Long term storage & high ambient temperatures

[blubbernator]

Hi all. Have not even gotten the car yet and already overthinking things like i tend to do. Tesla does say that the vehicle should be left plugged in, at a reduced/limited SOC when parked for prolonged periods. I am going overseas for 6 weeks shortly after taking delivery and usually park my car in my storage unit / garage at the airport that i'm renting (frequent flyer). I would usually not be too worried about just parking my Model 3 in there without being plugged in, however it is in the middle of summer and ambient temperatures will easily go over 40 deg C or 100f which is no bueno for battery health. Does the car protect the battery pack even when it's not plugged in?

 

[Sophias_dad]

I've never heard of the car actively cooling the battery pack unless you are supercharging. Even plugged in to an L2 charger, it won't cool the battery.

Side note: if it did, your battery would be dead in a few days if it was fighting 100F ambients.

While its parked, be absolutely sure that sentry mode, standby summon, and cabin overheat protection is off. (COP disabling isn't all that important, as it turns off after 12 hours anyway, I understand.)

 

[RayK]

@blubbernator Any chance leaving the car with a trusted friend? Somebody that can monitor the car's SoC, unplugging the car for a week or two to allow some drainage of the battery and then plugging back in when it gets to some predetermined limit? Is there no way to get power to your car in the airport storage? 10A 240V would ideally yield about 10 MPH / 16 KPH. Although I would generally discourage use of an extension cord with the use of a mobile connector, that could be a solution if you can get airport approval for its use. You could dial it down to 6 to 7 amps and set the charge limit at 90% which I believe will keep the car happy.

 

[blubbernator]

@RayK

not really... i could probably get an outlet in my carport installed as the switchboard is right there, am renting though, so not ideal. I did find a parking service near ne airport that offers charging for electric cars, however they said they would not leave the car plugged in permanently as their insurance does not allow for vehicles being charged over night probably my best bet at this stage though. unless i can find a storage unit with power, which doesn't look good.

 

[Rocky_H]

I am going overseas for 6 weeks shortly after taking delivery and usually park my car in my storage unit / garage at the airport that i'm renting (frequent flyer). I would usually not be too worried about just parking my Model 3 in there without being plugged in, however it is in the middle of summer and ambient temperatures will easily go over 40 deg C or 100f which is no bueno for battery health.

Well, it's at least shaded, so it shouldn't go too much over 100 degrees F. While not wonderful, that doesn't seem too far out of bounds, and it will cool off some during the nights, so it won't be 100 degrees around the clock.

Does the car protect the battery pack even when it's not plugged in?

Side note: if it did, your battery would be dead in a few days if it was fighting 100F ambients.

I think they have that capability if the temperature goes really extreme (higher than you will be seeing), but they generally don't for that reason, so it doesn't suck all of the energy out of your battery.

I've never heard of the car actively cooling the battery pack unless you are supercharging. Even plugged in to an L2 charger, it won't cool the battery.

Well, no, that's not true--at least on the older cars. I'm not sure if it's still true today on the 3/Y. Battery chemistries are different, so who knows? People had seen the data on this, where you can read the car's allowed internal temperature targets for high and low, and they allowed a wider range if it was not plugged in, in order to not drain the battery. But when plugged into an external power source, it would move the high temperature limit down and start actively cooling the battery. I've observed this with my own car. The car sits out in the parking lot in the sun all day at 104 degrees or something, and then I only drive about 2 miles home and park in my garage. The car will just sit silently if I don't plug it in. But if I plug it in, it will go ahead and spin up the cooling system and blow since it knows it has extra energy to bring the car into a more favorable temperature range.

 

[Regaj]

I don't have a suggestion for your airport parking... but just to add a little context, pretty much anyone who parks their vehicle in the sun, even for a few hours, is going to see similar high battery temps during the summer. So your situation is far from unique.

Your car's battery will absorb heat when parked in those kind of conditions surprisingly quickly. And once the pack is heat-soaked, it will retain that heat for a very long time - many hours - only very slowly losing heat as ambient temps gradually decline.

Your car will actively cool the pack if it gets too high. But that active-cooling-trigger-point is considerably higher than the 40C you envision.

Short of a climate-controlled parking area, there's not much you can do to change what you're looking at. Given that, and with the extended time away from your vehicle, I'd be more concerned with not having it plugged in.

 

[ucmndd]

This is really not a problem. Don’t worry about it.

 

[RayK]

Poking around the web I find this: Electric Vehicle Charging

Welcomes EVs and has both outdoor and indoor parking. 42 days (6 weeks) runs $422.