all the datas!" and install one or more third party apps. Things like teslafi, teslamate, tessie, stats, watch for tesla, etc etc.

Those can wake the car if not configured properly, and having more than one of those increases those odds. most of them can be configured to minimize this, but the whenever anyone asks about "is my car draining overnight?" the very (very) first thing that should be investigated is if the car is sleeping.

4. OP can check the new energy app in the car to see what the car says about energy usage.

 

[stesta5074]

Either sentry mode is on or someone who drove the car "5 times" left the defroster on one of those times for days.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

The car should use about 1-2 kwh per day when charged to the set limit and parked with sentry mode and climate control off.

This is incorrect. Current “best” phantom drain on a 2018 Model 3 is about 1 rated mile per day (it might be higher and rounded down). I’ve observed this on my car over a four-day interval, of course excluding the first 12 hours or so (nothing that happens in the first 12 hours matters).

One displayed rated mile is 234Wh on that vehicle.

So I’d expect no more than about 300Wh per day when properly configured. Could it be as high as 350Wh? Sure.

I don’t think this changes if the car is plugged in, though I have not checked that, and of course it is hard to measure.

Of course, from the wall, you have to divide these numbers by about 0.9 to account for charging losses, which best case are 10% (and can be as high as 25% depending on the charging speed).

the very (very) first thing that should be investigated is if the car is sleeping.

Yes. Either buy a 12V monitor (no idea whether these work on the “12V” lithium ions of course), or listen very carefully to your car when you are hanging out near it for a few hours. It’s quite obvious when it is sleeping, and the transitions are easy to detect as well, since they are audible. Your car should be absolutely quiet and there should be no clunking (in the wrong direction, which is also easy to detect audibly; the sounds are completely different).

 

[Big Earl]

The car should use about 1-2 kwh per day when charged to the set limit and parked with sentry mode and climate control off.

Definitely not. I parked my long-range car for seven weeks and it used less than 20% of the battery. If 1 kWh per day was accurate, it would have used close to 100% of the battery.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Definitely not. I parked my long-range car for seven weeks and it used less than 20% of the battery. If 1 kWh per day was accurate, it would have used close to 100% of the battery.

Assuming you’re at about 290 miles or so at 100% on a 2018 dual motor, that is 71kWh. But it is 20% of 95.5% of this value, or 13.6kWh.

Over 49 days, 1176 hours, that is 11.5W on average.

Seems about right. (276Wh/day, slightly more than one displayed rated mile per day for your vehicle)

 

[DuncanM]

Definitely not. I parked my long-range car for seven weeks and it used less than 20% of the battery. If 1 kWh per day was accurate, it would have used close to 100% of the battery.

I don't doubt your figures, but I was basing my estimate on my observed consumption when the car is in the garage and woken periodically by me. Regardless, using an extra 30-60 kwh per month is still a small amount of power compared to the average home usage over a month.

 

[Wdlfbio]

I can’t do a Nov & Dec 2021 to 2022 comparison because the electrical company had estimated read in Nov 21, then swapped out our meter in Dec 2021.

Oct 2022 1,320 kWh
Nov 2022 1,426 kWh (her gone 10 days)
Dec 2022 1,472 kWh (with her being gone 3ish weeks and me gone 2 weeks)

My charging habit is get home, pull into garage, plug car in to start recharging immediately. My energy company doesn’t have cheaper rates at night, so I don’t have any charging schedule set up. I do activate the climate control (70° inside with my seat on medium and steering wheel heated) before heading using the car.

The monthly charging per the app doesn’t show daily draws from the grid. But if there’s a small “maintenance draw” to keep the car at 80%, without actually charging the car, then $2 a day means $60 a month…it adds up. We pay about $0.11 per kWh.

I have no external apps downloaded. I enjoy the preheating from the house, then mashing the pedal to the floor to go forward. Listen to Spotify on the road. I will check on her “sleeping” while I’m working around in the garage. But. If Dec 2022 shows $14 in charging costs and I had 1,472 kWh used at the house, maybe I’m burning electricity somewhere I don’t know. I’m buying a handful of outlet monitors that I’ll be connecting to various appliances. I was really thinking it had to be the car, since we were gone 2-3 weeks out of December, yet burned more electricity than ever.


I have a work rig during the week and a dually that gets driven now and again, which is why I don’t drive the Tesla a whole lot. In fact, I’m under 5k miles since delivery in Feb 2022.

 

[davewill]

But if there’s a small “maintenance draw” to keep the car at 80%, without actually charging the car,

It DOES charge the car. If you left the car unplugged, and came back a week later you would find the battery at some level lower than 80%. The power is consumed whether you leave the car plugged in or not, and that missing power will have to come from the wall sooner or later.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

, then $2 a day means $60 a month…it adds up. We pay about $0.11 per kWh.

It’s not $2 per day. That would be 18kWh per day, 545kWh per month. That’s not what you are seeing.

I’d look elsewhere for your energy consumption. You’re using 2kW of energy on average. That is not the car even if it were idle all the time (which it probably is not). If you have a heat pump, or a computer server, I’d look there. Air conditioning units often consume 40W or so all the time, when not in use (they have a heater to keep refrigerant and oil separated) - but this would be a small contributor.

If you drive 500 miles a month I expect your costs to be roughly:

1.3*300Wh/mi*500mi *$0.11/kWh = $21.50 per month (200kWh).

The 1.3 factor is just really rough and accounts for several factors (charging setup, phantom drain (scalar dependent on miles per month since this is actually fixed), etc.)

A car sitting in your garage with no use, sleeping properly, represents an approximate 10-15W load, a bit less than 1% of your current average load.

 

[Kimmi]

“but in Western WA where electricity is free” ???

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

“but in Western WA where electricity is free” ???

It’s from hydro so it is basically free. I pay $16 a month to get that rate for 7 hours a night.

 

[Black306]

I can’t do a Nov & Dec 2021 to 2022 comparison because the electrical company had estimated read in Nov 21, then swapped out our meter in Dec 2021.

Oct 2022 1,320 kWh
Nov 2022 1,426 kWh (her gone 10 days)
Dec 2022 1,472 kWh (with her being gone 3ish weeks and me gone 2 weeks)

My charging habit is get home, pull into garage, plug car in to start recharging immediately. My energy company doesn’t have cheaper rates at night, so I don’t have any charging schedule set up. I do activate the climate control (70° inside with my seat on medium and steering wheel heated) before heading using the car.

The monthly charging per the app doesn’t show daily draws from the grid. But if there’s a small “maintenance draw” to keep the car at 80%, without actually charging the car, then $2 a day means $60 a month…it adds up. We pay about $0.11 per kWh.

I have no external apps downloaded. I enjoy the preheating from the house, then mashing the pedal to the floor to go forward. Listen to Spotify on the road. I will check on her “sleeping” while I’m working around in the garage. But. If Dec 2022 shows $14 in charging costs and I had 1,472 kWh used at the house, maybe I’m burning electricity somewhere I don’t know. I’m buying a handful of outlet monitors that I’ll be connecting to various appliances. I was really thinking it had to be the car, since we were gone 2-3 weeks out of December, yet burned more electricity than ever.
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I have a work rig during the week and a dually that gets driven now and again, which is why I don’t drive the Tesla a whole lot. In fact, I’m under 5k miles since delivery in Feb 2022.

With your Charge Stats showing no charging most days in December, I'm thinking a power drain is elsewhere. Since I have charging scheduled at midnight, it's pretty obvious when the car is pulling power. Even a small blimp on 1/16 in the Charging Stats shows in my energy usage.

 

[Wdlfbio]

Thank you all. Free electricity in WA is funny. Somewhat related, I got my new registration fees. Two EV-specific road use fees, $150 and $75. I get that this rig needs to pay into the roads system since I’m not paying gas taxes, but state gas taxes are roughly $0.47 a gallon. My 5,000 miles comes out to just over $1 a gallon at 25 miles per gallon…my EV is being charged twice what a 25 mpg ICE rig pays. I just love the WA governor….