Model 3 “Sleep” Modes [difference in sitting plugged vs unplugged?]

[medphys3]

Does anyone know if there is a difference in “sleep” mode between when the car is unplugged or when it’s plugged in, but NOT charging?

Just curious as I was reading up on the BMS/battery calibration topic and wondering if it should sit unplugged or if it even mattered.

And yes, I understand that that calibration procedure might not really do anything lol

 

[GtiMart]

I believe there is no difference whether you're plugged or not for the sleep. When sleeping the high voltage relay is open so there's no power flowing. We've seen an issue where plugged cars could not fall asleep but the number of cases was fairly low.

 

[chrstna4]

I’ve read that the car needs to occasionally sleep without being charged for at least three hours to help it get a better sense of what charge the battery is currently holding. If that is true, I suspect there is a difference in sleep mode when plugged in.

Because of my situation at my house, I don’t charge daily or have the ability to leave the car plugged-in without leaving a storage closet door ajar so the car is often unplugged for days. My battery seems to be holding more charge now than when I bought it used a year ago (according to the TezLab app) but I attribute that mostly to 10k miles of road trips in the last year.

 

[jjrandorin]

Does anyone know if there is a difference in “sleep” mode between when the car is unplugged or when it’s plugged in, but NOT charging?

Just curious as I was reading up on the BMS/battery calibration topic and wondering if it should sit unplugged or if it even mattered.

And yes, I understand that that calibration procedure might not really do anything lol

This is a good question, actually. I think the sleep mode is the same, but what I dont know is, does the car wake up less when not connected to charging than it does when connected to charging?

Its not something I have ever tried to research, but I do read most threads in the model 3 sub forums. I seem to remember reading somewhere (but cant remember where exactly) that the car might wake up less or do slightly different things if not connected to a charger, than it does when connected to a charger.

I also have seen complaints here from some that XXX update (various ones) "stopped my car from sleeping, and makes it activate the contactors all the time" and the work around seems to have been to disconnect it from whatever charger one has.

So, I am not sure, but one thing I am sure of is, it kind of doesnt really matter if you "always be connected" or not. The tesla manual tells you to stay connected, because they want to help people develop the habit of plugging in, and not having to worry about the car being at 30-40% charge and all of a sudden "I need to go do X and OMFG I DONT HAVE ENOUGH RANGE!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!1!111!&&%$@%!!!!!!11"

There is no real harm in always being connected, nor is there any harm in plugging in every couple of days, or letting the car sit for a week unplugged. The things to avoid are fairly simple.

1. Avoid sitting at full charge for an extended period of time. Only charge above 90% if you need to for the trip you are going on / are on.
2. Avoid sitting at very low states of charge for any extended period of time
3. There is no need to "run the car down, then charge it back up" on a regular basis. You can do this sometimes to attempt to calibrate the BMS (battery maintenance system) but there is no need to do so on a daily /ongoing basis.

Thats pretty much it, everything else is sort of up to each individual person.

 

[MikeyC]

I found this thread so thought I might as well tag on...

My 2021 Model 3 refused to sleep for 3 days while plugged into the charger the whole time (I keep mine plugged in when in the garage). During that time, the status looked like this:

The car had a lot of parasitic draw and as a result, it'd recharge (top it off) every few hours. Needless to say, I don't like this because it is using a fraction of a charge cycle every few hours and over time, I'm sure this contributes to degradation. During this time, I tried a lot of things: rebooted several times, tried power off/on, I had sentry mode on but with "exclude home" checked so I turned off sentry mode completely, opened and closed all doors, frunk, and trunk, waited and still no sleep mode.

Then I got the idea maybe something bugged out with the charger so I unplugged the charger, waited a couple minutes, and plugged it back in. After that, it slept within 15 minutes and has been sleeping since:

Now I'm wondering what the cause was! I have a Mustart charger that I've been using with no problem since I got the car end of March (I'd use the Tesla charger with 240 adapter but the cord isn't long enough). I keep the adapter plugged into the charge cord and just plug it in whenever I arrive home. Could there be a bug in the charging system or some type of handshake bug when using the adapter that keeps the car awake? This has only happened twice in the almost 3 months I've had the car so I'm not sure what to think.

Mike

 

[medphys3]

I found this thread so thought I might as well tag on...

My 2021 Model 3 refused to sleep for 3 days while plugged into the charger the whole time (I keep mine plugged in when in the garage). During that time, the status looked like this:

View attachment 673544
The car had a lot of parasitic draw and as a result, it'd recharge (top it off) every few hours. Needless to say, I don't like this because it is using a fraction of a charge cycle every few hours and over time, I'm sure this contributes to degradation. During this time, I tried a lot of things: rebooted several times, tried power off/on, I had sentry mode on but with "exclude home" checked so I turned off sentry mode completely, opened and closed all doors, frunk, and trunk, waited and still no sleep mode.

Then I got the idea maybe something bugged out with the charger so I unplugged the charger, waited a couple minutes, and plugged it back in. After that, it slept within 15 minutes and has been sleeping since:

View attachment 673545
Now I'm wondering what the cause was! I have a Mustart charger that I've been using with no problem since I got the car end of March (I'd use the Tesla charger with 240 adapter but the cord isn't long enough). I keep the adapter plugged into the charge cord and just plug it in whenever I arrive home. Could there be a bug in the charging system or some type of handshake bug when using the adapter that keeps the car awake? This has only happened twice in the almost 3 months I've had the car so I'm not sure what to think.

Mike

That's good info. We reboot our computers, might be smart to reboot the chargers from time to time too