Model 3 - Preheat battery - Winter Range Concerns

[aaronM3]

Hello,

I have finally decided to make the plunge and get the model 3. Put in the reservation two days ago. I was going through different forums and found this topic in this forum saying range loss of 33% during winter conditions (33% range loss in cold winter conditions). I thought these cars come with battery preheating capabilities to negate these issues. My question is if I plug model 3 to 240V outlet and let it charge for an hour in the morning before driving, will it preheat the battery enough to get 100% regen ability and reduce the range loss issues?
I live in Chicago and this weekend the temperature dropped to ~15F.
What are other people seeing with range loss when the temperature drops.
I'm getting the medium range with 260 miles estimated. Some days, i have close to ~140 miles in commuting, round trip.


Thanks,
Aaron

 

[TexasEV]

There are a lot of reasons for range loss in the cold that have nothing to do with heating the battery. And a lot of threads here explaining it. Search to read all about it.

 

[Petrlol]

That could be interesting when it's super cold. Especially if you're going above 65mph and using the heat.

You have any ability to plug in before returning home?

I'm thinking that round trip in Chicago should have been long range...

 

[Rogue one]

I own a model 3 in southern Wisconsin. The range lost in the cold is mostly on short drives, on long highway (70-80 mph) drives with a preheated car it is much less noticeable in my experience about 15-20 percent. When I really notice the range hit is out shopping, short 2-3 mile drives, although I do leave the heat on in the car while in the store because who wants a cold car?

 

[rsomrek]

I was going through different forums and found this topic in this forum saying range loss of 33% during winter conditions (33% range loss in cold winter conditions).

What are other people seeing with range loss when the temperature drops.

Drove from southwest Chicago suburbs to St. Louis over Thanksgiving weekend. Left with battery at 99%, heat set to 70, seats on low, air temperature at 40. Got to Springfield, IL, with 19% left, outside temp 65. Coming back was harder. Was unaware of limited charging at "cold" temps (mid 20s in STL) and could only get 12-15Kw out of St. Charles supercharger. Had to stop in Springfield again and Bloomington to make it back home.

During 'warm" weather I get 230-240 Wh/mi. On the way back the reading was around 310-330 Wh/mi (with same in-car settings but much air temps in the 20s.) One good note is that the energy consumption/projection graph on the new (V9) energy app (for trip) was pretty good at estimating energy consumption and final battery reading at each supercharger.

 

[Big Earl]

Hello,

I have finally decided to make the plunge and get the model 3. Put in the reservation two days ago. I was going through different forums and found this topic in this forum saying range loss of 33% during winter conditions (33% range loss in cold winter conditions). I thought these cars come with battery preheating capabilities to negate these issues. My question is if I plug model 3 to 240V outlet and let it charge for an hour in the morning before driving, will it preheat the battery enough to get 100% regen ability and reduce the range loss issues?
I live in Chicago and this weekend the temperature dropped to ~15F.
What are other people seeing with range loss when the temperature drops.
I'm getting the medium range with 260 miles estimated. Some days, i have close to ~140 miles in commuting, round trip.


Thanks,
Aaron

Hi Aaron,

In very cold weather, you may experience up to 40% range loss depending on the length of your trips (short trips use more due to heating up from cold). Scheduling your charging so that it completes just before you leave in the morning is a good idea and will add some heat to the battery, but it won't be enough to fully restore regen... the only thing that will do that is driving.

On the worst of days, I think you're going to be using at least 75% of your battery - possibly more if there is snow. If you can plug in at work, you'll be in good shape. If you can't you might want to find a Supercharger that you can use for a few minutes on the worst days. Charging will be slow unless you've driven at highway speeds for a while (about an hour).

If it's within your budget, you might want to call Tesla and see if you can do an off-menu upgrade to the long range battery, although that might push you out beyond the 2018 delivery window and reduce your tax credit.

Try playing around with A Better Routeplanner to see what sort of range you can expect on your commute in different conditions.

 

[mswlogo]

As Clinton used to say "It's the economy, stupid". For Tesla's "It's the heater, stupid".

 

[TexasEV]

Drove from southwest Chicago suburbs to St. Louis over Thanksgiving weekend. Left with battery at 99%, heat set to 70...

There’s your problem. Turn down the heat and turn up the seat heater. You can use the energy in the battery for locomotion or to heat the air in the car— but not both. The seat heater uses a negligible amount of energy.

 

[Ciditad]

When I had my Spark EV, I used to put on my Canada Goose jacket + winter gloves and drive to work in ~20F weather to ensure the battery range would be longer than if I used the heater.

 

[suwaneedad]

While I don't know how much the $4k upgrade to LR will hurt you financially, or the related monthly loan payment increase, I would highly recommend getting the LR for your use case. For "pennies a day" in incremental car cost, you will remove 100% of the range anxiety you're going to have in the winter with MR. Not to mention your battery will lose ~5% of its original capacity in the first 1-2 years, further enhancing range anxiety with time. Get the LR. The good news is that you will probably have your car faster since there are inventory LRs floating around the nation.

 

[aaronM3]

That could be interesting when it's super cold. Especially if you're going above 65mph and using the heat.

You have any ability to plug in before returning home?

I'm thinking that round trip in Chicago should have been long range...

yes, i do have charging ability at work. So, i think that should help

 

[aaronM3]

While I don't know how much the $4k upgrade to LR will hurt you financially, or the related monthly loan payment increase, I would highly recommend getting the LR for your use case. For "pennies a day" in incremental car cost, you will remove 100% of the range anxiety you're going to have in the winter with MR. Not to mention your battery will lose ~5% of its original capacity in the first 1-2 years, further enhancing range anxiety with time. Get the LR. The good news is that you will probably have your car faster since there are inventory LRs floating around the nation.

Thanks for the feedback

 

[aaronM3]

Hi Aaron,

In very cold weather, you may experience up to 40% range loss depending on the length of your trips (short trips use more due to heating up from cold). Scheduling your charging so that it completes just before you leave in the morning is a good idea and will add some heat to the battery, but it won't be enough to fully restore regen... the only thing that will do that is driving.

On the worst of days, I think you're going to be using at least 75% of your battery - possibly more if there is snow. If you can plug in at work, you'll be in good shape. If you can't you might want to find a Supercharger that you can use for a few minutes on the worst days. Charging will be slow unless you've driven at highway speeds for a while (about an hour).

If it's within your budget, you might want to call Tesla and see if you can do an off-menu upgrade to the long range battery, although that might push you out beyond the 2018 delivery window and reduce your tax credit.

Try playing around with A Better Routeplanner to see what sort of range you can expect on your commute in different conditions.

Thanks for the feeback. Assuming 40% range loss and starting at 90% charge, i have already lost 50% range. This means i am at a theoretical range of 130 miles of MR. Considering i have to drive 140 miles, this poses a problem. However, when i do the 140 mile trip,i make stops at two work locations both of which have charging locations. But, due to time crunch, i may be only able to plug the car two hours max at each locations. Which means 4 hours total charging at level 2 speed.
i also didn't know you can do an off-menu upgrade and get LR battery with no AWD. I will be calling tesla customer service and see what they can do.

 

[jgs]

Thanks for the feeback. Assuming 40% range loss and starting at 90% charge, i have already lost 50% range. This means i am at a theoretical range of 130 miles of MR. Considering i have to drive 140 miles, this poses a problem. However, when i do the 140 mile trip,i make stops at two work locations both of which have charging locations. But, due to time crunch, i may be only able to plug the car two hours max at each locations. Which means 4 hours total charging at level 2 speed.
i also didn't know you can do an off-menu upgrade and get LR battery with no AWD. I will be calling tesla customer service and see what they can do.

If you get 4 hours of L2 charging as part of the day, it sounds to me as though you’re sitting pretty, not much to worry about. That said, as with the old saying about never too rich or too thin, you can never have too much range. I agree with others that if the LR is within financial reach, it’s a good upgrade.

 

[Silver Ghost]

Hello,

I have finally decided to make the plunge and get the model 3. Put in the reservation two days ago. I was going through different forums and found this topic in this forum saying range loss of 33% during winter conditions (33% range loss in cold winter conditions). I thought these cars come with battery preheating capabilities to negate these issues. My question is if I plug model 3 to 240V outlet and let it charge for an hour in the morning before driving, will it preheat the battery enough to get 100% regen ability and reduce the range loss issues?
I live in Chicago and this weekend the temperature dropped to ~15F.
What are other people seeing with range loss when the temperature drops.
I'm getting the medium range with 260 miles estimated. Some days, i have close to ~140 miles in commuting, round trip.


Thanks,
Aaron

I live in Texas - land of the 85 mph speed limit; my commute is 160 round trip. With the P3D+, I can go from 90% soc to 19% soc by the end of the day. I recommend getting the Long Range battery for you. I do not have Aero wheels - the P series did not get aero wheel option due to the brake.

 

[scottm]

We don't have 'nuff experience in the 3 yet, but for the S my mental budget for the coldest days (-40C = -40F) is that range will be reduced by 25% on a whole battery charge for a long road trip that uses it all. Comes in pretty close to that...if using all the tricks to conserve energy while traveling... dress warm - hat is a must, gloves, warm socks, yes thermal long underwear, sparing use of HVAC - primarily only to defrost front windscreen then off again - yes manually cycling it a lot, use of heated seats instead, suffer with a little frost on the windows, don't use rear defroster ever... lighten up on the speed keep it at or under 100km/h that's 60mph for the yankies... tire pressure at top end of spec (they'll lose a few psi in coldest days so top em up)... probably more things. Yes, we're compromising a lot on those days.. but we're not on the highway often in those kinds of temps.

More typical day to day down to about -20C I budget about 20% more energy per commute sized trip. And not so many sacrifices. And it doesn't even matter because I always plug in at work just at L1 rates from a normal plug and just doing that pays for my return trip.

If you have an enclosed garage, that's great. You've got the right idea to do a top-up charge for an hour before leaving. You can also use the App to preheat the car while still plugged in for the last 10 minutes prior to departure. On model S the App heat feature will pre-condition / heat the battery too if it's cold, there's symbol that shows up when it's doing that. Not sure if model 3 has the same battery pre-conditioning from the App... I'll try it.

Other things we do on S don't apply for 3 because I can't find the same features on the console. (I have v8 software on model S and v9 on the 3). Like Range Mode. I flick on range mode on model S during the travel time, then flick it off during the parked time if I plan on charging with a low and cold battery pack. There are conditions when the S can be so cold it will not even start to charge on L1 or low-powered L2. Looking forward to see what the 3 does in those same conditions.

 

[aaronM3]

If you get 4 hours of L2 charging as part of the day, it sounds to me as though you’re sitting pretty, not much to worry about. That said, as with the old saying about never too rich or too thin, you can never have too much range. I agree with others that if the LR is within financial reach, it’s a good upgrade.

Any idea how much range i get with an hour of L2 charging?

 

[scottm]

Any idea how much range i get with an hour of L2 charging?

Depends if your L2 can deliver 48A or more. Say it can... then
the most range you can get is 11.5 kW per hour, at least in a LR model 3 that has 48A onboard charger.
You're limited by the onboard charger.
So this gives you about 1/7 of the range of whatever the full battery gives you (for the LR sized battery pack).

Does the MR model 3 still have 48A charger? Assume it does...
Then same thing applies, you'll onboard range at the same rate as the LR car.
You just won't be able to take as much on in total if you played it out to the end.
But hour for hour you'd be onboarding the same amount of distance for both cars equally at that L2 charger.

Make sense?

 

[aaronM3]

Depends if your L2 can deliver 48A or more. Say it can... then
the most range you can get is 11.5 kW per hour, at least in a LR model 3 that has 48A onboard charger.
You're limited by the onboard charger.
So this gives you about 1/7 of the range of whatever the full battery gives you (for the LR sized battery pack).

Does the MR model 3 still have 48A charger? Assume it does...
Then same thing applies, you'll onboard range at the same rate as the LR car.
You just won't be able to take as much on in total if you played it out to the end.
But hour for hour you'd be onboarding the same amount of distance for both cars equally at that L2 charger.

Make sense?

I just noticed on Tesla's site that the Model 3 Mid Range has a 32 amp onboard charger (same as the yet-to-be-released Standard Range) vs the Long Range that has a 48 amp charger.

Based on figures posted at tesla website and looking at L2 output (say chargepoint) of 7.2kw @ 30A, i'm calculating 30mph. Is this a correct estimate

Wall Connector

https://www.chargepoint.com/files/datasheets/ds-ct4000.pdf

The charge point can deliver at 7.2kw @ 30A and tesla site says at this output, i should get 30mph. Which means if i plug the car for 2 hours, i should get 60 miles of range.

 

[eprosenx]

Depends if your L2 can deliver 48A or more. Say it can... then
the most range you can get is 11.5 kW per hour, at least in a LR model 3 that has 48A onboard charger.
You're limited by the onboard charger.
So this gives you about 1/7 of the range of whatever the full battery gives you (for the LR sized battery pack).

Does the MR model 3 still have 48A charger? Assume it does...
Then same thing applies, you'll onboard range at the same rate as the LR car.
You just won't be able to take as much on in total if you played it out to the end.
But hour for hour you'd be onboarding the same amount of distance for both cars equally at that L2 charger.

Make sense?

I think MR is down rated to 32a charging.

I agree with others that you are a pretty good use case for the LR version due to the very long commute and cold temps.

Though having charging at works makes it more tenable, but I would not be surprised if those chargers are not always available. (Busy)

I hit the button to pre-heat the car in the AM and even though I get no icon I am aware of, I still think the battery is getting pre heated since if I leave it running for like an hour before getting in the car it shows full regen. I have another thread running in this forum where I have been posting graphs of my consumption while the car is warming up off shore power. I am pretty sure on really cold days it is running the cabin heat and the battery heat as it can almost max my 60a (48a) Wall Connector circuit.

If course Oregon does not really get *that* cold compared to Chicago.

You also may find value in having the 48a charger in the LR so you can regenerate range faster from such a long commute in case you need to come home and turn around and go somewhere else quickly.