Phantom drain recently through the roof!

[ratsbew]

I've had my Model 3 since July 2018 so I'm pretty familiar with what's normal and what's not. Over the past 3-4 weeks my daily 60% charge decays to 57% in the hours after charging stops.

I charge daily at midnight up to 60%. Normally I'd wake up to 187 miles and 60%. Now It's constantly drained to 57%. TeslaFi shows that charging stopped at 60% and then drained down to 57%. Also, on about the same timeline I had a sudden 100% range estimate hit that took me from 311 to about 304 overnight.

Has anyone else seen this type of behavior? It might be firmware related?

 

[jmaddr]

Same. I’m attributing it to battery temperature fluctuations.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I've had my Model 3 since July 2018 so I'm pretty familiar with what's normal and what's not. Over the past 3-4 weeks my daily 60% charge decays to 57% in the hours after charging stops.

I charge daily at midnight up to 60%. Normally I'd wake up to 187 miles and 60%. Now It's constantly drained to 57%. TeslaFi shows that charging stopped at 60% and then drained down to 57%. Also, on about the same timeline I had a sudden 100% range estimate hit that took me from 311 to about 304 overnight.

Has anyone else seen this type of behavior? It might be firmware related?

Consider getting a 12V battery monitor. Something like: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WCW49YM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_hn.RFbFCNRBK4

There are some knockoffs that use the same app which are slightly cheaper too.

Easy to install, and it will show you how well your car is sleeping. I had horrible vampire drain problems with some changes Stats made - I’ve disabled the app and now the car sleeps peacefully. It wakes just once per day for about and hour and a half to charge the battery! That ends up being just 1 rated mile per day. No more Stats!!! (Stats was also wearing out the contactors by waking the car 20+ times a day.)

A great tool, and it directly shows you how well your car is sleeping. I’ll try to remember to post some pictures later.

 

[KenC]

I've had my Model 3 since July 2018 so I'm pretty familiar with what's normal and what's not. Over the past 3-4 weeks my daily 60% charge decays to 57% in the hours after charging stops.

I charge daily at midnight up to 60%. Normally I'd wake up to 187 miles and 60%. Now It's constantly drained to 57%. TeslaFi shows that charging stopped at 60% and then drained down to 57%. Also, on about the same timeline I had a sudden 100% range estimate hit that took me from 311 to about 304 overnight.

Has anyone else seen this type of behavior? It might be firmware related?

Phantom drain goes up for me when it starts getting cold at night. During warm months, I get less than 0.1mile of drain/hour. But as it gets colder, I average 0.4+miles of drain/hour.

3rd-party apps like Stats and TeslaFi use the temp-dependent SOC api. So, as it gets colder, your ESTIMATED rated range will drop. On blue snowflake days, it'll fall into the 280s!

Here's my estimated rated range data exported from Stats, with ambient temp data, overlaid. You can see they are highly correlated. Having said that the estimated rated range change due to temperature variation is about 10 to 12 miles total, so not a whole lot, not counting blue snowflake days:

 

[Futuresystem]

Consider getting a 12V battery monitor. Something like: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WCW49YM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_hn.RFbFCNRBK4

There are some knockoffs that use the same app which are slightly cheaper too.

Easy to install, and it will show you how well your car is sleeping. I had horrible vampire drain problems with some changes Stats made - I’ve disabled the app and now the car sleeps peacefully. It wakes just once per day for about and hour and a half to charge the battery! That ends up being just 1 rated mile per day. No more Stats!!! (Stats was also wearing out the contactors by waking the car 20+ times a day.)

A great tool, and it directly shows you how well your car is sleeping. I’ll try to remember to post some pictures later.

Same, have a Bluetooth 12v monitor and I can see exactly what the car is doing. If it’s parked in my garage, it sleeps peacefully and awakens briefly once a day to top up the 12v. Photos :

: car sleeping soundly, and then car awake and driving for a few hours in the middle of the day, with the 12v battery charging.

I have twice had the Stats app active and both times my Phantom drain went sky high. There appears to be nothing I can do to stop that. I HATE the excessive Phantom drain.
If I disable Stats and log off- Phantom drain goes away, period!

Stats used to do things that

the Tesla App wouldn’t (eg: monitoring for open windows etc) but now does nothing for me that I can’t live without, so it’s unlikely that I’ll reactivate it any time soon, (though may do so briefly at some point now that I have a 12v monitor to confirm the problem.)

Be very wary of 3rd party Apps!

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Be very wary of 3rd party Apps!

Yeah, I used to not believe this but now after having the battery monitor and seeing how huge a change there is in sleeping behavior I just have to eliminate them. I liked Stats, but there is no ability to configure this behavior, and flogging the contactors constantly is not good for them even if they are rated for a million cycles. I feel like it got worse recently too. It seems the new algorithm is to wake up the car once an hour to make sure nothing is missed! Seems pretty crazy to me. Pretty sure there is a way to query the car without waking it up, but that is the way it goes.

It is not even enough to log out of the app! (AFAIK). You have to change the password as far as I can tell - Stats server is querying too I guess.

Stats enabled:

Below: Stats disabled - nearly 48 hours between ~2-hour wake up events! From November 9th at 2PM to Nov 13th at 8PM, I had 4 hours of idle time, and consumed about 4 rated miles (so one rated mile, 234Wh, per day).

So that tells me that idle uses about 230W (very approximate, would need longer interval and more data to know with more precision), assuming when idle it is charging the 12V (not always the case, but it is with these long intervals - it is the only reason the car wakes up in fact!!!).

The trigger threshold for wake-up is about 12.8V.

Now all I need is a current loop on the 12V cable and everything can be determined...but if the 12V charging current is 10A, then that would imply 240Wh per ~45h, or about 5.2W sleep power (quite high relative to an ICE, but consistent with what I have seen others quote). Need more info on the energy added during the 12V charging event to know for sure, though. The exact sleep mode current basically depends on how much energy in idle mode is going into the 12V, and how much of it is overhead (these estimates would imply about 100W of overhead, and 130W 12V charging energy).

 

[SigNC]

I think a lot of time you get home, your car battery is warm and you start your charge to X percent. Overnight, your battery cools down and the voltage drops so the BMS interprets this as a lower charge percentage.

 

[Bryan L]

I would check the health of your 12v battery. I noticed phantom drain really increased right before my 12v died without warning.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I would check the health of your 12v battery. I noticed phantom drain really increased right before my 12v died without warning.

Yes, that would make some sense.

 

[rrolsbe]

Yeah, I used to not believe this but now after having the battery monitor and seeing how huge a change there is in sleeping behavior I just have to eliminate them. I liked Stats, but there is no ability to configure this behavior, and flogging the contactors constantly is not good for them even if they are rated for a million cycles. I feel like it got worse recently too. It seems the new algorithm is to wake up the car once an hour to make sure nothing is missed! Seems pretty crazy to me. Pretty sure there is a way to query the car without waking it up, but that is the way it goes.

It is not even enough to log out of the app! (AFAIK). You have to change the password as far as I can tell - Stats server is querying too I guess.

Stats enabled:
View attachment 608393

Below: Stats disabled - nearly 48 hours between ~2-hour wake up events! From November 9th at 2PM to Nov 13th at 8PM, I had 4 hours of idle time, and consumed about 4 rated miles (so one rated mile, 234Wh, per day).

So that tells me that idle uses about 230W (very approximate, would need longer interval and more data to know with more precision), assuming when idle it is charging the 12V (not always the case, but it is with these long intervals - it is the only reason the car wakes up in fact!!!).

The trigger threshold for wake-up is about 12.8V.

Now all I need is a current loop on the 12V cable and everything can be determined...but if the 12V charging current is 10A, then that would imply 240Wh per ~45h, or about 5.2W sleep power (quite high relative to an ICE, but consistent with what I have seen others quote). Need more info on the energy added during the 12V charging event to know for sure, though. The exact sleep mode current basically depends on how much energy in idle mode is going into the 12V, and how much of it is overhead (these estimates would imply about 100W of overhead, and 130W 12V charging energy).

View attachment 608395
View attachment 608396

Yeah the battery monitor tells you a LOT regarding what is going on. Mine triggers a top-off at around 12.65V which is about 85 to 90% SOC on a AGM battery. The AGM battery should last several years with the SOC dropping no lower than 85% . If you put the car in storage mode (lift the 12V negative battery cable from the post after it goes to sleep) when you reconnect the cable it will ALWAYS stay awake for six hours even though the 12V battery voltage is well above 12.65V. I have found the 12V battery voltage to be around 12.85V after 14 days in storage mode which should should not require a top off. Tesla defaults to charging to six hours anytime it detects the battery has been disconnected.