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Okay for Car to be Unplugged at the Airport Weekly?

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Oh, that's a good point -- make sure you park with an extra 5%-7% more charge than you'll need to drive home safely when you return. Don't worry about hurting the battery, just make sure you have the miles you need.


I regularly leave my car at the Phoenix airport for four day stretches while away on business.

I turn remote access off to reduce vampire drain, but I average about 6-7 Rated miles loss per day. The least loss I've seen is about 4 Rated miles per day. Vampire loss is the worst when the car is parked on the parking lot roof in the sun when the ambient temperature is over 90. The battery cooling system kicks in. At times like that, I've seen 35 Rated mile loss over four long days.
 
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Hello All, Thanks again for the feedback. I got the details back from Tesla Sales Associate that confirms everyone's statements above! I will share in case any body else finds it helpful:

The car tries to maintain a battery temperature of about 72 degrees F. So... in extreme temperatures it will use extra electricity to appropriately heat or cool the battery - hence the extra battery drain. As long as there is enough battery life to maintain 72 degrees F there isn't be any battery damage.
 
Hello All, Thanks again for the feedback. I got the details back from Tesla Sales Associate that confirms everyone's statements above! I will share in case any body else finds it helpful:

The car tries to maintain a battery temperature of about 72 degrees F. So... in extreme temperatures it will use extra electricity to appropriately heat or cool the battery - hence the extra battery drain. As long as there is enough battery life to maintain 72 degrees F there isn't be any battery damage.
Sounds like if you have an option for covered parking at the airport, that would be preferable. Thank you for sharing the Tesla reply. Enjoy the car!
 
4 days is not going to be a problem at all unless you are very low on charge. It loose a bit more in really cold weather, but given that it is June, no where in the US will be an issue for that. Give yourself a 1% / day buffer an it will be good. If you are leaving or 4 months, then that's a different story.
 
FWIW, My 2013 Model S will lose about 5-6% SOC and about 10 Rated miles for every 24 hours it sits. If I turn all the energy savings features on, I can cut that in about half. For me, there is no difference winter (well below freezing) or summer (temps in the '80s or 90's).
 
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FWIW, My 2013 Model S will lose about 5-6% SOC and about 10 Rated miles for every 24 hours it sits. If I turn all the energy savings features on, I can cut that in about half. For me, there is no difference winter (well below freezing) or summer (temps in the '80s or 90's).
5-6% SOC / day sounds like a more than I recall. Was it always like that? Or did vampire drain ramped up as the car aged? Maybe 1-2% (closer to 1%) is what I am used to. Power saving on, always connected on.
 
5-6% SOC / day sounds like a more than I recall. Was it always like that? Or did vampire drain ramped up as the car aged? Maybe 1-2% (closer to 1%) is what I am used to. Power saving on, always connected on.

Yes, it has more than doubled for me over time. I have a separate meter on my car's charging circuit and watch it closely.

When the car was new, if I went away on vacation and left the car plugged in, it would do a top up very second day to the tune of 2.5 kWh very consistently. Now, if I go away and leave the car plugged in, it will come on every day to top up and add about 5 kWh each time.
 
I often go on business trips that run from 4 to 5 days and have never had any problems. I have both unplugged and plugged options.

Here is what I do:

Unplugged:

1) Make sure there is enough charge to handle about 7 km/day drop plus range to get home. I only live about 40 km from the airport so all I need is about 75 km - 100 km of range at the start of a 5 day trip. More often than not, I have about 150 - 200 km before I leave the parking lot for my flight.
2) I put the Display on Power Save mode and the Always Connected to OFF.
3) I put it in Valet mode, in case someone hacks into my car or wants to tow/steal it. That makes it a bit harder to access my home address from my Nav, plus leaves the "Remote Access" harder to turn off. It also locks my Frunk and Glove Box.
4) I try not to remotely access my car (perhaps only check it once when I return to warm it up when I land if it is cold out). This limits the time the CPU is running and keeps the battery drain to a minimum.

Plugged in:

1) In this situation, I plug the car in and set the charge current to the lowest setting (like 5 or 6 amps). The L2 chargers are really not needed for this car but there are lots at my airport with plenty of unattended spots.
2) Valet mode ON
3) Always Connected ON
4) Power Save OFF
5) In this situation, I set my battery charge level to about 65% and if I want to top it up further (like to 85%) I can do so remotely. At the lowest charge rate, the car tends to stop charging after about 24 - 36 hours. I may want to crank up the level later (after all, it costs me nothing).
6) Since the car is plugged in, I can monitor the car to my heart's content if I want to.

So once I have my routine down, it is absolutely no problem leaving my car parked in the airport lot knowing I won't have any issues when I return.
 
Yes, it has more than doubled for me over time. I have a separate meter on my car's charging circuit and watch it closely.

When the car was new, if I went away on vacation and left the car plugged in, it would do a top up very second day to the tune of 2.5 kWh very consistently. Now, if I go away and leave the car plugged in, it will come on every day to top up and add about 5 kWh each time.

That's kind of concerning.

Did you check with Tesla to see if that is normal? 5kWh every other day sounds like a lot of power. I mean my entire house uses maybe 50kWh every 2 days, that's with electric induction cooktop and AC. So a car doing nothing in the garage is taking 10% of the house? Something does not seem right.
 
That's kind of concerning.

Did you check with Tesla to see if that is normal? 5kWh every other day sounds like a lot of power. I mean my entire house uses maybe 50kWh every 2 days, that's with electric induction cooktop and AC. So a car doing nothing in the garage is taking 10% of the house? Something does not seem right.

I agree completely and yes, have asked Tesla to look into it. I even provided copies of my home energy meter's logs as well as the logs I have been keeping myself. They said they ran every test they could on the battery and associated systems, even ran some tests multiple times, and couldn't find anything wrong. And by the way, it's 5 kWh EVERY day. It used to be 2.5 kWh every other day.
 
I agree completely and yes, have asked Tesla to look into it. I even provided copies of my home energy meter's logs as well as the logs I have been keeping myself. They said they ran every test they could on the battery and associated systems, even ran some tests multiple times, and couldn't find anything wrong. And by the way, it's 5 kWh EVERY day. It used to be 2.5 kWh every other day.

I also have a 2013 and have noticed that I'm losing more each day than I did last year. Mine is still only charging every other night, if I don't drive it. I'm losing about 3% per day, lately.
 
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My first experience with Vampire loss aided by reading all these threads was very positive

Model X 2016 5 days at Syracuse Airport covered parking outside temps avg 72-85F
Energy Save mode ON
Smart Preconditioning OFF
Always Connected OFF
Range mode ON

I NEVER checked the car with any App

Astonishingly the loss was 1 Mile total over the 5 full days