"Less energy is available due to cold battery" trying to charge

[Brass Guy]

No quite correct. You are getting 32Kw which is about 128 amps @240v.

Except it's a supercharger, so probably well above 300v. Another disappointment with V8, no more volt/amp display while supercharging.

 

[AWDtsla]

I don't think we know that, I suspect that Tesla doesn't consider 30A @ 207v "plenty of power". If someone comes back and says that the battery heater won't turn on with a 40A @ 240v supply, then I would agree that things are really wrong.

It's definitely enough power, and certainly superior to spending a whole day at 1A. But I'll remember to go check 30A @~200V on this week's firmware, not that it helps anyone.

 

[Big Earl]

Slightly off topic but what is the software @yobigd20 used for screenshots?

Those appear to be screen shots from his phone using both the Chargepoint and Tesla apps.

 

[Kipernicus]

never mind the car, his phone was at 5%!

 

[MP3Mike]

never mind the car, his phone was at 5%!

Yeah, apparently he runs his phone battery down just as much as he does his car!

 

[AWDtsla]

Running battery heater off J1772. Plenty of power. Oh and that puts the actual heater consumption at ~4.5kW even with 90% SoC.

 

[scottm]

Kinda makes me want to splice in a switch somewhere that just turns the f'n battery heater ON without asking Tesla software if it's OK.

 

[hiroshiy]

Running battery heater off J1772. Plenty of power. Oh and that puts the actual heater consumption at ~4.5kW even with 90% SoC.

This screenshot looks like to show that while the battery heater is on, the battery can't be charged? Of course the heater can be used while discharging.
Isn't it possible to split the current between the heater and the battery? Maybe not, that's why in @yobigd20 's case the car only used 1A for charging and didn't turn on the battery heater with remaining power?

 

[Brass Guy]

This screenshot looks like to show that while the battery heater is on, the battery can't be charged? Of course the heater can be used while discharging.
Isn't it possible to split the current between the heater and the battery? Maybe not, that's why in @yobigd20 's case the car only used 1A for charging and didn't turn on the battery heater with remaining power?

Notice the image shows "Charging Complete," indicating the SOC has reached the set limit; probably 90%.

 

[Ulmo]

I was on the phone with Tesla for over an hour.

Basically at 10 miles range , the battery was in a 'cold soaked' state, and would only accept a charge rate at 1A until the battery state of charge was > 10%, at which point it would resume a normal rate of charge. There wasn't anything wrong with the charger itself, since when I turned the cabin heat on you could see on the display and on the chargepoint unit that it would jump up to 30A. But turning cabin heat off it falls back to 1A. The power was there. The car just wouldn't use it for normal charging or heating the battery pack.

So I waited 4 hours sitting there charging at 1A, at which point it only accumulated 4 miles now up to 14 miles range. Started at 6:30pm now at 10:30pm , still half the range of what I needed to get to the supercharger at the rate it would eat it. So I found a holiday inn 1.5 miles away that also had an L2 charger. So I headed over there, of course eating 5 miles range to get there. So its back to 9 miles, still cold soaked, and I had to start process all over again and I got a room for the night. It only charged about 1-1.5 miles/hour before it got to 10% around 25 miles and then it kicked up to charging 6-7mph. It basically took about 10-12 hours to get out of this cold soaked state to resume normal charging. Once I had enough charge I left and went to supercharger which charged normally.

I've taken the car down this low before many times but never encountered this state before. The Tesla guy said basically it would only pull this 1A until it got itself out of this state, but that most of that 1A was being used to try and warm the battery. It would not use any more power than that to warm the battery any faster. He was remotely monitoring the car and the battery temps and the temps just would not increase until after the SOC was over 10%, and once that happened then it would use 30A to charge the car.

I've had this car 5 years now, 163k miles, taken it down lower than 10 miles many times. although last month the car did shut down on the highway with 8 miles range left on display. (NO RESERVE PEOPLES....hate it when I see people say 'car has 10-20 miles reserve', just not true. battery range is estimation, and like what happened to me has happened to many the car will shut down even when it shows +range.)

Anyway, throughout 5yr/163k miles never once saw this 'cold soaked state' before where it refused to charge or warm the battery pack until it was over 10% state of charge. this must be new in some recent software update...prettty crappy. I'll have to make sure never to bring the car that low again, and never to leave it parked if its under 50 or so miles range on the display because i dont want to get stuck for 12 hours again.

It makes 0 sense to me that the pack wouldn't draw energy from the charger in order to heat the pack when in that state. Who cares if it's cold soaked and wants to charge slowly? Go ahead and draw the power from the charge cable to heat it up so that it can do the right amount of slow charging, not total disabled mode.

 

[Ulmo]

I learned this lesson in November on my first family roadtrip in the Tesla, Had an early cold snap low single digits told the car to charge to 90% then told it 100% when I got up. Since it had hit 90% 7 hours earlier the pack was cold and the car proceeded to eat a few miles......... Once I got on the road energy use was over 500kwh and car was telling me I wouldn't make the supercharger I picked180miles away so I detoured to catch a supercharger little more than an hour from home but as I drove and the battery warmed energy use came WAY WAY down to like 330, I could have made the supercharger I wanted to but my inexperience led me to commit to a detour that was 30minutes extra drive, besides hitting a supercharger with a fairly full battery which is slow. I didn't bitch as Tesla I learned from my mistakes.

Ok, but now that we've seen this, the Tesla nav should know this and plan for it.

 

[sorka]

It makes 0 sense to me that the pack wouldn't draw energy from the charger in order to heat the pack when in that state. Who cares if it's cold soaked and wants to charge slowly? Go ahead and draw the power from the charge cable to heat it up so that it can do the right amount of slow charging, not total disabled mode.

Also doesn't make sense to me. The battery has it's own heater to use when needed to increase battery temp. In my P85D, I can even turn it on manually. I think OPs battery heater doesn't work. I had a cooling system louver failure that prevented me from supercharging at a normal rate for 6 months. Tesla found the alert in the logs and replaced the louver restoring normal charging speed but it never triggered a trouble code on the car. They had to open a Toolbox request to even see it which they didn't do the first visit where they said everything was normal. The next week, I went to a different service center, checked the car in, and they called me later to say the louver alert had been there for months.

 

[Ulmo]

Also doesn't make sense to me. The battery has it's own heater to use when needed to increase battery temp. In my P85D, I can even turn it on manually. I think OPs battery heater doesn't work. I had a cooling system louver failure that prevented me from supercharging at a normal rate for 6 months. Tesla found the alert in the logs and replaced the louver restoring normal charging speed but it never triggered a trouble code on the car. They had to open a Toolbox request to even see it which they didn't do the first visit where they said everything was normal. The next week, I went to a different service center, checked the car in, and they called me later to say the louver alert had been there for months.

That reminds me of something:

Tesla could literally hire someone full time to manage the collection of all of these implied fixes and improvements to the software and sometimes the hardware design of the car from their own service manager experiences and from this forum, and while they claim to actually do that sometimes, I've seen plenty of cases where they seem not to. But in my opinion, that is the level of refinement necessary to match the quality I had come to expect from other car manufacturers, and is something that will hurt their brand at some point when they get some real competition. The way to prepare for that is to actually solve those issues. It takes years to work those things out, the same years that their competition is slowly ramping up. Ignoring it won't make it go away.

Yes, they imrpoved this problem with the Model 3, but they never circled back to the Model S and X to come in and fix it. Your louver with no service notification, and the coolant system in Model S & X that doesn't inform the driver that their EVSE isn't putting out enough kW to run the constant-power battery heater plus some options on how to deal with that. Maybe there is a setting in software available that turns on brakes and motor in such a way it doesn't damage the vehicle but does put off some heat into the battery pack in a S or X somewhat like what Model 3 does; but we've been told this isn't available in S or X. At the very least, they could tell you to put on the cabin heater so you can stay warm, and have AAA send out a manual battery heater (stuff some sausage-shaped insulation around the perimeter of the bottom of the car while blowing in heated air), or even just deliver a power source that is enough kW to run the pack heater even at 0%SOC or 0 miles.

When it was 29ºF in December of 2016 and I got down to 0 rated miles left in my late 2016 Model S 60D (with 75kWh pack) due to higher battery use in winter than I was aware and a Chademo station that did not work, I had to plug into a 120VAC 20 amp outlet that I found at a store using the UMC (at that 120VAC 15amp outlet, there wasn't enough heat to run the cabin heater, and even putting on all my clothes and an emergency blanket wasn't enough to stay very warm), where I took two hours to charge 3 miles to a proper EVSE. That EVSE allowed me to turn on the cabin heater AND get enough power to get to the next Chademo after that, which took me half an hour to get working (it was in a bad state too), but after working on that one, IT worked, and then I was able to get to the SuperCharger. Lesson: never buy a short range Tesla or short range EV of any kind, and always plan for chargers that don't work (i.e., have backups within range).

But I wonder even in my case of 29ºF if I would have experienced problems with the new software changes OP experienced in non-Californian weather, or if it was simply a case of not enough energy to run the heater element placed in the S & X battery packs. To me that seems like a bad design.

 

[SSedan]

Ok, but now that we've seen this, the Tesla nav should know this and plan for it.

Nav uses recent energy use rate, being first cold snap there was not yet increased use history.
Far as Nav seeing ahead more should it take weather forecast and route and all into account? Then people will complain it takes too long to calculate.

The Nav works pretty well at forecasting energy use given it's limited inputs and is just fine by me. In winter I believe heater use is significantly impacted by cloudy vs. sunny so should the nav have access to the light sensor for the auto headlights too? Maybe that sensor should be upgraded for variable output so the Nav knows how strong the sun is.

We all have wildly complex computers between our ears that can process a lot of variables. My experience let my computer work better the next time.

 

[yobigd20]

So this happened again to me. I’m stuck at a hotel again because the car will not charge when it’s 0 degrees outside. This time around I made it to a supercharger with 40 miles remaining, but I sat there for 2 hours charging at 0-1kw and gained no range at all and it just keeps telling me that “less energy is available because it’s cold” or some crap like that. So now it’s 1am and 0 degrees and I’m freezing my ass off dying of hypothermia. Oh btw if I turn the heat on I lose range even though I’m plugged into a SUPERCHARGER.

So I gave up and now I’m at a hotel charging at 1amp and 0mph on a J1772. I guess I have to way for daylight again to warm up the surrounding air by 10 degrees or so before it will start to charge. This is so inconvenient. And it’s costing me money. I can’t make it home. My wife has to take off work or bring 3 kids to work with her. I have to burn a vacation day as well as miss a dentist appointment (this is the 3rd time in 2 weeks I have to cancel on them, they are not going to be very happy with me). At this point I’ve been having so many range and charging issues I’m considering selling my P85 and going back to an ICE car because I’m just tired of all this bullshit and how much time it keeps me away from my family because every week it takes me 8 hours including charging stops to drive home to my family when a normal car would only take 3.5. It was cool for a while but after 180k miles and so many lost hours waiting around charging I’m just done with this crap. Plus the nearest service center to me is 5 hours away. And local brake shops tell me I have to go to Tesla for brake pads because they are “special order” only from Tesla. Whatever. I’m out and want a normal car again.

 

[Brass Guy]

Again with extremely low power draw?
I reviewed his thread quickly, trying to remember what you wrote about range mode and the battery heater. Then it occurred to me - I bet your battery heater is not functioning at all.
If the battery heater is functioning, the draw from shore power should be near 6kW if it's cold soaked. Since your draw is much lower than that, your battery heater is not working. I'm not certain, but I think this heater is part of the cooling system so would not be covered under the battery warranty.

 

[Graffi]

If I understand correctly:

What matters is the Battery Temp, not outside air temp. In this case, on VERY cold days or nights, make sure you charge up your battery before parking for long periods of time when the battery can get cold soaked. This way, as you use the battery it will warm up and by the next Supercharger stop the battery will be warm enough to accept a full charge rate even if the outside are temp is very low.

jmho

oh, and call service so they can check your online records to see if in fact the battery heater is working or not. If not, then in very cold temps you need to get it fixed.

 

[mspohr]

So this happened again to me. I’m stuck at a hotel again because the car will not charge when it’s 0 degrees outside. This time around I made it to a supercharger with 40 miles remaining, but I sat there for 2 hours charging at 0-1kw and gained no range at all and it just keeps telling me that “less energy is available because it’s cold” or some crap like that. So now it’s 1am and 0 degrees and I’m freezing my ass off dying of hypothermia. Oh btw if I turn the heat on I lose range even though I’m plugged into a SUPERCHARGER.

So I gave up and now I’m at a hotel charging at 1amp and 0mph on a J1772. I guess I have to way for daylight again to warm up the surrounding air by 10 degrees or so before it will start to charge. This is so inconvenient. And it’s costing me money. I can’t make it home. My wife has to take off work or bring 3 kids to work with her. I have to burn a vacation day as well as miss a dentist appointment (this is the 3rd time in 2 weeks I have to cancel on them, they are not going to be very happy with me). At this point I’ve been having so many range and charging issues I’m considering selling my P85 and going back to an ICE car because I’m just tired of all this bullshit and how much time it keeps me away from my family because every week it takes me 8 hours including charging stops to drive home to my family when a normal car would only take 3.5. It was cool for a while but after 180k miles and so many lost hours waiting around charging I’m just done with this crap. Plus the nearest service center to me is 5 hours away. And local brake shops tell me I have to go to Tesla for brake pads because they are “special order” only from Tesla. Whatever. I’m out and want a normal car again.

Bjorn has a great video about this problem. He takes the car on several high acceleration high regen runs to warm up the battery. Works great.

 

[MP3Mike]

I'm not certain, but I think this heater is part of the cooling system so would not be covered under the battery warranty.

Nope, the battery warranty covers the battery pack, not the heating/cooling/charging system.

 

[scottm]

So this happened again to me. I’m stuck at a hotel again because the car will not charge when it’s 0 degrees outside. This time around I made it to a supercharger with 40 miles remaining, but I sat there for 2 hours charging at 0-1kw and gained no range at all and it just keeps telling me that “less energy is available because it’s cold” or some crap like that. So now it’s 1am and 0 degrees and I’m freezing my ass off dying of hypothermia. Oh btw if I turn the heat on I lose range even though I’m plugged into a SUPERCHARGER.

So I gave up ...

Had you been driving around for while when you arrived at the SC. Or did you take a cold soaked car to a SC?

There is something wrong with the car if you have been driving around for quite a while and arrive at supercharger and plug in and only get 1kW. Get that fixed whatever it is.. it could be as stupid as an unplugged temperature sensor, or a circulation pump .. The price could be less than paying more to the dentist for the extra teeth gnashing it is causing you.

Bjorn's video is a taking a cold soaked car to the SC and plugging in.