Model 3 in Winter. Who's gonna tell the truth?

[Mave10]

Got my model 3 recently and I want to love this car. I checked many videos on youtube and posts in forums but I realized that very important information didn't come across. This is especially true with respect to how the car handles cold weather
* Autonomy: Every night I loose about 20 miles of autonomy. This may actually not be related to cold weather per se but well, this is just unacceptable. It gets worse though because of winter as the car cannot for some time fully regenerate while slowing down and also lots of energy is lost in heating the cabin.
* Car door: GOD. what happened. I couldn't open my door this morning because of light freeze during the night. The windows do not slided down so you have to force the door opening and possible damage the top rim. This is crazy. This may happen everyday during winter!!

These guys need to learn how to build cars. The time of small group of believers is over. It just has to work!!

 

[rhumbliner]

Autonomy: Every night I loose about 20 miles of autonomy.

Not quite sure what you mean by this.

As for the windows, several other threads have made suggestions on how to solve the issue. Read on ...

 

[glide]

They build great cars...for California.

In any case there is plenty of info about cold weather driving out there. Not sure why the surprise.

 

[TexasEV]

Batteries have less capacity in the cold. It’s not specific to the Model 3 or to Tesla. It’s just chemistry.

 

[fluxemag]

Got my model 3 recently and I want to love this car. I checked many videos on youtube and posts in forums but I realized that very important information didn't come across. This is especially true with respect to how the car handles cold weather
* Autonomy: Every night I loose about 20 miles of autonomy. This may actually not be related to cold weather per se but well, this is just unacceptable. It gets worse though because of winter as the car cannot for some time fully regenerate while slowing down and also lots of energy is lost in heating the cabin.
* Car door: GOD. what happened. I couldn't open my door this morning because of light freeze during the night. The windows do not slided down so you have to force the door opening and possible damage the top rim. This is crazy. This may happen everyday during winter!!

These guys need to learn how to build cars. The time of small group of believers is over. It just has to work!!

Frameless windows are pretty common, certainly not unique to Tesla. Not sure how to respond to the "autonomy" blurb or how any of this relates to building cars. Electric cars have benefits and drawbacks in cold weather.

 

[BluestarE3]

Autonomy: Every night I loose about 20 miles of autonomy.

Not quite sure what you mean by this.

From the context, I believe the OP (French, perhaps?) is referring to loss of range.

 

[coleAK]

I’m in Alaska and we’ve had snow/ice covered roads since the weekend before Halloween and just a few days with temps above freezing. The model 3 is doing great! No complaints. I’m running Nokian Hakkapeleta 9’s on the 18” aero wheels, chill mode, Regen low. I put it up there with some of the best winter driving cars we have owned: Audi, 4Matic MB, Subaru.

Yes im using more Wh/mi but historically I always get at least a 25% reduction in MPG in my ICE vehicles in the winter as well.

 

[Sophias_dad]

20 miles a night is excessive. The car probably isn't going to sleep, either because you are too close with your phone or you have an app that's frequently pinging it. (These are only guesses.) Regardless, 20mi/night is not expected. If you can't figure out the cause on your own, contact tesla's service people to get some help.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Well, any vehicle, gas or diesel has less range in the winter. Our diesel truck lost a full third of its mileage in cold Alberta winters. It surprises me that it would be a surprise to anyone.

Re the word autonomy:
I speak Spanish, French, German and English...and a wee bit of Arabic.
The term “autonomía” is used in Spanish although in Latin America I hear “alcance” when reffering to range.

“L’autonomie” is used in French.

 

[matto]

Autonomy ?

Your parole ankle bracelet radius gets smaller?

 

[eprosenx]

Every day I come home and plug my car in around 6pm-6:30pm. It takes an hour to an hour and 15 minutes to charge back to 80%. Most mornings I start with 78% battery. I have even seen 77% a couple/few times now that it is colder.

I think that what is happening is that the battery charges to 80% while still warm (and the charging warms it), but then it cold soaks over night and cell voltage drops. So it displays lower in the AM, but I did not really loose any charge. I have see the battery percentage increase if I pre-heat the car off shore power (it does not charge the battery, it just warms it and the car from shore power).

So basically the moral of the story is that if I left my car for a week unused it likely would drop a lot less on the second/third/fourth day compared to the first day after charging.

 

[mswlogo]

Every day I come home and plug my car in around 6pm-6:30pm. It takes an hour to an hour and 15 minutes to charge back to 80%. Most mornings I start with 78% battery. I have even seen 77% a couple/few times now that it is colder.

I think that what is happening is that the battery charges to 80% while still warm (and the charging warms it), but then it cold soaks over night and cell voltage drops. So it displays lower in the AM, but I did not really loose any charge. I have see the battery percentage increase if I pre-heat the car off shore power (it does not charge the battery, it just warms it and the car from shore power).

So basically the moral of the story is that if I left my car for a week unused it likely would drop a lot less on the second/third/fourth day compared to the first day after charging.

Awesome post.

 

[SSedan]

I agree that the information on cold weather EV use is not as front and center as it should be, much of that comes from the relatively small percentage of us that it affects though. When such a large percentage of cars at Cali based then so many more just being in the southern half of the country it is just a numbers game that relatively few of us are affected.

You will get used to the compromises and benefits. INSTANT heat is great.

Far as windows, your favorite rain repellent and ample preheat use.

 

[jcal0820]

From my observation, the number of EVs on the road in Norway has gone through the roof, I think over half of car sales now are EVs, including Tesla's. But I haven't heard much about cold weather/battery issues from there, given the country's climate, unless I haven't found of any at least. Anyone from or heard of feedback from out there?

 

[SSedan]

I think it comes down to communication. In the USA such a huge percentage of Tesla owners live in warm places, the compromises and benefits in cold places are not communicated well and it leads to unrealistic expectations.

 

[xilex]

From my observation, the number of EVs on the road in Norway has gone through the roof, I think over half of car sales now are EVs, including Tesla's. But I haven't heard much about cold weather/battery issues from there, given the country's climate, unless I haven't found of any at least. Anyone from or heard of feedback from out there?

They probably know about the issues with EV in warm vs cold climate, have discussed about it with each other, and work around the issues to make it work in cold weather. Here, we just complain before doing any reading and say it's unacceptable despite physical limitations of battery science.

 

[coleAK]

My 0.02 - also here in the USA many Tesla owners “justifiy” the buy due to saveing money on gas. And when the “savings don’t add up” they express frustration. Just look at how many times issues around power usage and range is mentioned on the forums... even with a 30% range loss not many people routinely drive >200 miles every day to and from work. The thing I really have come to appreacieate is every day I wake up with an 80% charge (4/5 “tank”)

 

[Sophias_dad]

* Car door: GOD. what happened. I couldn't open my door this morning because of light freeze during the night. The windows do not slided down so you have to force the door opening and possible damage the top rim. This is crazy. This may happen everyday during winter!!

These guys need to learn how to build cars. The time of small group of believers is over. It just has to work!!

This might be improving with the latest software I just received... v9.0 2018.44.2 3b2a5c3...."Cold Weather Improvements.... window position and charge connector locking behaviors have been optimized for cold weather." They gave no more details on what that really means. I didn't notice anything different about the window position after the update, and its currently 13f here.

 

[xilex]

This might be improving with the latest software I just received... v9.0 2018.44.2 3b2a5c3...."Cold Weather Improvements.... window position and charge connector locking behaviors have been optimized for cold weather." They gave no more details on what that really means. I didn't notice anything different about the window position after the update, and its currently 13f here.

Good info here about the update: Model 3 44.2 software contains cold weather improvements! : teslamotors

Looks like windows close all the way then drop very slightly.

 

[gtmotor]

My wh/mi has actually decreased since it started getting cooler... I'm finally only running the A/C only part of the time now lol. I had the A/C on today though...