Not having regen after the last software update sucks

[PWlakewood]

I’ll go a step further and say it would be fundamentally unethical, and against the company’s stated mission of accelerating the transition to sustainable energy, if they discovered something detrimental to battery health from their fleet data and did nothing to rectify it.

We can argue all we want on whether Tesla is being transparent enough with customers on these decisions - and I’d tend to agree that they’re not. That said, I find this frankly entitled opinion that Tesla has no right to change any characteristic about the car or its driving manners post-delivery (unless of course we personally like it, in which case it’s exactly the reason we bought the car!) to be absurd.

I agree. Could you imagine the complaints and threads that would be started if tesla included every single change they made in every update they release and how confusing it would be to most people when they see 1000 pages of release notes. How do you think MCU1 emmc would handle that unneeded data overload.

 

[Max*]

@PWlakewood not to derail this derailed thread, but is your signature meant as a joke or a typo?

 

[PWlakewood]

@PWlakewood not to derail this derailed thread, but is your signature meant as a joke or a typo?

Not a joke. 2013 S 75. Previous owner upgraded battery in 2017.

 

[Matias]

This is my fourth winter with Model S and regen is weaker than before. Nowadays I get zero regen with cold battery at 0 celsius. Before it would need to be almost -20 C to get zero regen. Car is parked outside.

 

[cucubits]

Is there a way to quantify and see exactly how much juice are we getting back by using regen on regular city driving?

Or is there any other reason why folks don't like not having regen available when the battery is cold? I don't mind having to use the brakes a bit more and not relying on regenerative braking too much.

 

[Max*]

I don't mind having to use the brakes a bit more and not relying on regenerative braking too much.

Mainly this, I like and got used to using single-pedal driving.

What bugs me more is that it's not in the release notes "updated cold weather regen profiles", because I thought it was just me and something is wrong with my car (again...).

 

[jlv1]

I have 40.2.1 on both my cars and have not noticed a change in regen.

Well, I'll change that, because now I've noticed a difference.

It's been under 20°F this week I noticed and the last few days I've started with absolutely no regen in the morning. The car is in an attached, unheated garage that is generally about 40°F. I usually start the day with the battery at about 50-70% SOC. I don't ever remember the regen starting this weak in the morning, even in similar colder weather. It takes about 5 miles of driving at 35MPH for the yellow dashes to go slightly away indicating some regen. It's almost as if the battery heater isn't running overnight.

 

[Max*]

There are a handful of threads about the regen going on now (at least 3).

But this comment is interesting, not sure if it's related to this whole regen issue or just the fact that you can't turn on the battery heater from the app anymore.

Battery Heater Not Enabling via App

Tesla has confirmed that it will send a fix soon from what I've heard. It appears like these new SWs have adapted the heating behaviour of the Model 3s battery, but the Model 3 has far better regen in cold weather so it's not goid at all for S and X.

If that's in-fact true, this is another Tesla QA blunder. But at least it's not nefarious like range-gate or charge-gate (or whatever the names are)

 

[Az_Rael]

Lawsuit being filed does not mean anything until its been adjudicated.

Very true. The class action is currently in mediation with Tesla, maybe a settlement agreement will come out of that sooner rather than later.

 

[serendipitous]

Reading posts here, I get the impression that if there is a change in behaviour (regen being limited at higher temps to reduce charge spikes on a 'cold' battery) then it is still likely that precon or warming the battery will help get regen working again.

I see no way of being sure what the underlying real facts are, but the situation feels comparable to if Tesla found Performance models were suffering premature transmission wear, so they found a way of limiting the number of flat out acceleration starts you could make each week / month in order to limit their wty exposure without completely changing the car spec. How you would feel about that as an owner could vary wildly depending on how you chose to view it. (Tesla protecting my transmission vs Tesla's design not up to the job)

You're right - it seems obvious, based on my own observations of my car, and the thread here, that the change was to the Battery Temp vs Allowed Regen curve in the software. If it's warm, same (or at least similar) regen. But you start to lose regen at warmer temps than before.

I'm fine with all that, and if it helps battery health, I'm good with it. My question is, what reasonable ways are there to precondition now? I want my damn regen back because I hate having an inconsistent feel. Using the climate control in the app no longer triggers pre-conditioning or battery warming, as far as I can tell. The only thing I've been able to do is go out and select Ludicrous+ 20 minutes before I leave to warm the battery. This is obviously not "the right" way to precondition and I have to remember to turn it off or I'm baking the battery and causing wear in the other direction. Scheduled departure is buggy and doesn't help me when I leave work in the afternoons. Having to charge to warm the battery means I have to keep my SoC higher than I need to - most days I only need ~10-15% or so, and re-charging that 10% isn't enough to warm the battery either.

So what are the other options - how do I precondition my battery these days?

 

[BigNick]

Two things I hadn’t seen mentioned in this thread.

100kWh packs may not get the same cuts to regen as they have 16% more cells in the pack to distribute the regen charge to.

P models can engage Insane+ or Ludicrous+ to heat the battery faster. I think I will try this myself.

Edit: the post immediately before mine wasn’t visible when I started.

 

[serendipitous]

Two things I hadn’t seen mentioned in this thread.

100kWh packs may not get the same cuts to regen as they have 16% more cells in the pack to distribute the regen charge to.

P models can engage Insane+ or Ludicrous+ to heat the battery faster. I think I will try this myself.

Edit: the post immediately before mine wasn’t visible when I started.

Mine is 100KWh (Raven Performance), and has virtually no regen. Overnight temps in my garage are ~40 degrees. Air temp when I leave in the morning is 32ish. No regen until the end of my commute.

 

[dark cloud]

There are a handful of threads about the regen going on now (at least 3).

But this comment is interesting, not sure if it's related to this whole regen issue or just the fact that you can't turn on the battery heater from the app anymore.

Battery Heater Not Enabling via App


If that's in-fact true, this is another Tesla QA blunder. But at least it's not nefarious like range-gate or charge-gate (or whatever the names are)

thanks for that link; didn’t even notice that thread and it’s relevance to the regen situation.

 

[BigNick]

Mine is 100KWh (Raven Performance), and has virtually no regen. Overnight temps in my garage are ~40 degrees. Air temp when I leave in the morning is 32ish. No regen until the end of my commute.

Then my guess was wrong about the 100 packs.

Good thing is with these limits in place your pack should last a long time if the “spiky” regen charging on a cold battery was causing trouble over time, as this should be the first winter for Raven cars.

 

[D.E.]

My garage is heated from residual heat coming from the house so even when it is really cold outside the garage is only about 50-55. Right now it is 30-something outside but the interior of the car is 62 with no usable regen after the last software update

If you use your phone app, you can turn on the cabin heat 20 minute before you leave. That will also preheat the battery. Most cars will be plugged in, so it’s the wall current that will heat the cabin and the battery, it’ll start you off with a full charge, a warm car, and a battery that’s ready to take a bit of some regen current.

 

[Battpower]

Two things I hadn’t seen mentioned in this thread.

100kWh packs may not get the same cuts to regen as they have 16% more cells in the pack to distribute the regen charge to.

P models can engage Insane+ or Ludicrous+ to heat the battery faster. I think I will try this myself.

Edit: the post immediately before mine wasn’t visible when I started.

Long Range Raven S. No regen (so far tested down to 50% soc.) Temp 10 celcius.

After 5 miles gentle driving, regen starts to increase up to around 50% max. 10 - 15 miles on freeway and I'm seeing 75% regen.

 

[Battpower]

If you use your phone app, you can turn on the cabin heat 20 minute before you leave. That will also preheat the battery. Most cars will be plugged in, so it’s the wall current that will heat the cabin and the battery, it’ll start you off with a full charge, a warm car, and a battery that’s ready to take a bit of some regen current.

Do we know for sure battery warming does come on with cabin pre-con? I don't see anything showing me that specifically and I believe I read here that battery preheat behaviour or at least app interface may have changed. (only if car in D or weight on driver's seat?)

While preheating might just make sense even if only to get regen started with no net energy saving (& may be with a net energy cost), what about with a cold-soaked battery pack with no charging available? I doubt that could possibly be a wise choice.

 

[OrbiterTI4]

Have you checked to see how much spirited driving you need to do to get regen back?

It seems the regen change is especially bad for customers who live in cities with lots of stop and grow traffic. Ironically this is when regen is the most useful. After the recent software update, I no longer have usable regen during my commute to work or back home.

S85D just got 40.2.3 (from 40.2) last night. This morning, 55 °F.
Backing out of garage, yellow dash with yellow caution sign.
Neighborhood, 25 mph speed limit, regen feels normal.
Pull out of neighborhood onto 50 mph state highway (with stop lights), regen feels normal with no dashed lines but still have yellow caution sign.
After half mile at first stoplight, regen feels/acts normal with no yellow signs.

 

[PWlakewood]

If you use your phone app, you can turn on the cabin heat 20 minute before you leave. That will also preheat the battery. Most cars will be plugged in, so it’s the wall current that will heat the cabin and the battery, it’ll start you off with a full charge, a warm car, and a battery that’s ready to take a bit of some regen current.

That's my method. If for some reason my car sits outside I will see dotted lines but it never goes to zero regen, but more like 15 on the gauge

 

[Battpower]

S85D just got 40.2.3 (from 40.2) last night. This morning, 55 °F.
Backing out of garage, yellow dash with yellow caution sign.
Neighborhood, 25 mph speed limit, regen feels normal.
Pull out of neighborhood onto 50 mph state highway (with stop lights), regen feels normal with no dashed lines but still have yellow caution sign.
After half mile at first stoplight, regen feels/acts normal with no yellow signs.

Not very surprisingly, that temp matches my experience. 55 F is approx 13 C. 50 F is 10 C.

Between 45 F and 55 F, allowing time for cold soaked battery to warm seems to take regen from very little to near max.