Absolutely agree. It would be nice to be able to crank that on 15 minutes or so before you get to the supercharger with the understanding you are going to lose range in doing so.
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Model 3 - Preheat battery - Winter Range Concerns
- Thread starter aaronM3
- Start date
Absolutely agree. It would be nice to be able to crank that on 15 minutes or so before you get to the supercharger with the understanding you are going to lose range in doing so.
Lon12
Member
Without a dedicated battery heater like the S has how could they do this on the 3 while your driving? I've asked for them to please include a battery temperature indication somewhere so at least I know what kind of charge level I'll get when I stop at the next supercharger. They should also indicate after you plug in why the current is so low.
I've driven for hours between chargers in cold weather and not been able to get the battery warm enough. After reading the cold battery problems the rear motor 3 had last year I was hoping that the dual motor would help heat the battery faster than it does.
I've driven for hours between chargers in cold weather and not been able to get the battery warm enough. After reading the cold battery problems the rear motor 3 had last year I was hoping that the dual motor would help heat the battery faster than it does.
jgs
Active Member
Although since it also uses drivetrain waste heat to warm the battery, it does continue to warm even without the resistance heater. I’ve always gotten to full regen eventually when on road trips, down to about 0F (no experience of colder with this car).
Lon12
Member
I get full regen with the 3 driving on long trips in cold weather. But still get only half charge power (<60 kW) from the superchargers. At least with the S you get some indication the battery is still cold.
Yeah even if the battery can handle full regen it still might not be in condition to receive full supercharging. That combined with the battery has be well below 50% for the supercharger to kick into high gear. It sure would be nice to get an indicator of what exactly the battery state is so we can set our selves up for better expectation. For example is I see the battery is at 45F (not enough for high kw charging) maybe I might skip this super charger for the next when I hope the battery might be 55F by then.
jgs
Active Member
Right, there's always going to be some external temp that's too cold, which is why I quoted mine. (0F is around -18C and is fairly cold for my area. Though we've certainly gotten to -25C or below on some occasions, I don't think I've driven my Model S in that temp, not a long distance for sure.)Yes, but when temp drops further (we sometimes have -25C or colder), then I can`t get rid of regenlimit. Could be easier in united states due to higher speedlimits which generates more internal heat
Good point about speeds. My (fairly sedate) typical highway cruise speed is around 75mph = about 120kph.
As an aside I've been experimenting with range mode for local driving this week. It's my understanding that turning it on either completely disengages the pack heater or at least makes it less aggressive. So far the result is interesting, my efficiency on short trips is much better (well, less bad). I presume this is because for short trips, it's impossible for regen savings to overcome the cost of pack heating. I'm not sure I'll leave it on, though, because it's very annoying to spend the whole day with no meaningful regen. I hadn't realized how much difference the heater made!
I didn't mean to imply that the Supercharger nor ambient air temperature was the issue. As I've learned since my original post, it's the temperature of the battery pack itself that makes a difference - if the battery pack is cold, the car's BMS throttles the Supercharges's charge rate to the lower teens kW to protect the battery (preventing dendritic growth in the lithium which can produce a crystal-to-crystal electrical short).
I had driven the car for about 30 minutes at 60 mph and thought the battery should have been 'warm.' Apparently it takes twice that time to warm the mass of the battery pack given just driving. The 'solution' is to turn on the cabin heat (via the app or just sticking your head in the car and turning on the heater and/or seat heater) before you begin your drive. The resultant drain on the battery to generate heat (for your comfort) has the added effect of generating heat (that's recaptured via the BMS) to heat the battery pack. So you're toasty warm when you get in the car and the battery pack is feeling pretty good too!
This interpretation of the physical/electrical/chemical actions in the battery pack in cold weather (come on, SoCal guys/gals, 50 is not 'cold!') appears to fit with the anecdotal recommendations to pre-heat your car (on shore power) in the morning before starting your commute to avoid the 'blue snowflake' and get full regen braking earlier.
I love my Tesla and can't image ever going back to an ICE car. But as my wife notes you have to do a lot of reading/research to understand how to own/operate/enjoy a car that transitions from traditional automotive principles to one that is on the cutting edge of so many different technologies.
It depends...here is what I posted in another thread.....
FWIW, I was on a road trip and during the leg after my bathroom, dinner and charging stop here are my unscientific results:
Range after supercharging: 278 (made a choice to charge to 90% and pre-heat the cabin before I got back to the car)
Miles to destination: 127
Temperature: 38-42 degrees Fahrenheit
Cabin temperature: 71
Driving style: spirited (hitting 85 MPH at times but generally driving 79 MPH when the roads were open)
Road type: highway for 120 miles
EAP used a decent amount: 70%-80% of the trip
Miles remaining after destination was reached: 91 (187 miles used....47% more miles than that implied by distance to the destination)
I don’t know the range on the MR but I will recommend that you give your trip some thought. The following is part of a post I made in a thread on range in winter. My results are unscientific and impacted by lots of things I did not capture (wind speed, altitude, uphill, downhill, etc.). I also did not drive “efficiently.”
Your last sentence sounds a bit negative. I would not say crazy as much as I would say expected. There is a ton written on the impact of cold weather on EVs in winter. One of the reasons I got LR was so I didn’t have to think about range.
.......,,,
FWIW, I was on a road trip and during the leg after my bathroom, dinner and charging stop here are my unscientific results:
Range after supercharging: 278 (made a choice to charge to 90% and pre-heat the cabin before I got back to the car)
Miles to destination: 127
Temperature: 38-42 degrees Fahrenheit
Cabin temperature: 71
Driving style: spirited (hitting 85 MPH at times but generally driving 79 MPH when the roads were open)
Road type: highway for 120 miles
EAP used a decent amount: 70%-80% of the trip
Miles remaining after destination was reached: 91 (187 miles used....47% more miles than that implied by distance to the destination)
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It isn't so simple to say "32% below spec" What is the spec at 70MPH, 60MPH, heat no heat...etc etc etc.
jgs
Active Member
At 80 mph, you can't really say it's 32% "below spec", depending on what you mean by "spec". I'm not aware of a graph like this for the Model 3, but here's a Model S efficiency-vs-speed graph, and of course the same physical principles apply for the Model 3. As you can see the expected efficiency at 80 mph is about 18% below expected at 70 mph. If I remember correctly, Tesla's "rated miles" number is figured at 70 mph. So, you're really looking at something more like 18% speed tax, 14% cold weather tax (which is neither unexpected nor unwarranted).
I mean, it's good to know that under those speed-and-temp circumstances that's the behavior you're going to see, but it's also helpful to remember that speed is a more important factor than temp.
I thought rated miles was at ~65 mph ... at least A Better Routeplanner uses that for its calculations.
jgs
Active Member
I'm sure you're right. Reading off the graph I linked earlier, range @ 80 is 74% of range @ 65, so we can say the "cold tax" being reported above is actually only 6%, which is really not bad at all IMO.
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