Phantom battery drain - 30 miles per night

[NadJ]

Just picked up a 4 year old Model S 75D. I parked it with 32 miles range left. Unable to home charge right now. Working on it.

2 hours later, I noticed it was on 28 miles , 2 hours after that 24, watched progressive drop a couple of times during the night. Now in the morning there's 4 miles remaining.

After watching 8 miles dissappear in the first 4 hours, I did take action and disabled Sentry, and Summon. I also made sure climate was off and no auto/preheat options selected. I think I've done the obvious things.

Yet, almost 30 miles have disappeared in under 10 hours. Can someone please advise what troubleshooting techniques I can employ to find out the source of the drain. The always on Premium Connectivity doesn't sound like it can result in a 30 mile drain. Or can it?

And why do people quote percentage drops overnight instead of range drop? Surely consumption is not proportional to the amount of battery remaining?

Thanks!

 

[jjrandorin]

Sentry, summon, cabin overheat protection, and no third party apps of any kind (until you know you have them configured properly if you have any). Stop checking on the car, as well, as every time you "check on it" you wake it up.

People tend to quote percentages instead of a number because the percentages are roughly the same between vehicle types, but the actual number of "miles" isnt. Specifically for model S and X, which have multiple battery sizes, the number of miles lost between cars with different size batteries will be different, but still be a similar percentage of that cars battery.

 

[Tam]

...32 miles range left...

Also, it's risky to have a very low state of charge as you might have to wish that it would stay them and doesn't come down anymore.

 

[PCMc]

You will also find that the displayed range will drop quite a bit as the battery cools when the SOC is low. You don't this impact when the SOC is higher, say 30% or above. I'll see this whenever I park my car with ~20% SOC or less and let is sit for several hours. I've actually captured this in data logs where after a few hours (I run my own logging program) where the displayed range will suddenly drop 10-20 miles , probably because the battery temp has crossed some key threshold and the BMS adjusts displayed range suddenly. I'm not talking cold winter temps, I'm talking normal ambients of 70-80 degrees as the battery cools down from normal operation temperatures.

You will likely see a message pop up when you park the car with the SOC down below 20% for just this reason.

 

[byeLT4]

^this. I lose way more when I'm under 10% charge vs 20%+. Most of the time I don't even notice a loss while at work, but the time I parked with 8% I came back to 1%, I'm lucky to have a supercharger a stones throw away.

 

[ucmndd]

I parked it with 32 miles range left.

Yeah, don’t do that.

After watching 8 miles dissappear in the first 4 hours, I did take action and disabled Sentry, and Summon.

You’ve found the first easy culprit.

Yet, almost 30 miles have disappeared in under 10 hours.

The second and more likely explanation in this issue is that with recent firmwares, if you park your car without charging while under about 20% state of charge, the car will relatively quickly “lose” 5-10% of its displayed range as the battery cools. It’s not so much that you’re losing that energy - it’s that the car doesn’t make it available for propulsion when the battery is cold to prevent it from being damaged. Once you charge that range will magically reappear.

You will have noted the car explicitly warned you about this when you parked.

Moral of the story: don’t park your car with the battery that low.

 

[PCMc]

The second and more likely explanation in this issue is that with recent firmwares, if you park your car without charging while under about 20% state of charge, the car will relatively quickly “lose” 5-10% of its displayed range as the battery cools. It’s not so much that you’re losing that energy - it’s that the car doesn’t make it available for propulsion when the battery is cold to prevent it from being damaged. Once you charge that range will magically reappear.

There is nothing new about this battery cooling impact in recent firmwares from my experience. I first observed this and captured it in my data logs about 4 years ago on my mid-2016 MS90D.

 

[EVRider-FL]

The always on Premium Connectivity doesn't sound like it can result in a 30 mile drain. Or can it?

I don’t know what you mean by ”always on“ in this context, but Premium Connectivity has no impact on range loss.

 

[NadJ]

Thank you.

I don't have any apps installed. At least none that I can see. How do I confirm the previous owners hasn't put something in place?

32 miles sounds low but that's going to be the reality of my driving after doing the trip I need to do and because of the time ill be getting home. As I said, I am working on the home charging solution so will not be at risk, but 30 mile drain in 10 hours has got to be one of the worst case phantom drains out there for a model S?

 

[ucmndd]

but 30 mile drain in 10 hours has got to be one of the worst case phantom drains out there for a model S?

Again, you are not experiencing “phantom drain”. Your car is acting as designed and doing exactly what it tells you it will when you park it with the battery that low.

 

[PCMc]

Can you not plug the car into 120V outlet overnight? Granted, you'll only get something like 2-3 miles per hour, but still, if you can plug in for 8-10 hours overnight, it will likely help offset the battery cooling aspect and hold you at the 30 mile level until you can go to where ever it is you were expecting to go charge the next day.

 

[Cutch26]

Thank you.

I don't have any apps installed. At least none that I can see. How do I confirm the previous owners hasn't put something in place?

32 miles sounds low but that's going to be the reality of my driving after doing the trip I need to do and because of the time ill be getting home. As I said, I am working on the home charging solution so will not be at risk, but 30 mile drain in 10 hours has got to be one of the worst case phantom drains out there for a model S?

This rate of drain only occurs when you park the car at very low levels.. if you were fully charged you would only see a few miles loss over night assuming with sentry and everything else off.. and without the constant app checking

 

[EVRider-FL]

I don't have any apps installed. At least none that I can see. How do I confirm the previous owners hasn't put something in place?

Apps aren’t installed in the car, they run from a computer or mobile device. A previous owner wouldn’t be able to access your car via an app unless they had your Tesla account credentials.

 

[KalJoMoS]

Thank you.
32 miles sounds low but that's going to be the reality of my driving after doing the trip I need to do and because of the time ill be getting home. As I said, I am working on the home charging solution so will not be at risk, but 30 mile drain in 10 hours has got to be one of the worst case phantom drains out there for a model S?

As others have noted just don’t let the battery below 20% of SOC (it’s about 50miles - or 70km, in real world condition). I have developed a habit, if arriving in destination where there is no charging available over night, to charge the car right before that so my SOC is not below 30%. This even gives the possibility to precondition car’s battery before the next drive. Even in freezing conditions.

 

[Penn]

Again, you are not experiencing “phantom drain”. Your car is acting as designed and doing exactly what it tells you it will when you park it with the battery that low.

View attachment 794872

I tend to disagree. Respectfully.
I have a 2014 S P85. I'm losing on average 26 miles parked. Summon not turned on. My car came with Beta Autopilot and Summin features. Never turned on, not even once. While testing I didn't open the Tesla app once. Car has only 74,000 miles. I think this is unacceptable. Average temp during test was 65 degrees. When new The P85 range at Mac SOC was 265 miles. It currently will charge to 243 mile at 100% SOC. Is my battery degrading?
Thank you.
Ron O.

 

[ucmndd]

I tend to disagree. Respectfully.
I have a 2014 S P85. I'm losing on average 26 miles parked. Summon not turned on. My car came with Beta Autopilot and Summin features. Never turned on, not even once. While testing I didn't open the Tesla app once. Car has only 74,000 miles. I think this is unacceptable. Average temp during test was 65 degrees. When new The P85 range at Mac SOC was 265 miles. It currently will charge to 243 mile at 100% SOC. Is my battery degrading?
Thank you.
Ron O.

This thread is about experiencing range loss while parking a car overnight with a low state of charge. Is that what you’re talking about?

 

[Big Earl]

Just picked up a 4 year old Model S 75D. I parked it with 32 miles range left. Unable to home charge right now. Working on it.

2 hours later, I noticed it was on 28 miles , 2 hours after that 24, watched progressive drop a couple of times during the night. Now in the morning there's 4 miles remaining.

After watching 8 miles disappear in the first 4 hours, I did take action and disabled Sentry, and Summon. I also made sure climate was off and no auto/preheat options selected. I think I've done the obvious things.

Yet, almost 30 miles have disappeared in under 10 hours. Can someone please advise what troubleshooting techniques I can employ to find out the source of the drain. The always on Premium Connectivity doesn't sound like it can result in a 30 mile drain. Or can it?

And why do people quote percentage drops overnight instead of range drop? Surely consumption is not proportional to the amount of battery remaining?

Thanks!

Did you get this issue resolved? Do you have Octopus Go as your energy provider? If you've given them your Tesla account credentials as a part of that program, that would explain your phantom energy drain, as the poll the car regularly to see if/when you're charging, keeping it awake and consuming 250 watts almost continuously.

 

[ucmndd]

Did you get this issue resolved?

There’s no issue to resolve. If you park your car at a very low state of charge without plugging in and charging, this will happen every time.