No phantom drain here...

[Drew57]

Today I have opened the Tesla iPhone app for the first time in just under five weeks. The car was obviously in a deep sleep state as the white bodywork remained black for a very long time on the phone screen before finally waking.

The car is plugged in, unused & will remain so for a few more weeks yet, was at 89% SOC when I left and is now at 85%.

3kWh (shown below) added at the last charging session was immediately prior to my departure and on checking both my Zappi Charger & home router there is no evidence of any charge going into the car during the duration. The house has been bumbling along between 180-350w continuous draw, probably from the fridge & freezer compressors & a few LED automated lights with nothing else showing so I'm sure that is correct.

This seems pretty impressive for Tesla given the time of year and temperatures so my setting the slider to 50%, leaving the Zappi as 'Fast' and the car to potentially charge from below this during my Go Faster period looks like it might have been unnecessary. Hopefully the next few weeks won't change that.

The app just updated to 4.4.2 prior to me opening it & 2021.44.25.2 is waiting in the car (I don't want to leave 36.5.8 but will do so on my return).

 

[jmaddr]

Phantom drain can only be determined when unplugged. Keep it unplugged for at least a week and check again.

 

[Drew57]

Phantom drain can only be determined when unplugged. Keep it unplugged for at least a week and check again.

Yes I am genuinely surprised and was cynical of this so have checked through every day since leaving the car. My 'normal' nightly SOC loss is around 1% when home but the phone often keeps the app live until I sleep so maybe this keeps the car partially alert?

In this case however, the app hasn't been opened until today and nothing else communicates with the car.

As I said - I have two reliable methods to check if it has taken ANY charge over the 5 weeks - the smart charger app and the house PV inverter which reports all grid power used by it and the car. Both show Zero draw above background house usage & it is consistent with when I am normally at home with the car on the drive and unplugged. The Zappi car charger app ALWAYS shows daily, weekly, monthly consumption by the car & I've checked this since I departed - the last reported was 3kWh on the night before I left & the Tesla app also shows that as it hasn't been touched or checked since.

The Tesla app on the morning I departed & also currently plus the charger show the same 3kWh charge added during this session (ie nearly 5 weeks ago).... nothing added & if it was, why it isn't shown anywhere?

If you imply my car has been somehow charged, even a trickle then why do none of the three items above correlate with that? Even the app (see screenshot) would show more than 3kWh during last charging session but it doesn't.

I also left the car in October 2020 for 14 nights in a car park with 2% overall loss and again in 2021 for 12 nights 2%. Nether were plugged in and on all three occasions, including today, the app has taken a long time to wake the car and turn the avatar image from dark black to its correct colour - suggesting a very deep sleep state.

Maybe from this experience so far I should be brave enough to leave the car unplugged next time although the way I have set it gives me peace of mind in case something does cause it to awaken & consume power.

EDIT: I just remembered my Octopus Energy bill shows half hourly electricity readings and the most recent one includes four weeks of this period - From looking through each day this also correlate with the PV inverter usage so that also suggests nothing has been added to the car.

 

[jmaddr]

All your justification makes sense, but again phantom drain is unplugged consumption. When you plug in, you introduce too many other variables, not to mention a way for electricity to enter your car. Only way to confirm would be to unplug for a week or more. 1% per higher makes sense and is pretty good phantom drain.

 

[Jason71]

With the slider set on 50% it is not going to charge the battery that is a given BUT most "phantom drain" is the car using power which comes from the 12v battery and then the car has to periodically switch on the 400v system to recharge the 12v. If the car is connected could it be using the mains to trickle charge the 12v instead instead of using the 400v system? Is that a thing? I don't know? But if so that could be quite a low level of fairly continuous usage that might go under the radar. Given typical phantom drain of 0.5% that is only 17wh/h which could go unnoticed. In reality the car may need to be awake to recharge the 12v? In which case it would have to do it in shorter faster bursts which you would pick up I assume? Even so they would be much less than you see from charging the main battery so if you are looking for indications that the car is using shore power it will be at most bursts in the wh range not the charging kwh range. There is no way the car can consume Kwh of shore power unless heating the car or charging the main battery and it won't be doing either of those things.

 

[Llama.]

Either way, this limited level of range loss while sitting unused is a good sign.

I think I lost more range on my VW Beetle one winter to fuel evaporation when I left it with the gas cap off by mistake while the car sat.

 

[NewbieT]

My car currently left unplugged for nearly two weeks so far. Two updates. Almost daily ‘checking’ for said updates. Just 2% loss (after day 1 where I forgot to turn off pre- conditioning- glad we can now do that remotely).

I’m no longer concerned about phantom drain as I was 2 years ago. Just turn off sentry and pre- conditioning.

Opted to leave it at 65% before leaving.

 

[MrT3]

A friend has been away for a few weeks now and his LR (not plugged in) is using 1% approx. every 4 days - we can see on Teslamate that the vehicle wakes up every day for about an hour. He has accessed the app a couple of times - don't know if it will go into a deeper sleep if he left it alone.

 

[Fox86]

Mines been sat on my drive unplugged since Xmas eve and it’s dropped 1%, sentry mode disabled at home and think I’ve looked at the app once to check for updates, so the drain is pretty minimal. Pretty pleased about that as I walk to work most days, so was a concern that it would just sit there during the week losing charge!

 

[rotor2k]

With the slider set on 50% it is not going to charge the battery that is a given BUT most "phantom drain" is the car using power which comes from the 12v battery and then the car has to periodically switch on the 400v system to recharge the 12v. If the car is connected could it be using the mains to trickle charge the 12v instead instead of using the 400v system? Is that a thing? I don't know? But if so that could be quite a low level of fairly continuous usage that might go under the radar. Given typical phantom drain of 0.5% that is only 17wh/h which could go unnoticed. In reality the car may need to be awake to recharge the 12v? In which case it would have to do it in shorter faster bursts which you would pick up I assume? Even so they would be much less than you see from charging the main battery so if you are looking for indications that the car is using shore power it will be at most bursts in the wh range not the charging kwh range. There is no way the car can consume Kwh of shore power unless heating the car or charging the main battery and it won't be doing either of those things.

It's a good theory, but even to trickle-charge the 12V the car would have to "wake up" the Zappi, and wouldn't the Zappi then report that as a charge, however minuscule it may have been?

 

[Tenatious]

I regularly leave my car at the airport for work and have noticed about 1% drain per week which is damn impressive and I suspect this is just from the car waking up once per 24 hours as it does.

 

[Drew57]

I'm puzzled by the comments about waking once per day & some suggest it is for an hour. Is that normal for all Teslas? I have no way to see that & when I use the car at home this slow ghosted image/slow app wake up never happens even if I haven't used it or the car for a day or more.

My experience over three occasions of 12, 14 and 26 days suggests that nothing 'wakes' this car when I ignore it over an extended period either plugged or unplugged, maybe not even polling by Tesla. Perhaps the third party apps briefly poll, because to know it's awake something has to check whether it is.

Either way, the purpose of this thread was to share how well a Tesla can perform over an extended winter period if left alone and basically ignored. The remaining few weeks will be of less use because the car must have depleted additional SOC whilst awake yesterday & maybe I've changed something by checking.

(....of course it will be ironic if I find a dead 12v battery when I return )

 

[rotor2k]

Yep, always wakes up every 24h -- but that could be because it knows it's at home? I've never left it long-term anywhere else.

 

[Drew57]

...mine knows it's at home & if the implication is that it has also awoken 25 times, possibly for an hour each then it makes what I'm seeing even more impressive!

 

[MrT3]

mine knows it's at home & if the implication is that it has also awoken 25 times, possibly for an hour each then it makes what I'm seeing even more impressive!

happens when away from home too:

 

[pcgtron]

Well, mine has been parked on the driveway for a couple of days now due to contracting covid and self isolation. The amusing thing is that it was at 67% yesterday, and just checked for the 1st time in over 24 hours and it's now at 68 %. I don't have phantom drain, I've got phantom increase!

(car is not plugged in)
Nb: I know this is due to the temperature increasing from yesterday and hence the showing a better percentage)

 

[Durzel]

In my experience it will wake every 24 hours if plugged in, to check whether it needs to charge. If it doesn't, it ought to go back to sleep again.

Mine wakes every 24 hours to charge the 12v battery at the moment, thanks to my auto frunk and trunk kits. Doesn't seem to affect the HV battery charge that much though, I tend to see it lose 1% every few days.

 

[Almero van Wyk]

I am away on vacation for a few weeks and left my Y parked and unplugged at about a 70% charge (about 350km) in Vancouver Canada. After 8 days into my vacation, I received a notice from Tesla through my App that the battery level was low and that Sentry Mode was accordingly turned off. The Tesla App showed that I had about 101km left. I then checked two days later and the level had dropped to 80km. Has anyone had this type of rapid Phantom drain. Could this somehow be related to the latest Tesla software update delivered in January 2022?
FYI, I had my Tesla parked and unplugged while away for three weeks in November of 2021 with very little battery drain when I returned.
This Vehicle was purchased in March of 2021.

 

[MrBadger]

and that Sentry Mode was accordingly turned off.

And there is your answer. Sentry sucks the power out of the car at a huge rate incompatible with leaving the car unplugged for several days.

 

[Overworked]

Well, mine has been parked on the driveway for a couple of days now due to contracting covid and self isolation...

How did you notice it had caught covid? Rise in temperature or a persistent cough?