Lousy Range Cold Weather

[jbwinton]

Battery range is really lousy and unacceptable here in freezing cold Chicago. Below about 20F i have to keep the the heater running on high and that GREATLY reduces range and increases battery drain.

did Tesla every test this car outside of calif????

I've had my X for about a month and loved it until it got unusually cold . and worse....the faster i go the colder the car interior gets. DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE THIS PROBLEM. can't find an air leak; maybe it's the big windshield??

Tesla advertises range as 235 miles BUT then says only charge to 90% so that's 211 miles. and then says "don't get below 20%" (obviously a good idea since you never know if an accident will stop traffic for an hour) so that's 169 miles. and apparently the heater uses about 25 mi. per hour so i constantly have to look for a charger when driving more than to/from work!!

DOES ANYONE FROM TESLA HDQ. READ THESE POSTS. IS THERE A SOLUTION. i have the 75 battery and if i knew all of this would have bought the 100

 

[brkaus]

Cold takes electricity to heat the interior of the car. Surprisingly a significant amount compared to what it takes to keep the car running at a specific speed.

Cold increases air density so more drag.

Cold increases tire rolling resistance.

Gas cars are similarly effected, but you just hit the gas station more. There is also waste heat that can be used to heat the inside of the car.

Lots of threads here on the topic.

 

[SMSMD]

Winter - excessive battery range reduction...
-30C(-22F) this week. How is your car handling it?
Model X Winter Experience
Winter range anxiety

 

[Tam]

...Battery range is really lousy and unacceptable here in freezing cold Chicago....

Your observation is correct!

The negative effect of cold weather on range has been well understood in both gasoline and electric cars. Gasoline cars have the advantage of plentiful gas stations but that is not the case for EV:


2013 article: For a Nissan Leaf at 90F, you'll get about 65 mile range but you cut it in almost half when it's -13F for about 35 mile range:

That's why when I bought my Tesla starting in 2012, I have always gotten a longest range available.

 

[David29]

did Tesla every test this car outside of calif????

Doggone good question! If they did, they did so too late in the design cycle to make meaningful adjustments to the design.
I don't have a Model X, but my biggest design complaint on the Model S is the frameless windows (also on the Model X front doors and sadly on the Model 3). The frameless windows are a major headache in snow/ice, and are just plain impractical. They also produce countless extra cycles on the window lift mechanism, which certainly must reduce long-term reliability. Plus they add to noise. But to your point, those windows would have proven to be a headache worthy of correcting, if anyone had tried to design for cold climates.

 

[brkaus]

Doggone good question! If they did, they did so too late in the design cycle to make meaningful adjustments to the design.
I don't have a Model X, but my biggest design complaint on the Model S is the frameless windows (also on the Model X front doors and sadly on the Model 3). The frameless windows are a major headache in snow/ice, and are just plain impractical. They also produce countless extra cycles on the window lift mechanism, which certainly must reduce long-term reliability. Plus they add to noise. But to your point, those windows would have proven to be a headache worthy of correcting, if anyone had tried to design for cold climates.

Weight trade off...

 

[TexasEV]

Winter happens every year, and every year we get similar posts from new owners. Don’t people do any reading about EVs in general or Tesla specifically before spending high five figures or six figures on a car?

If you live in the north you should get the longer range battery, just as they do in Norway (where Tesla is one of the best selling cars).

 

[Martin VanB]

I have never heard of an electric vehicle having decreased range in cold weather.

Actually my experience has been the exact opposite. I have found cold weather driving substantially Increases range. Sometimes the increase is as much as 250%!

Maybe you should bring your vehicle to the service centre and have it looked at. Then ask about is the f-capacitor which actually increases the efficiency of the vehicle then engages fully at 88 mph. You should notice an immediate charge boost once fully engaged.

 

[Seattle Tom]

I agree. After researching electric cars, and realizing Tesla was the only game in town if I ever wanted to actually, you know, go anywhere beyond my city, I bought the 100D. Even in Seattle, which has milder winters compared to the NE, I knew the range hit would be unacceptable to me. The 75D X is good for warm climates only, the 75D S or better is needed for the true cold weather travel IMO.

I make use of the seat heaters and steering wheel heat which come with very little range penalty. But the defroster needs to be on quite often - that does take some range but I’m not sure it’s 25 miles per hour. To be fair, I’ve never measured so I’ll trust your estimate - it wouldn’t surprise me to be that high at a medium fan setting. Of course, if you drove for 90 minutes you’d hopefully be ready to supercharge or destination charge by then.

Oh, and for the frameless windows if you are in below 32 F temperatures, just put a little lube on the door seal at the start of the season. The window won’t catch or freeze. Again, not needed for Seattle or milder climates...but in Canada or the Northeast? Practically a requirement!

 

[David29]

Oh, and for the frameless windows if you are in below 32 F temperatures, just put a little lube on the door seal at the start of the season. The window won’t catch or freeze. Again, not needed for Seattle or milder climates...but in Canada or the Northeast? Practically a requirement!

Well, yes, you can lube the gasket to help prevent the glass from sticking to the gasket, same as you would to prevent a metal frame from sticking.
But the frameless window problem is more about ice and snow freezing to the glass. On a car with normal window frames, you can partially scrape it off, or not scrape it at all, and open the door. But with frameless windows, you must remove the ice and snow, especially along the bottom edge of the window, before you try to open the door. If you do not, the window will not retract into the door. if you yank the door too hard before realizing that the glass is stuck, you can "pop" the glass out of its gasket, but then you are in deep doo-doo because you will definitely be unable to close the door again! (Believe me, I learned this lesson early on the hard way!) The glass will be forced out of its normal position, which I assume is a stress on the window support. So the lesson is that you must preheat long enough to melt the ice/snow, OR scrape it thoroughly off the driver's door and any other door you might want to open. In a car with normal window frames, it is not essential to scrape ice off the rear door windows in order to drive the car, e.g., but you can still open them.

As for the weight trade-off, I'd like to see the numbers. I cannot believe that a window frame would add more than a trivial amount of weight, and I would gladly pay the energy cost of that weight penalty to avoid the extra complexity of the window lift mechanism and the headache of the winter weather hassle. Classic case of style over substance, in my view.

 

[Seattle Tom]

Ah, very good point about the window refusing to lower with snow and ice accumulation at the bottom of the window. I can see how that would be an issue and in the rush to get out of the snow, you could yank the door open with the window out of place.

I could pretend to have a great solution (that’s what internet forums are for, right?) but I don’t. Your pre-heat idea is the best I can think of! Stay warm, David!

 

[Torqueria]

i have the 75 battery and if i knew all of this would have bought the 100

As a fellow Model X owner & Chicago-area person, I totally feel your pain & frustration. Through luck more than anything else, I have the 100 as I was originally planning to get the 75. Not to rub it in, but the last couple weeks, I have been exceedingly glad to have the extra battery capacity because it's pretty astonishing how fast the battery can be consumed in the cold. The extra difference between the 75 and 100 is pretty significant in these cold temps.

 

[boelkers]

The 75D X is good for warm climates only

I disagree with this to a certain extent. I have a 75D X and live in Minnesota and have been dealing with -10*F to -30*F temps for the last few weeks. My range definitely takes a big hit in this weather but depending on how far you drive each day, the 75 is still a perfectly sized battery. I drive approx 60 miles each day for work and during this very cold period I've been using about 45% battery and that is with preheating, obviously a big range hit. Otherwise on average in normal winter temps between 10 to 20*F I've been using about 30-35% battery. Compared to summer months I was only using 25% on average, so winter has not been that bad of an increase.

Of course the 100D battery pack would be nice to have especially in the winter and would lessen my range anxiety on cold days where I need to drive more. But the 75D was the most I could afford at the time and I think it fits my drive range pretty well.

 

[Bridor]

You just need to plan things a little bit better. If it were me, I would invest in a car cover - this would make it so that you would not have to scrape any ice off of the windows at all. I bought one from Evannex (Car Cover for Tesla Model X) on sale for $99.95 right now, but you can use any generic SUV cover. Second of all, make sure you are preheating when the vehicle is plugged in. When you leave, change the setting so that you are recirculating the warm air - this uses a lot less energy as you are only reheating the air in the cabin. You may have to use the air conditioning as well to remove the excess humidity. You will find that you use a lot less energy. If you want to be super conservative, do not run the heat at all (turn the climate control off and crack the front two windows). Bundle up (ski pants and heavy winter coat) and use the seat heaters. If you have the cold weather package, turn on the heated steering wheel.

 

[Zippy_EV]

I have quickly discovered that having the battery displayed as a percentage instead of projected miles is much more useful in the winter.

Usage can easily be 500 Wh/mi when it gets really cold. In a 100 kWh battery the math is happily easy. ~2 miles / percent of battery in the really cold times. ~3 miles / percent in more ideal conditions. Sadly going 80mph (hypothetically, ahem) in -10ish deg F temps can use ~625 kWh / mi.

Insulating the garage is extremely useful. The tips for preheating / seat heaters / steering wheel are spot on.

 

[ram1901]

EV's are not unique when it comes to losing range during extreme cold.

Cold weather is tough on everything, including the human body. Try jogging 5 miles in 20 degree weather with a wind chill factor of -1 and compare that to doing the same during the spring or early summer.

My Toyota Prius (previously owned) would go from 50 miles per gallon summer down to 38 miles per gallon in the winter and that was not even during extreme cold like much of the US is experiencing the past few weeks.

My VW TDI diesel (previously owned) would go from 45 mile per gallon summer down to 32-35 miles per gallon during extreme cold weeks.

Now, my Tesla Model S 70D goes from a range of 215 miles per charge down by anywhere from 20 to 35 percent depending upon the temperatures and road conditions. Even at it's worst, 35% reduction, that still gives me a 139.75 mile range for day to day driving AND if I plan a regional trip, I just do a full charge of 236 to 240 miles range .. in extreme cold that takes me 150-170 miles while superchargers are around 100 to 120 miles apart on most major arteries in the region.

The only other EV that can match this kind of EV range is the Chevy Bolt, but there is little to NO charging infrastructure in place for regional and long distance trips and the systems that are available charge at about half the speed of Tesla Superchargers.

Reality can be tough to swallow.

 

[RDoc]

If you don't like it, move to LA. The fires warm the battery very nicely, as I understand it.

 

[Dr Doom]

Drove my first road trip in cold yesterday. A ride of about 90 miles averaging around 480 Wh/mi. Reduced my range of 220 miles down to 80 miles. Luckily pulled into Allentown supercharger without any other cars and topped my car off back to 200 miles in 30+ mins.

How does someone change their display to show the battery percentage instead of range? Thanks

 

[Zippy_EV]

Drove my first road trip in cold yesterday. A ride of about 90 miles averaging around 480 Wh/mi. Reduced my range of 220 miles down to 80 miles. Luckily pulled into Allentown supercharger without any other cars and topped my car off back to 200 miles in 30+ mins.

How does someone change their display to show the battery percentage instead of range? Thanks

Going from memory:
Settings -> Units -> Energy (instead of Range)

 

[Tjhappel]

Personally I’d like to see a 130kw battery especially on the x for the reason above and for road trips. I live in so cal and drive a 90d with 20’s and I’m really really lucky if I get over 200 miles out of a full charge. I’m averaging 341 kw/mile over 36k miles, that’s solo driving on so cal freeways 98% of the time. I don’t really consider that ok for it to be my family car, the time spent stopping with kids at superchargers is just too great still.

It would be really nice to get an “actual” 300 mile range or greater. Sorry for your issues in the cold, I hope your able to get a solution so you can enjoy your car. They’re awesome vehicles.