Lying to the car about Supercharging

[toolman335]

I know how dumb I'm going to sound, but I wanted to ask a question that I've never seen covered in here.
I charge my car at home on a L2 charging station. There's a supercharger by my house. Is there any advantage to lying to the car and saying I'm heading to the Supercharger so that the battery gets properly preconditioned? Or is that actually doing harm? Or does it make no difference at all?
As you all know, when you select a SC on navigation the preconditioning notification appears.
I have a 10 minute commute in a very cold winter. I'm curious if that helps my car be better prepared to charge or not.
If anyone has a theory or direct answer kindly let me know.
And feel free to make fun of me as needed

 

[thefortunes]

Unless you are cold-soaked and need the car to charge at max rate on your L2 immediately, you are just wasting energy.

The car will use shore power (i.e. the charger) to heat the battery as required when it is plugged in.

 

[Ciaopec]

^
I

This

 

[toolman335]

ok thank you. So the preconditioning when it thinks it's on the way to SC is consuming more energy than normal? I don't recall seeing anything in the manual about that and I can't recall exactly what I've seen in this forum.

 

[thefortunes]

ok thank you. So the preconditioning when it thinks it's on the way to SC is consuming more energy than normal? I don't recall seeing anything in the manual about that and I can't recall exactly what I've seen in this forum.

Yes.

If the battery is not above optimal temp to receive a DC charge the car will attempt to get it to temp by preheating when you have selected a SuC as your destination.

What was surprising to me is that this can happen EVEN ON A LONG DRIVE if it is very cold outside. I saw it a few times on a drive from WI to FL in December.

 

[SSonnentag]

We have a steep, 8-mile-long hill about 10 miles from our house. I "lie" to my car all the time in the winter, telling it I'm headed for a supercharger that is 30 miles away. This gives me about double the regen by the time I get to the hill. It's still not full regen, but it's certainly better than almost none. I just hate using my brakes.

 

[JulienW]

If going to lie might as well make it a two for one lie

Honey I going to the Supercharger and will probably take a couple of hours.

 

[ewoodrick]

I know how dumb I'm going to sound, but I wanted to ask a question that I've never seen covered in here.
I charge my car at home on a L2 charging station. There's a supercharger by my house. Is there any advantage to lying to the car and saying I'm heading to the Supercharger so that the battery gets properly preconditioned? Or is that actually doing harm? Or does it make no difference at all?
As you all know, when you select a SC on navigation the preconditioning notification appears.
I have a 10 minute commute in a very cold winter. I'm curious if that helps my car be better prepared to charge or not.
If anyone has a theory or direct answer kindly let me know.
And feel free to make fun of me as needed

Best way to manage the battery, don't worry about it.

The Model 3 existed for 2 years, the S and X for many more before conditioning before Superchargers ever existed.
the only reason why the conditioning exists is to get the batteries at better temperature for the onslaught of electrons that Supercharging represents.

For home charging, the battery doesn't even need to be heated, especially if you plug it in when you get home.

 

[thefortunes]

We have a steep, 8-mile-long hill about 10 miles from our house. I "lie" to my car all the time in the winter, telling it I'm headed for a supercharger that is 30 miles away. This gives me about double the regen by the time I get to the hill. It's still not full regen, but it's certainly better than almost none. I just hate using my brakes.

This may be a perfect use as the extra energy used to heat the battery is recovered by the extra regen on the 8 mile descent.

Do you have TeslaFi (or some other data tracking) to see the net impact (kWh used vs recaptured) when you precondition vs when you do not?

 

[thefortunes]

Best way to manage the battery, don't worry about it.

The Model 3 existed for 2 years, the S and X for many more before conditioning before Superchargers ever existed.
the only reason why the conditioning exists is to get the batteries at better temperature for the onslaught of electrons that Supercharging represents.

For home charging, the battery doesn't even need to be heated, especially if you plug it in when you get home.

This isn't quite true as the battery still needs to be at a certain temperature for L2 charging. Happens quite often in WI (and elsewhere) that you get battery warming for a period before the car will charge at full rate. See my post #2 in this thread.

 

[minderbinder]

We have a steep, 8-mile-long hill about 10 miles from our house. I "lie" to my car all the time in the winter, telling it I'm headed for a supercharger that is 30 miles away. This gives me about double the regen by the time I get to the hill. It's still not full regen, but it's certainly better than almost none. I just hate using my brakes.

I do this too when it’s really cold out (like yesterday). I’ll put in a fake SC destination so I get back to single pedal driving quicker!

 

[SSonnentag]

This may be a perfect use as the extra energy used to heat the battery is recovered by the extra regen on the 8 mile descent.

Do you have TeslaFi (or some other data tracking) to see the net impact (kWh used vs recaptured) when you precondition vs when you do not?

Looking back at my TeslaFi records, it appears that the battery heater uses far more energy than is gained back via regen. It looks like roughly 4 kWh to make the 30-mile drive with no battery heater vs. 6 kWh with the battery heater on until we reach the bottom of the hill. It takes 8 kWh to make the 30-mile drive if I leave the battery heater on for the entire drive.


NOTE: The above numbers are for a 2018 Model X 100D.

 

[thefortunes]

Looking back at my TeslaFi records, it appears that the battery heater uses far more energy than is gained back via regen. It looks like roughly 4 kWh to make the 30-mile drive with no battery heater vs. 6 kWh with the battery heater on until we reach the bottom of the hill. It takes 8 kWh to make the 30-mile drive if I leave the battery heater on for the entire drive.

Thanks for digging into the data

 

[SSonnentag]

NOTE: The above numbers are for a 2018 Model X 100D.

I always forget to check which sub-forum I'm reading. The Model 3 may have quite different results.

 

[toolman335]

Thanks for the info fellas. As always it was both informative and hilarious!

The reason this has come up is that the SC just opened a few weeks ago by my house. I've never thought about it before last week until I had planned on going to the SC but changed my mind and went home. My L2 setup seemed to enjoy the extra level of preparedness lol.

 

[vickh]

This may be a perfect use as the extra energy used to heat the battery is recovered by the extra regen on the 8 mile descent.

Do you have TeslaFi (or some other data tracking) to see the net impact (kWh used vs recaptured) when you precondition vs when you do not?

+ it helps protect the pads.

 

[SigNC]

only time i'd do that was if you for some reason has a free chademo you were going to hit or maybe if you had a long descent coming up from the mountains and you wanted regen before heading down.

Edit: oops looks like people already mentioned the hill thing

 

[ry-ballz]

ok thank you. So the preconditioning when it thinks it's on the way to SC is consuming more energy than normal? I don't recall seeing anything in the manual about that and I can't recall exactly what I've seen in this forum.

How do you think it's warming the pack up? Nothing is free.

 

[toolman335]

How do you think it's warming the pack up? Nothing is free.

I had no clue how this works or I wouldn't have asked lol.

 

[SSedan]

ok thank you. So the preconditioning when it thinks it's on the way to SC is consuming more energy than normal? I don't recall seeing anything in the manual about that and I can't recall exactly what I've seen in this forum.

Of course it consumes more energy that heat has to come from somewhere.

This is widespread proof of the failure of the education system. I say widespread because people who can't grasp the simple concept that you can't get something for nothing are really common.