New M3 No Regen Braking & Battery Drain issues

[MrBadger]

Also the manual is often wrong, confusing, uses unfamiliar terms or just out of date. Its currently 2020.20 which was around June, but last year it was very much short on information and clarity. Its certainly come on a long way in last year, but is certainly not the definitive guide.

 

[Jason71]

Read the manual and look around the forums and FB groups and you'll find the answers to your questions without clogging up the service system.

What makes you think everyone is or wants to be on Facebook? It will be a cold day in hell before a buy a product where being a member of Facebook is an essential requirement of ownership!

 

[on12145]

Have you tried switching it back on, in your husband's profile, to see if that has an effect on yours?

You could also create a new, third profile and test with that. You can manually change profiles without having to pair them with a key etc.

Do you have any dots on the left of the power/regen bar? This indicates reduced regen capability due to a cold or full battery.

Early on, I was caught out by the lack of regen at certain times, especially as I like one pedal driving, so use it a lot. I took a while to get used to checking for the dots before relying on regen first thing.

Battery usage during short journeys, in this colder weather, will be higher. If you were to sign up to TeslaFi, you would see that the poor efficiency really is significant in these situations. Traditional engines are exactly the same, it's just people are more used to it, and it's probably less pronounced.

The battery will drop whilst the car is stopped, especially if you have sentry enabled. If you turn sentry off, the car should go to sleep and the drain will reduce significantly.

I've not tried changing my husband's profile but, thank you, will give that a go today. I'll also look out for the dots. We've had one drive (on my husband's profile) where we got a specific message on the screen saying regenerative braking was significantly reduced however other than that i've seen no other notifications but I wasn't looking out for the dots!

We have sentry mode off for the reason you mention above, as we don't have the ability to charge at home (no drive/garage) so are solely reliant on public charging - I think that has probably made me a little more unnecessarily paranoid about battery usage lol. I'm going to switch my profile to % from miles and stop overthinking it! Thanks again

 

[on12145]

Don't worry. Many will be pleased to offer advice and help.

Can you be sure that regen mode is in standard not low? There are a few oddities in user profile settings not sticking so it won't be the first time that user profiles have reverted to a different setting.

When stopped fully in hold mode, do you see a View attachment 594016 iirc top right of the screen? Final stop on hold mode is normally accompanied by a reassuring feint mechanical clunk from the dashboard area. If you don't see this when completely stopped and you are definitely on hold mode, raise a service issue.

Do you get any regen or is it only when you are coming to a complete standstill that you feel that it is lacking? It is easy to check regen by looking at the green line under the current speed then lifting off when travelling at reasonable speeds. The green line should move left of centre to indicate that battery power is being harvested. If you do not see this, then I would raise a service request.

As mentioned earlier, the car will gently roll to a stop rather than sharply braking in final few meters of stopping. How gently this happens can be affected by many things, but importantly, may change from software version to software version. Some recent reports that regen braking has changed recently. This may explain the reason why you feel the car is behaving different to your test drive.

Battery range. Short trips have a disproportionate energy usage vs a longer trip. Some people call this the 'departure tax'. There is often a certain amount energy that the car consumes even if it goes a very short distance. It varies widely but seems to be more greatly influenced by temperature - its probably down to things controlled by the user such as use of heater/AC but some outside users control such as battery conditioning. So a 10 x 5 mile trips will use up significantly more energy than a single 50 mile trip. If you sit in the car and heater needs to warm the cabin, its likely to use a lot of power. And thats going to mostly occur in first few miles.

Sentry - if you use sentry mode, the car will have a very high energy use even just sitting idle. It is reported that, if in sentry the car consumes around 300W of power, or 0.3kWh of energy per hour. That equates to approx 1% of battery every couple of hours or so on a LR battery model, more for the standard range battery. So 1% battery used every 2-3 hours for the car just sat idle doing nothing apart from watching the world go by.

There are also other reasons why the battery may seem to suddenly deplete, but it may also suddenly increase too. Calculating energy in the battery is not an exact science, so the car is constantly having to guess how much energy it thinks is left in the battery. Sometimes these can change wildly especially if there is a temperature change - a bit like parking an ICE vehicle on a hill - if you park one way it may give you a completely different reading on the fuel gauge than if you parked facing the other way. Other factors may be at play and these may not remain constant.

On the my profile it's definitely switched to standard and when I check (whilst driving and parked) it's still on standard and hold.

I also get the hold symbol that you posted once the car has come to a complete stop however it's just that the car coasts alot more than it should before coming to that final 0mph. I've tested this even at very low speeds. Once I fully lift my foot off the accelerator the car will continue to drive for a good number of seconds whilst the speed goes down to zero, as a result in most instances I end up having to use the brake to stop.

Thanks re. the battery advice makes sense - I love a heated seat and our mobiles are also always being charged. I've posted this in some other replies but I think viewing the battery in miles isn't particularly helping and the fact we don't have a home charger (and also didn't get a type 2 cable with delivery meaning we can't use the ones on the roads near us) has made me slightly more paranoid about it.
Sentry mode is off for sure. I think i'll download one of the suggested apps to track battery efficiency. Thank you!

 

[GRiLLA]

Just to add, when you are on a significant trip and use navigation the range estimations are excellent, no need to worry about converting back and forth to miles, it considers weather, elevation and even traffic in it's prediction.

Having sentry on away from home is a sensible precaution, it'll use some power but that's the point. You can configure in settings for it to be off at home and work where the car is perhaps likely to spend enough time for it to cause an issue. It will always turn off if the battery reaches 20% to avoid leaving you empty.

Also, ban husband from driving it, he sounds to be the source of the issue in the first place

 

[on12145]

Firstly, I'm a bit surprised with the initial responses you received here. We were all new once and 99% of the time this forum is full of very helpful and knowledgeable people. YES, you should read the manual which is easily accessible from the screen. However, let's take a step back and try out a few things.

Firstly, has the car been sitting outside and is it very cold out? Regen is reduced in cold temps until the car warms up which can take some time as we get into winter weather. You'll typically see "dots" appear instead of solid lines where the acceleration and regen meters are near your speed on the dash indicating that this is reduced. If it is really reduced you would typically see a message as well stating this though.

If you've confirmed that your settings are ok it might also be worth just trying to reboot the car. There are several ways to do this, but in your case I would use the following:

1) Make sure you are parked in a safe location and hold your foot on the brake while pressing both steering wheel buttons and holding them.

2) Do not release the brake or the buttons until you see the white "T" logo appear on the console screen. This might take a minute or so while the system reboots.

3) Give the car time to finish booting up. I typically wait until the car has LTE signal again to confirm all systems are good to go.

Now give it another test and see if things are better assuming that temperature is not the issue.

Thanks i'm going to give it a test today reviewing the dots (if any) before factory resetting as a final resort I'm also going to change my husbands profile back to standard/hold and see if that shifts anything!

 

[fancealot]

Hi Guys.
So we received delivery of our Tesla last Friday. Did all the checks on the list and luckily there were no physical defects HOWEVER I've had two issues that I can't currently explain.

Reg Braking doesn't work...at all. When it was delivered off the transporter and we moved it to a better parking location it worked perfectly fine then. Later that day my husband drove the car a short distance and didn't enjoy the 'hold' driving experience so switched his profile to 'creep'. I however prefer to drive on 'hold' so my profile is still set to that however it doesn't hold whatsoever.

When I release my foot off the accelerator it continues driving on for a good number of seconds before getting to 0mph. I've tried toggling between hold and creep and roll to see if that would get it working again and toggling between low and standard on regen braking but nothing seems to make it work.

Is it because my husband's profile isn't set to hold - could that have impacted it? Couple things to note, at no point was the car anywhere close to 100% - max we've charged it was 80% so it can't be that. Also it's cold in London but regen braking doesn't work even after driving on hour long trips when i assume the battery would definitely had had a chance to warm up.
Any advice? I've logged it as a delivery defect however if there's a quick fix would rather avoid a service centre trip.

Next issue is the battery drain...maybe linked to the regenerative braking not working?? I currently have the car set to show me the battery in miles so I could track it and it seems that for every 1mile driven 2miles is lost from the battery - is that normal??
Also, tonight for example I drove 6 miles...lost 12 miles on the battery upon arrival at my destination. Parked up and had a 2 hour appointment...got back in the car and had lost 3 miles during the 2 hours it was parked outside...again is that normal?

I've also put this down as a servicing issue given we had to do this all within the first 7 days but i want to know if maybe my expectations aren't realistic for how the battery drains and if this is normal i'll cancel the service ticket.

Any advice/wisdom much appreciated!

OK lets look at this step by step

1. Creep and Hold So this is all about Driving stopping mode, Creep is a feeling much like a torque car and will continue to 'pull' when driving at slwow speeds, Roll (another option) is like being in neutral so you have to hold the brake to keep it in place, the HOLD mode helps to slow the car with the regenerative braking at slow speeds, then when you've come to a complete halt the hold icon on the screen will appear (H)
2. Regenerative Braking, this is about Braking and Stopping, Regenerative braking helps to add power back to your car's battery every time you lift of the accelerator, on some occasions it will not slow the car down quickly enough and you may need to use the brake pedal the best way to look for the regen is the bar above your car's icon if when accelerating it's black and when you lift off it's green you're using regen braking - IF your car isn't braking correctly you will need to check the regen levels which are different to the stopping modes as above you may find you are on low regen instead of standard
3. Battery drain, top tip get rid of the mileage setting and go to %, it will be a happier experience if you do. Mornings right now are a lot cooler than they were and warming the car takes a lot of power out of the battery, also check your settings - do you have the A/C on all the time (uses battery) are you heavily accelerating? (It definitely uses more power the quicker you speed up), what mileage are you doing and how are you travelling? Are you 'topping up' the battery daily (best option) keeping between 20-80% of charge. When driving plot your route and look at the energy graphs for the driving it's a much more accurate way to gauge usage.
4. Phantom drain - you mentioned stopping for 2 hours and losing some range, are you using sentry mode at all? Do you frequently log in to the app or have a 3rd party app working in the background which is keeping the car awake? that could be why.

It has taken me nearly a week to get used to the new way to drive with an EV, I cannot wait to get a home charger installed as daily top up of what i've used will remedy most of my worries about range etc. Public charging can be worrisome (i've been to a supercharger three times in a week to charge as I do 80 miles a day round trip) but i've found a 7kw charger near work which will act as my daily top up for the next few weeks until I can get the home charger installed.

 

[webbah]

Thanks i'm going to give it a test today reviewing the dots (if any) before factory resetting as a final resort I'm also going to change my husbands profile back to standard/hold and see if that shifts anything!

The steps I provided are not a factory reset. That's really the hardcore last step. You can see the different options in detail here:

Here's How To Reboot Your Tesla Model 3

Factory reset really should not be needed unless all else fails. I believe this is under the service menu and typically is only used if you are selling the care and want to wipe all data, etc.

 

[on12145]

The steps I provided are not a factory reset. That's really the hardcore last step. You can see the different options in detail here:

Here's How To Reboot Your Tesla Model 3

Factory reset really should not be needed unless all else fails. I believe this is under the service menu and typically is only used if you are selling the care and want to wipe all data, etc.

Ah ok understood apologies I definitely need to study up on my Tesla terms

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Yes, there is no pleasing everyone.

It may very well be just some misconception about how the car works but then again there may also be some problem with your car. We here cannot check it and can only assume it is (not). Tesla service will check your car remotely before they give you their first response. It may be a simple suggestion to reset the car/computer, update FW and/or wait few more days. But it will be a more informed response than we can give.

About overwhelming the service ... well, yes, that is the problem but it is on Tesla to make it capable of all the load. You payed for the car, the price included all the service and support you may need. This includes "stupid questions".

UK people in the UK sub forum are willing to help. Your profile says you're in Slovenia, maybe helping others is different over there but please don't try and suggest we shouldn't be helping each other in our own subforum.

You may also be aware that Tesla now want to charge an investigation fee and if the matter is not warranty you pay for them to investigate.

 

[GRiLLA]

I also get the hold symbol that you posted once the car has come to a complete stop however it's just that the car coasts alot more than it should before coming to that final 0mph. I've tested this even at very low speeds. Once I fully lift my foot off the accelerator the car will continue to drive for a good number of seconds whilst the speed goes down to zero, as a result in most instances I end up having to use the brake to stop.

It's pretty hard to judge whether it's right or wrong from a description. My car doesn't instantly stop if I take my foot off the accelerator, but you get used to judging it. It's worse in cold weather when the regen dots are there. It took me about 2 weeks to just get used to judging using regen, lots of confusion until my brain learnt it.

BTW I would also ignore the 7 days thing mentioned earlier. You have 4 years of warranty for any defects that aren't wear and tear where Tesla will fix any issues, but you may be charged a diagnostics fee if they don't find any. My personal but limited experience is that they are very efficient and deliver great service. I had a rattle I reported 9 months in and I could track that they did about a dozen test drives back and forth around the service center while trying to find and fix the issue, and it's now perfect.
You also have 14 days under which you could reject the car under distance selling regulations. This exists in case the car you bought on the internet doesn't suit for some reason, for example doesn't fit in a garage that you couldn't test as it was an online purchase, but you can reject for any reason at all. Tesla don't have to sell you another car though if you reject, you don't get a right to a replacement.

 

[webbah]

UK people in the UK sub forum are willing to help. Your profile says you're in Slovenia, maybe helping others is different over there but please don't try and suggest we shouldn't be helping each other in our own subforum.

You may also be aware that Tesla now want to charge an investigation fee and if the matter is not warranty you pay for them to investigate.

I'm from Switzerland here, but happy to help and ease the transition for people from dinosaur ICE to EV life. That said, I find it's best to simply ignore and not respond to pointless responses, trolls, etc. It adds nothing and engaging is pointless. If you guys prefer I bail out from all UK discussions I'll show myself the door though! But then I'd have to deal with all the Frenchie and German forums.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I think the best way to check that theres not a fundemental problem is to go for an 30 min+ drive somewhere thats not shuffling oin slow traffic to both warm up the battery and car and use up some of the battery. If its still doing it then it is a little odd as its not that cold and things should be normal by then. As others have said a cold battery can limit things and the high consumption is also telling factor.

If after a good drive it still has limited regen like you suggest then I'd report it to Tesla as you've ruled out the obious external factors.

 

[on12145]

OK lets look at this step by step

1. Creep and Hold So this is all about Driving stopping mode, Creep is a feeling much like a torque car and will continue to 'pull' when driving at slwow speeds, Roll (another option) is like being in neutral so you have to hold the brake to keep it in place, the HOLD mode helps to slow the car with the regenerative braking at slow speeds, then when you've come to a complete halt the hold icon on the screen will appear (H)
2. Regenerative Braking, this is about Braking and Stopping, Regenerative braking helps to add power back to your car's battery every time you lift of the accelerator, on some occasions it will not slow the car down quickly enough and you may need to use the brake pedal the best way to look for the regen is the bar above your car's icon if when accelerating it's black and when you lift off it's green you're using regen braking - IF your car isn't braking correctly you will need to check the regen levels which are different to the stopping modes as above you may find you are on low regen instead of standard
3. Battery drain, top tip get rid of the mileage setting and go to %, it will be a happier experience if you do. Mornings right now are a lot cooler than they were and warming the car takes a lot of power out of the battery, also check your settings - do you have the A/C on all the time (uses battery) are you heavily accelerating? (It definitely uses more power the quicker you speed up), what mileage are you doing and how are you travelling? Are you 'topping up' the battery daily (best option) keeping between 20-80% of charge. When driving plot your route and look at the energy graphs for the driving it's a much more accurate way to gauge usage.
4. Phantom drain - you mentioned stopping for 2 hours and losing some range, are you using sentry mode at all? Do you frequently log in to the app or have a 3rd party app working in the background which is keeping the car awake? that could be why.

It has taken me nearly a week to get used to the new way to drive with an EV, I cannot wait to get a home charger installed as daily top up of what i've used will remedy most of my worries about range etc. Public charging can be worrisome (i've been to a supercharger three times in a week to charge as I do 80 miles a day round trip) but i've found a 7kw charger near work which will act as my daily top up for the next few weeks until I can get the home charger installed.

Thank you - i'm going to do the checks on the power/regen bar today and observe what it shows. It's definitely very hard to explain the absence of a 'feeling' but as I know how it drives usually and I'm therefore acutely aware that it's not doing that at present despite doing longer range trips (e.g. 2 hour one way trips through London) where the battery definitely should have been warm and the settings were all in place.

I feel your pain re. the charger. We live in a Victorian terraced property so home charging was never an option because we don't have a drive or garage so knew we'd be dependent on public charging but I think i underestimated my obsession with worrying I'll run of charge and be stranded haha - Just have to get used to it.

Fortunately we have a 43kW fast charger 5 mins from the house so we plan to use that every couple of days as it takes us to 80% in about 40 mins but having a home charger would definitely be a much more stress free option!

 

[MrBadger]

it's just that the car coasts alot more than it should before coming to that final 0mph.

The coasting is not necessarily abnormal. In low regen mode, it will behave very much like and ICE car and coast for a considerable distance almost certainly requiring use of brakes to stop. But even in standard mode, the car can coast for many car lengths even at lower speeds (possibly far more depending on how fast you are travelling) and may still require the brake to stop.

However, if you are in a stop/start queue of traffic, I would think* that most times the car will stop and hold within a cars length of lifting.

* difficult to say for sure as its such a natural thing you just stop thinking about it and if I misjudge, just tap the the brake like previous 30 years of driving.

 

[on12145]

I think the best way to check that theres not a fundemental problem is to go for an 30 min+ drive somewhere thats not shuffling oin slow traffic to both warm up the battery and car and use up some of the battery. If its still doing it then it is a little odd as its not that cold and things should be normal by then. As others have said a cold battery can limit things and the high consumption is also telling factor.

If after a good drive it still has limited regen like you suggest then I'd report it to Tesla as you've ruled out the obious external factors.

Hey yup we've done that We live in the depths of South London and drove up to Harrow and back this weekend to visit friends. 2hr trip one way, mostly 40 mph roads so no significant stopping and starting once we passed central London...still same issue unfortunately

 

[webbah]

Thank you - i'm going to do the checks on the power/regen bar today and observe what it shows. It's definitely very hard to explain the absence of a 'feeling' but as I know how it drives usually and I'm therefore acutely aware that it's not doing that at present despite doing longer range trips (e.g. 2 hour one way trips through London) where the battery definitely should have been warm and the settings were all in place.

I feel your pain re. the charger. We live in a Victorian terraced property so home charging was never an option because we don't have a drive or garage so knew we'd be dependent on public charging but I think i underestimated my obsession with worrying I'll run of charge and be stranded haha - Just have to get used to it.

Fortunately we have a 43kW fast charger 5 mins from the house so we plan to use that every couple of days as it takes us to 80% in about 40 mins but having a home charger would definitely be a much more stress free option!

No need to stress out over this. I've managed just fine since 2012 with EV's and living in an apartment without a charger. I have chargers within 2-5 km's away but typically only have to charge once a week or so. No issues with degradation or anything. Most important is to not let the car sit for long at a low state of charge. I have both an electric skateboard and a Segway Ninebot scooter. If I need to drop the car on the charger for hours I throw one of these in the trunk and ride home. Ride back later when it's done. That's rare though. Do try to balance using AC and DC charges though. Not so much an issue on the Model 3, but historically Tesla has throttled back Model S owners that only used Superchargers and DC charging. Could never happen with the Model 3 due to newer battery chemistry but nonetheless I try and use AC charging if time is not an issue.

 

[LukeUK]

For what it's worth, I understand the argument with changing the battery level to %, but I am happy to keep mine on miles. I know it's not accurate, but I also know that I can gauge what range I have with a bit of estimating.

If I changed it to percent, the first calculation in my head would be 'so....80% of 310, that's about 250'. Why do that when the car can tell me? I'd then go on to guess based on temperature, average speed and length of journey and decide from there.

If I'm planning to drive 50 miles that day and the battery range is reported as 200, to be frank, I don't really care. I'm going to arrive home without an issue.

If I'm thinking about setting off on my current commute, which is 190 miles, I put a bit more thought in to it, but that still starts off with an idea of mileage, not %.

Each to their own though, whatever works for you. Jeez, there are bigger fish to fry.

Also, currently staying in a hotel, with no charging, and working on a site that also doesn't have public charging. I have a choice of two car-parks for overnight parking, one is close to the hotel and doesn't have any chargers, the other is 5 mins further to walk and has free 22 kW chargers. it takes 4-5 hours at 11 kW to top the car up overnight, and I currently need to do that about once a week, and prior to driving home, every couple of weekends.

Luke

 

[webbah]

For what it's worth, I understand the argument with changing the battery level to %, but I am happy to keep mine on miles. I know it's not accurate, but I also know that I can gauge what range I have with a bit of estimating.

If I changed it to percent, the first calculation in my head would be 'so....80% of 310, that's about 250'. Why do that when the car can tell me? I'd then go on to guess based on temperature, average speed and length of journey and decide from there.

If I'm planning to drive 50 miles that day and the battery range is reported as 200, to be frank, I don't really care. I'm going to arrive home without an issue.

If I'm thinking about setting off on my current commute, which is 190 miles, I put a bit more thought in to it, but that still starts off with an idea of mileage, not %.

Each to their own though, whatever works for you. Jeez, there are bigger fish to fry.

Luke

The energy screen is more accurate. Especially if you put in your destination in the NAV. So using % for the main and then the energy screen is a great way.

 

[MrBadger]

If I changed it to percent, the first calculation in my head would be 'so....80% of 310, that's about 250'. Why do that when the car can tell me? I'd then go on to guess based on temperature, average speed and length of journey and decide from there.

Conversely, it also stops the "I've just driven 5 miles but car says I lost 10 miles range" anxiety or not provide the instant "car is under 20% so probably should top up" clarity.

But as you say, everyone's going to look at with a different viewpoint.