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One week with my MS

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I took delivery on Saturday the 21st of December and have had an interesting week.

I live in Scarborough Ontario and if you have been following the news we were hammered by the ice storm early on Sunday morning. My car had a 80% charge so when the power was out for 5 days I thought it would be ok.

When I woke up Sunday morning everything was covered in an inch of ice and it was still raining. Most of the trees in the neighborhood were damaged and limbs had fallen. We had power pole down, snapped in half from the trees falling on the lines.

Being in the electrical industry I new we were going to be in for a long outage. The only thing that worked was the phone and the gas fireplace. Cell lines were also not working. I spent the better part of the next 3 days rewiring furnaces so they could run off generators as the temperature went to -5c the next day and -15c the day after.

As for the car I took it out a few times during the days and was surprised how much energy was lost while it was parked. To be fair it is a new car and I was looking at it 2-3 times a day when not driving, but I lost half the range while it was parked. I took it to tesla on Lawrence on the 23rd to see if I could get a charge but they were also affected buy the storm and had no power. I then went to Tesla Yorkdale and they let me plug into the high power charger for a few hours. I was not the only owner doing the same thing. I left there with 405km on the range and went to check on family in the east end of the city.

Used the car again to go out on the 24th for diner in Markham. It seems like the car uses 20-30 extra kms to warm itself up each time I used it. Of the 405 I started with my car had 33 left on Christmas day. Without power I had to park it at my office which now had power but only a 120v outlet. Ther the car stayed for the next 2 days,in a warm bay but charging very slowly.

Finally got power back the 27th around 11pm. The next day I had a meeting in Niagara falls. The car had a range of 380 on it and the distance was 140 each way so I thought it would easily make it. I did not drive the car hard but on the way there my mileage was dropping much faster than expected. I arrived there with a range of 156 left. On the return trip after 6 hours in the cold I was on my way back and the range was dropping fast. I had to use plug share to find a charger and spend 11/2 hours charging. Even with this 10 km from home I was on 0 range and pushed it to get home. I was in range mode the whole trip back without heat.

I guess I need to max charge when traveling these type of distances in the future. One week down I hope the next one is uneventfull.
 
I would be reading a lot of the cold weather threads to learn more about the behavior in that extreme environment. In another month you will probably be an expert on how the car runs just from use.

My outsiders thought is that your car might not have the latest updates and is using energy to update the car. Keeping the batteries at optimal temperature is the other obvious answer for the drain.
 
Isn't because of the batteries trying to stay warm at -15C and without the car connected to the grid it uses the battery instead ?

No, it has to be extremely cold before it will actively heat the pack while parked. I've never seen it happen.

If the car is cold soaked to -20C then it will use 12 kW to warm the pack and cabin when you first start up. That's like going 50 mph standing still. Once it's warmed up the power draw drops precipitously. Short trips with cold soak in between is the worst-case scenario. You can easily double the watt-hours per kilometer (or worse) doing that.

Pre-warming from AC and a single long drive is the best case. You will get about 80% of nominal range down to about -20C.
 
No, it has to be extremely cold before it will actively heat the pack while parked. I've never seen it happen.

If the car is cold soaked to -20C then it will use 12 kW to warm the pack and cabin when you first start up. That's like going 50 mph standing still. Once it's warmed up the power draw drops precipitously. Short trips with cold soak in between is the worst-case scenario. You can easily double the watt-hours per kilometer (or worse) doing that.

Pre-warming from AC and a single long drive is the best case. You will get about 80% of nominal range down to about -20C.

So at -15C there is no juice being pulled by the car to keep the batteries warm for example if I leave the car outside not plugged all day long ? If so, do you know at what temperature it starts to protect itself from "being too cold" ?
 
So at -15C there is no juice being pulled by the car to keep the batteries warm for example if I leave the car outside not plugged all day long ? If so, do you know at what temperature it starts to protect itself from "being too cold" ?

Correct, I see no evidence of power usage for pack heating at -20C or even colder, while parked. Once you start it up you get 6 kW draw for a while as the pack heater does its job, and the colder it is the more heating is required. That indicates quite clearly that the pack wasn't already being kept warm.

They've made some improvements to the battery measurement algorithms since last winter - it used to show the battery as being quite a bit lower than it really was when very cold. You would "gain" range when you started warming it. So that made it harder to tell what was going on. We've only got down to -22C so far this winter, so I don't have enough experience yet to tell you at what point it might start actively heating. I have yet to see clear evidence that it is happening at all.
 
I took delivery on Dec 13 and my charger was not installed until Dec 28, I parked underground and noticed it used up over 10 km of power overnight.
However, when we had 2 days of above zero temperature and things are better, no extra drainage from the battery for overnight parking and better "mileage" during driving.
I also find if I do shopping in several stores, even at a short distance, it used up more electricity than making one trip even it is at a much longer distance.
To be honest, this kind of crazy weather in TO. is unusual and I do not take it as a norm.
Am I ever so glad I didn't go with the Leaf.
 
A couple thoughts:

a) If there was any kind of doubt as to when/where I could charge next, I would be range charging at every opportunity. Not much point in worrying about battery degradation if you don't get where you're going.

b) Make sure you've enabled "sleep mode" (provided you have 5.x firmware). Its effectiveness seems to vary wildly, but I don't recall any instances of it making vampire drain worse.
 
Used the car again to go out on the 24th for diner in Markham. It seems like the car uses 20-30 extra kms to warm itself up each time I used it. Of the 405 I started with my car had 33 left on Christmas day. Without power I had to park it at my office which now had power but only a 120v outlet. Ther the car stayed for the next 2 days,in a warm bay but charging very slowly.

Congrats on your car, sorry to hear about the bad timing on receiving your MS! I'm curious how many trips/how far you drove on the 24th/25th around the city to have just 33km left a day after you had 405km.
 
I was in an out 3-4 times, each time the car was not warmed up.

Since then I have been to and from Niagara falls twice,(charged there each time) and north of Peterborough once (single charge).

Looking for a excuse to drive...heading to Orangeville today.
 
I was in an out 3-4 times, each time the car was not warmed up.

Since then I have been to and from Niagara falls twice,(charged there each time) and north of Peterborough once (single charge).

Looking for a excuse to drive...heading to Orangeville today.

I'm three and a half months now with my MS and still grinning. Always willing to go on errands if it means another drive. Before the MS, driving had become a chore.