Model 3 vampire drain log

[AMIYY4YOU]

just wanted to share my vampire drain with everyone after being away from my car for roughly one week. I had a work trip and wasn't sure how to manage it, so I charged it to about 75%. From then on, I resisted the urge to check using my mobile app every hour and instead I checked in once a day. Here's the data:

5/5 5:40 PM 240 miles
5/7 6:29 AM 236 miles
5/8 6:07 AM 232 miles
5/9 7:46 AM 227 miles
5/10 6:33 AM 222 miles
5/11 8:54 AM 218 miles
5/11 10:31 PM 214 miles

I expect tomorrow morning I'll have about 213 since I checked twice today, but it looks like about 4-5 miles of vampire drain pet day checking at roughly a frequency of once or twice per day.

Hope this data is helpful for owners! Feel free to share your data and experiences and your conditions. Obviously every car varies but hopefully it will be a useful baseline for people to compare to.

I might add some of my own interpretation to this too :
If you assume 75kwh battery and I lose about 28 miles of the 310 capacity, that's about 10% which translates to 7.5 kwh. 7 days x24 hrs is 168 hrs. That tells me that the average idle power to power the subsystems in the model 3 is about 45 watts. Of course it's not continuous because I believe waking your car causes more power to be consumed. Just another interesting way to look at it though.

 

[opencar]

just wanted to share my vampire drain with everyone after being away from my car for roughly one week. I had a work trip and wasn't sure how to manage it, so I charged it to about 75%. From then on, I resisted the urge to check using my mobile app every hour and instead I checked in once a day. Here's the data:

5/5 5:40 PM 240 miles
5/7 6:29 AM 236 miles
5/8 6:07 AM 232 miles
5/9 7:46 AM 227 miles
5/10 6:33 AM 222 miles
5/11 8:54 AM 218 miles
5/11 10:31 PM 214 miles

I expect tomorrow morning I'll have about 213 since I checked twice today, but it looks like about 4-5 miles of vampire drain pet day checking at roughly a frequency of once or twice per day.

Hope this data is helpful for owners! Feel free to share your data and experiences and your conditions. Obviously every car varies but hopefully it will be a useful baseline for people to compare to.

I might add some of my own interpretation to this too :
If you assume 75kwh battery and I lose about 28 miles of the 310 capacity, that's about 10% which translates to 7.5 kwh. 7 days x24 hrs is 168 hrs. That tells me that the average idle power to power the subsystems in the model 3 is about 45 watts. Of course it's not continuous because I believe waking your car causes more power to be consumed. Just another interesting way to look at it though.

are you on FW ver 14.13?

 

[AMIYY4YOU]

are you on FW ver 14.13?

My firmware version appears to be 2018.16.2 43040e6

 

[Borr]

Very helpful—thanks for posting these!

 

[tashtibet]

wow! even my Nissan leaf won't lose that much.

 

[AMIYY4YOU]

wow! even my Nissan leaf won't lose that much.

Of course it won't. It's not nearly as advanced as the model 3 is electronically.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Of course it won't. It's not nearly as advanced as the model 3 is electronically.

So, what are the advanced tasks that the Model 3 is accomplishing with 45W of power?
Sorry, I hate vampire drain! Supposedly 1/4 of all residential electricity usage is vampire drain.

 

[barjohn]

Wouldn't it be nice if Tesla added a screen (or an API) that shows us how much power each subsystem is using while idle and while sleeping. Example: MCU: 10W, Bluetooth Radio: 2W, Cellular Radio: 3W, Power Management System: 8W, 12V Battery Charging: 10W, WiFi Radio: 2W, GPS Radio: 4W, NFC Sensor System: 1W, etc. Then give us the ability to turn off any of these we don't need active. One other feature would be to draw power from the wall charger when plugged in so the battery stays at the designated charge level. Tesla, feel free to steal my idea!

Note: These wattage values are completely made up.

 

[EVnut]

I'd very much like to see a "storage" option added. This is a crazy amount of drain, especially if you plan to leave the car parked for quite some time. When we don't need to car to be instantly at our beck and call, there should be a way to put it into a much deeper sleep state. My hope and assumption is that the drain will be improved over time, but I'd *still* like to see a storage choice.

 

[TexasEV]

So, what are the advanced tasks that the Model 3 is accomplishing with 45W of power?
Sorry, I hate vampire drain! Supposedly 1/4 of all residential electricity usage is vampire drain.

Whoever claimed that must not live where houses use air conditioning.

 

[AMIYY4YOU]

So, what are the advanced tasks that the Model 3 is accomplishing with 45W of power?
Sorry, I hate vampire drain! Supposedly 1/4 of all residential electricity usage is vampire drain.

Yea i believe it. Maybe not 25%.. Probably like 10% but All modern appliances require some power to keep the system status alive and the internal modules in a 'standby' mode. I highly recommend you buy a kil a watt and put it in series with any of your appliances if you want to get an idea of standby power consumption. And if you have energy efficient appliances you'll be pretty impressed with their efficiency.

So The computer is always on because not only does it have modules to query and monitor the status of the various controller boards in the system (I.e battery monitor boards for each pack), but it also has to have a main controller that can communicate information over the lte network and the sensor systems and cameras are probably still running in the background until it goes back to sleep. Bluetooth radio also needs to be on especially if it's waiting for a key to wake it locally, etc. These are all just educated guesses and I'm sure it's more complex than what I'm describing.

 

[EVnut]

If the car is dissipating 45W, it should stay pretty toasty warm when parked in the winter!

 

[JRP3]

45W of heat is pretty small, not going to create any "toasty" warming.

 

[AMIYY4YOU]

If the car is dissipating 45W, it should stay pretty toasty warm when parked in the winter!

Nah. The 45w isn't being dissipated, it's being consumed by the modules. Even if you assume 50%efficiency that would be 27 w of heat. If I put 100w into an amplifier that's 90%efficient, 90w goes to the load that it's powering and 10w is dissipated as heat

 

[Daniel in SD]

Yea i believe it. Maybe not 25%.. Probably like 10% but All modern appliances require some power to keep the system status alive and the internal modules in a 'standby' mode. I highly recommend you buy a kil a watt and put it in series with any of your appliances if you want to get an idea of standby power consumption. And if you have energy efficient appliances you'll be pretty impressed with their efficiency.

So The computer is always on because not only does it have modules to query and monitor the status of the various controller boards in the system (I.e battery monitor boards for each pack), but it also has to have a main controller that can communicate information over the lte network and the sensor systems and cameras are probably still running in the background until it goes back to sleep. Bluetooth radio also needs to be on especially if it's waiting for a key to wake it locally, etc. These are all just educated guesses and I'm sure it's more complex than what I'm describing.

I have a kill-a-watt
All I know is that my phone can keep bluetooth, cellular, wi-fi, GPS, and voice commands on for a fraction of a watt. When engineers actually work on vampire drain they can solve the problem. The EPA should really force EV manufacturers to list vampire drain on the window sticker and include it somehow in the MPGe.
I think the only excuse I would accept for Tesla's excessive vampire drain is battery conditioning.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Nah. The 45w isn't being dissipated, it's being consumed by the modules. Even if you assume 50%efficiency that would be 27 w of heat. If I put 100w into an amplifier that's 90%efficient, 90w goes to the load that it's powering and 10w is dissipated as heat

Where does the 90W go? It converts to heat when the sound waves hit things. Conservation of energy. Energy cannot really be "consumed", just converted to other forms. Unless you're creating mass somehow

 

[EVNow]

Unless you're creating mass somehow

How do you think people put on weight ?

 

[EVNow]

I think the only excuse I would accept for Tesla's excessive vampire drain is battery conditioning.

I doubt there is much conditioning going on in spring.

45W is like 4 LED bulbs being always on. Can definitely be improved - though my guess is they have other priorities right now (like enabling Wi-Fi).

 

[EVnut]

Those are some significant LEDs! LED headlamps? I think the easiest way to look at this drain is that it is equivalent to one halogen lowbeam headlamp. Always on.

 

[EVnut]

45W of heat is pretty small, not going to create any "toasty" warming.

Yeah, yeah. I was sorta kidding. But... 45W is not insignificant. I've burned myself with 5W.