I am thinking of purchasing a Model X 100d. I mostly drive in an area that during winters is around 0-32 degrees F. I will be making long-distance trips from Park City, UT to Napa, CA. Some in-between regions are cold. Will I have issues? What will the range be for every day around Park City, UT in 0-32 degree F?
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scottf200
Well-Known Member
Long drives: When you are driving the battery stays warmer as energy flows out of it.
Re: Daily -- expect 66% to 75% of stated range.
Example: Scale the below for rough estimates. Note X axis is -15F to 90F
Data from FleetCarma on Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt battery range variation with temperature
Via: Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt Range Loss In Winter: New Data From Canada
Yinn
Active Member
I concur with the above. 25%-35% of range loss during the winter.
If you're doing a number of short trips once you're there then it would spike even more. This is a result of the car needing to bring the temperature up to operating or comfort temperature vs maintaining the set temperature. For the road trip itself, plan for about 25-35% depending on driving habits.
I live in BC Canada. Currently 12 degrees out. I used to live in CA. My sister in law lives in SLC. I drive a 100D. You will have no problem.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
In general when I plan trips I discount 10% at the top end because the charging rate gets so slow there and 15% at the low end because you shouldn't run the battery down too much and you never know if it will cut out because of imbalances (Bjørn Nyland has a video where his car stopped with 14% showing on the gauge, then it turned to 0%, lol). That leaves 75% of which you can lose a third due to cold temperatures leaving you with 50% of the original range. Then you need to factor in such variables as the terrain and your personal driving style. I will leave those as exercises for the student.
I haven't looked at your route as that can be a lot of work. Starting with the ~290 mile range of the 100D find the number you think you will end up as your worst case range and see if any of the Superchargers are further apart than this. Or you can use abetterrouteplanner.com to plan your route with data you provide. This will be very educational. Planning trips in a BEV is nothing to take lightly unless you are in an area with chargers close together on your routes.
A route I traveled this summer both ways had a stretch where the chargers were both in pay parking lots. One was at an airport with nothing else to do than to talk to the other Tesla owners and the other was in a town center that was being torn down and rebuilt. The restaurant I found was a bit pricey although at the time I didn't mind as it was time to stop and eat and they validated the parking. Still, it's not an area I liked the charging options.
It is still early days for BEVs and any sort of trip displays their limitations. I have been very gung-ho on Teslas and they are by far the best, but I'm starting to think the issues of charging and range are going to start limiting sales over the next year as the market created by early adopters winnows out. How successful Tesla will be depends hugely on minimizing the impact of these limitations and making the more average car owner comfortable with what remains. Otherwise prospective car buyers won't care about the advantages.
I haven't looked at your route as that can be a lot of work. Starting with the ~290 mile range of the 100D find the number you think you will end up as your worst case range and see if any of the Superchargers are further apart than this. Or you can use abetterrouteplanner.com to plan your route with data you provide. This will be very educational. Planning trips in a BEV is nothing to take lightly unless you are in an area with chargers close together on your routes.
A route I traveled this summer both ways had a stretch where the chargers were both in pay parking lots. One was at an airport with nothing else to do than to talk to the other Tesla owners and the other was in a town center that was being torn down and rebuilt. The restaurant I found was a bit pricey although at the time I didn't mind as it was time to stop and eat and they validated the parking. Still, it's not an area I liked the charging options.
It is still early days for BEVs and any sort of trip displays their limitations. I have been very gung-ho on Teslas and they are by far the best, but I'm starting to think the issues of charging and range are going to start limiting sales over the next year as the market created by early adopters winnows out. How successful Tesla will be depends hugely on minimizing the impact of these limitations and making the more average car owner comfortable with what remains. Otherwise prospective car buyers won't care about the advantages.
Very important statement about short drives. Energy use is crazy high on short drives as it tries to warm battery. This might give you the impression of 50% extra consumocons in cold weather. But if you pull out on the highway, after a bit the consumption rate will drop when battery heating shuts off and you will achieve the 25-35% mentioned above
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
Are you saying it uses power from the battery to warm the battery??? That seems very counter productive, but I have seen over 600 watts used for about 4 miles on a regular basis. I assumed this was an artifact of power or battery charge measurement while it was cold. But it seems to start abruptly (not surprising) and end abruptly (more surprising). So I would believe it was actually drawing power to heat the battery, as hard to believe as that is. Perhaps this has to do with preventing damage? It seems odd to me they limit the regeneration to less than 50 kW when cold, but no such limit on using power. I sometimes run the car hard to warm the battery before charging, not sure flooring the accelerator is very good for a cold battery. I wasn't able to get the car to precondition when on a Supercharger. But you are saying its happy to precondition from the battery while driving... doesn't make much sense to me.
Unless the car is plugged in and you set it to preheat through charging or climate contro, the only way to heat the battery to optimize its function is to use some of its energy to heat itself through driving.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
I'm not sure what you mean by "optimize" its function. The battery will heat up from normal use and can be warmed by engine heat if needed. I haven't solved the equations, but I'm pretty sure you don't increase range by using battery power to heat the battery. So what does "optimize" mean in this context other than range?
What does make sense is while sitting at a Supercharger heating the battery with electricity that will then speed the charging of the battery. Yet, that doesn't seem to happen. Odd.
What he is saying is that the car will heat the battery to optimize the temperature of the pack. It will do this to enable higher power output and to prevent degradation at the cost of range. It uses a heater to speed the process. Would it get there on it's own, yes. Would it incur additional degradation to the cells/pack? Tesla seems to think so. Also remember that the drive unit is very efficient so it would take quite some time to get the pack up to temp from a cold soak in sub-freezing temps.
At a Supercharger it's usually the opposite, even in the winter. The charging rate alone is enough to keep the battery plenty warm. Too warm is also a big no no.
Edit: Looks like charging while cold is really the only thing that will actually degrade the cells. But the amount of power output and capacity is limited when cold.
Discharging at High and Low Temperatures
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gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
I wouldn't put too much credence in such esoteric details from a web site like Battery University. Not that they are a poor site, but this level of info will vary slightly from battery type to type. Tesla uses their own particular chemistry and the details of operation are not likely to be the same as other cars using other batteries. Notice that Tesla has made changes to their recommendations over the years as they explore and fine tune their knowledge of the batteries.
About charging in low temps, I was referring to starting a charge session with a cold battery. The Superchargers were only providing a very marginal current and even after 10 minutes they hadn't picked up, so I drove the car hard to warm up the battery. I had already driven it a few miles to reach the charger but the regen was not fully enabled still. I don't know how much of the charging control is in the car vs. the Superchargers but this location never did provide full current at any of the chargers for any of the three cars in question. The highest was about 200 MPH or about 70 kW.
If the batteries could be preconditioned while at the Superchargers I could have avoided the drive to heat the battery and likely gotten a higher charge rate to boot.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
Yeah, using the waste heat of the motors is what I've read they do to warm the batteries. But maybe that's only in the model 3 where that is the only heat source for the batteries. They even do that when the car is not moving. But it seems like in the model X they use the direct heaters to warm the batteries. That costs a lot of charge if you run frequent, short trips. This counters the higher efficiency of BEVs on lower speed trips and makes them more like ICE vehicles.
That information holds true of any lithium ion battery. Now Tesla does have a proprietary blend in their cells with the addition of some aluminum and the low reliance on cobalt. But that doesn't change the low/high temp limitations on the cells themselves. Thus the limitation on charging at low temp. This is well documented outside of BU. The car would have eventually started to charge at higher rates without driving it if left at the Supercharger stall long enough for the resistance heater core to warm the pack. Now that probably was not the cause of your low overall charge rate. Likely that was an issue with the Supercharger site you were at or it's an issue with your vehicle.
From what I recall reading elsewhere on this forum they are using the inverter "less efficiently" to provide additional "waste" heat to warm the pack when required in the model 3. Will see if I can find that post and link it here. The Model S and X have always had a "PTC" heater. Model X uses PN 1048941-00-E.
https://epc.teslamotors.com/#/systemGroups/66335?partNumber=1048941-00-E&partId=3089759
Optimize regen, some people just like having regen. The battery will draw power from itself to warm itself up if you turn on climate control from your app. i do it everyday. It will heat the battery so u can get up to 30kw regen. The rest of the heating has to be accomplished thru driving.
the loss of range doesn't bother me. i have a 100D, and i drive 6 miles one way to work. if it takes me 50mi in rated range a day, whatevs.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
The details of temperature and charging/discharging current very much depend on the details of battery chemistry. I was recently reading about some of the alternatives currently explored and one of the big problems is the trade off between range and degradation. This is highly dependent on the exact battery chemistry and will vary between brands of cars which use different chemistries. So that information does not "hold true of any lithium ion battery."
Perhaps you are thinking of the use of the motors to generate heat for the batteries? The model 3 does not have the resistance heater found in the S/X models. Trying to waste electricity in the inverter (which I'm not sure is used when DC charging) would be a rather complicated way to do this. Power converters are typically optimized to minimize waste heat. A lot of effort is usually put into this. I'm not even sure how they could waste extra power in the power converter without potentially damaging components. Much more likely to be in other components like the motors which always waste a significant amount of heat and are liquid cooled in a loop that includes the batteries.
I can't seem to get your link to load. I have pretty bad internet at the moment.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
Ok, but that doesn't address the apparent lack of heating while at the supercharger. Maybe I just didn't give it enough time. I suppose the battery pack is a lot more thermal mass than an ICE and the output of the heater is a lot less than the waste heat of an ICE. There is a lot to get used to in driving a BEV.
I get what your saying but even Tesla's cells have limitations on current at low or high temperatures. You can see this on the display even. It will highlight a portion of the battery blue when it's capacity is limited by being too cold and dashed lines on power output when too hot.
The chemistry will absolutely change how a quickly a cell charges/discharges and how it degrades over numerous cycles. But as long as the base lithium ion technology is used you will have thermal limitations. I agree that they could vary to some degree but in the end if the battery is too cold it will have a limited power output when compared to nominal temps. Lithium ion batteries also have a limitation on charging when cold as it causes lithium metal plating on the anode greatly accelerating degradation of the cells. These limitations are present regardless of the exact chemistry used. They may vary to some degree based on changes in chemistry but they are still present.
Yes, it was the motor they were using but it was theorized that they were also using it when stationary. Found the thread on Tesla's Forums. Though the link to the EPA doc describes an "inline heater" so exactly what they are using is still somewhat unknown from that perspective. For what it's worth I don't find a part number in the Tesla Parts catalog for a battery heater in the Model 3.
No Battery Heater on Model 3 Battery Impact | Tesla
The chemistry will absolutely change how a quickly a cell charges/discharges and how it degrades over numerous cycles. But as long as the base lithium ion technology is used you will have thermal limitations. I agree that they could vary to some degree but in the end if the battery is too cold it will have a limited power output when compared to nominal temps. Lithium ion batteries also have a limitation on charging when cold as it causes lithium metal plating on the anode greatly accelerating degradation of the cells. These limitations are present regardless of the exact chemistry used. They may vary to some degree based on changes in chemistry but they are still present.
Yes, it was the motor they were using but it was theorized that they were also using it when stationary. Found the thread on Tesla's Forums. Though the link to the EPA doc describes an "inline heater" so exactly what they are using is still somewhat unknown from that perspective. For what it's worth I don't find a part number in the Tesla Parts catalog for a battery heater in the Model 3.
No Battery Heater on Model 3 Battery Impact | Tesla
The internal battery heater maxes out at some wattage i dont recall of the top of my head. so it doesn't really matter how much power you're getting (supercharger or AC charging). It will heat it up as fast as it can. A cold-soaked battery will take a long time to ramp up to supercharge (from my experience).
