Plug In or Not While on Vacation?

[TexasEV]

Doesn’t anyone RTFM? Or search this forum? This same question seems to be asked every week or two.

New owners— please, please read the battery section of your owners manual, even if you don’t read anything else.

 

[Phillyasian]

You don't have any friends that could garage your car for a month?

You know what, you just gave me an idea! Thanks!

 

[Phillyasian]

Doesn’t anyone RTFM? Or search this forum? This same question seems to be asked every week or two.

New owners— please, please read the battery section of your owners manual, even if you don’t read anything else.

I've read the manual cover to cover, so I KNOW WHAT IT SAYS AND IS RECOMMENDED. The questions come when there are circumstances that prevent someone from implementing the recommended and desired solution. The fear of something going wrong is real ;there are accounts of complete battery drain resulting in the need to have the car trailered.

 

[mongo]

Rather than start another thread I want to piggyback on this one. Here's my situation.

I will be going away next week on an extended vacation. My Model 3 WILL NOT be used for 30 days. I plan to leave it
at my parent's house OUTSIDE in the driveway. They live less than a mile from a Supercharger. What SOC should I leave it at?
I COULD ask to park it in my parent's garage and have it connected to a standard 120V outlet, BUT both of my parent's cars are expensive cars which they OBVIOUSLY would PREFER to keep inside the garage. Additionally, my Dad is kinda crazy with energy conservation(EVERY SINGLE TV is on a power strip including the cable box and is immediately powered off when the TV is off) so I don't know how he would feel about the car being plugged in for 30 days. So BEFORE I ask my parents if I can garage the car, what's everyone's advise/opinion on what I should do if I leave it outside and if that's even advisable for this length of time.

Background. M3 Long range, 3.5 months old. 2500 miles. Parked outside in Center City Philly with no access to power. Supercharging ONLY about 1x/week to 90%SOC. Currently Phantom drain is about 3-4 miles/day.
Thanks!

Have them drive and charge it once a week. Keeps the critters and parking police at bay.

 

[Ejl80]

You know what, you just gave me an idea! Thanks!

No problem. I actually garage a friends motorcycle in the winter, so I figured someone must be willing to help ya out!

 

[Phillyasian]

No problem. I actually garage a friends motorcycle in the winter, so I figured someone must be willing to help ya out!

So it was not a friend but my sister who lives 15 minutes away from my parents Spoke to her today and she said no problems. I THINK once my parents hear what we plan to do they will offer up one of their spaces (it would be my mom's car - my dad just bought the top of the line Lexus LS500-over 100 grand - so that's not sitting outside, lol) but I rather they offer than I ask. I don't know why I didn't think of my sister in the first place!!
I think the prevailing opinion was I really should try have it plugged in so I went ahead and asked If the majority of opinions was it didn't matter either way I may not have asked & left it outside unplugged.
Thanks to all whom offered advice!

 

[Dana1]

A plugged in Tesla is a happy Tesla.

 

[eprosenx]

So it was not a friend but my sister who lives 15 minutes away from my parents Spoke to her today and she said no problems. I THINK once my parents hear what we plan to do they will offer up one of their spaces (it would be my mom's car - my dad just bought the top of the line Lexus LS500-over 100 grand - so that's not sitting outside, lol) but I rather they offer than I ask. I don't know why I didn't think of my sister in the first place!!
I think the prevailing opinion was I really should try have it plugged in so I went ahead and asked If the majority of opinions was it didn't matter either way I may not have asked & left it outside unplugged.
Thanks to all whom offered advice!

Would parking it outside but leaving it plugged in to a regular wall outlet be an option? I would just do that and set state of charge to 50%. It will occasionally draw power as needed.

 

[TT97]

Would parking it outside but leaving it plugged in to a regular wall outlet be an option? I would just do that and set state of charge to 50%. It will occasionally draw power as needed.

You can do that in SoCal no problem. Northeast in the winter will have more issues as at 120V will have a hard time warming up the battery to keep it charged (although, as I am in L.A., that could just be an urban myth to dissuade people moving to NY).

 

[Phillyasian]

Would parking it outside but leaving it plugged in to a regular wall outlet be an option? I would just do that and set state of charge to 50%. It will occasionally draw power as needed.

M concerned with leaving the UMC connected to an extension cord outside in the elements 23/7 for 30 days straight. While it won't be snowing in NY in October yet I was concerned about rain.

 

[eprosenx]

M concerned with leaving the UMC connected to an extension cord outside in the elements 23/7 for 30 days straight. While it won't be snowing in NY in October yet I was concerned about rain.

No external receptacles on the house close enough not to need an extension cord?

As long as there is a functioning GFCI on the circuit the risk should be minimized. I would just make darned well sure that the extension cord was high ampacity and that the connectors were waterproofed somehow (in cover mine in plastic bags and tape them up for my Christmas tree lights).

I generally don’t recommend solutions with extension cords, but you have to do what you have to do. I once left my new M3 in a garage for a holiday weekend plugged into an extension cord, but set to only allow 5a current when charging.

 

[Ejl80]

No external receptacles on the house close enough not to need an extension cord?

As long as there is a functioning GFCI on the circuit the risk should be minimized. I would just make darned well sure that the extension cord was high ampacity and that the connectors were waterproofed somehow (in cover mine in plastic bags and tape them up for my Christmas tree lights).

I generally don’t recommend solutions with extension cords, but you have to do what you have to do. I once left my new M3 in a garage for a holiday weekend plugged into an extension cord, but set to only allow 5a current when charging.

He lives in center city Philadelphia if I remember right. It would be a cord across a sidewalk etc in a bustling downtown.

 

[Phillyasian]

He lives in center city Philadelphia if I remember right. It would be a cord across a sidewalk etc in a bustling downtown.

While I live in Philly the car will be parked in suburban Long Island, NY.

 

[stayfocus18]

Just wanted to share my experience. I was gone for 7 days Saturday to Saturday temp range where the car was outside high 60’s to high 80’s I lost on avereage 4 miles per day. This was really good in my opinion. There was one day I lost 7 miles and a couple I lost only 2miles per day. Hope this helps anyone, and the battery of the car was 78% when I left it.

 

[SeanM]

I went for a week long vacation.... kept the M3 plugged in and charged it to 90%, then decreased the charge setting down to 50%. This way the battery didn't have to keep repeating the charging cycles if battery went below 90%. When I came back, the 'vampire drain' had hardly taken off <10 miles.

 

[Trevlan006]

Question maybe stupid but here it goes, I cannot read the FM as I just put my deposit today so no manual yet..lol
All this talk about going away and plugging it in, however I have been to Texas stores , 1 in Lawrence Toronto and another in Oakville and I have seen the HUB near the airport. So my question is each of the stores/service centres have a few dozen cars on the lot and the HUB has a few hundred cars in the lots. I do not see them all charged up. So is this bad for the cars ? My vehicle that if all goes well that I will be joined to has a DOB of August 15 and is sitting in Lawrence location do they really have it plugged in at all times?
And if the answer is no then why should we be so worried about charging and just enjoy our vehicles?

 

[kbecks13]

So is this bad for the cars ? My vehicle that if all goes well that I will be joined to has a DOB of August 15 and is sitting in Lawrence location do they really have it plugged in at all times?
And if the answer is no then why should we be so worried about charging and just enjoy our vehicles?

Short answer - if you can keep the battery between 80% and 20% without plugging it in, you will be OK. If you forget and let the battery drain, you can do some damage. If you're going on vacation just plug it in and set the battery charge limit at 50% as that is the BEST place for your batteries to be.

 

[eprosenx]

Question maybe stupid but here it goes, I cannot read the FM as I just put my deposit today so no manual yet..lol
All this talk about going away and plugging it in, however I have been to Texas stores , 1 in Lawrence Toronto and another in Oakville and I have seen the HUB near the airport. So my question is each of the stores/service centres have a few dozen cars on the lot and the HUB has a few hundred cars in the lots. I do not see them all charged up. So is this bad for the cars ? My vehicle that if all goes well that I will be joined to has a DOB of August 15 and is sitting in Lawrence location do they really have it plugged in at all times?
And if the answer is no then why should we be so worried about charging and just enjoy our vehicles?

FWIW, I think the manual is available online.

So you bring up a good point, and one I have been wondering about lately.

My guess is the following:

The battery pack likely comes from the gigafactory nearly fully charged. I doubt they have much inventory laying around waiting to be put in a car.

Then I suspect the factory charges them up nearly all the way (if not all the way) before shipping them out.

Then in transit, all they need to worry about is vampire drain. They are always on rail cars or trucks or ships (eventually). They never really get any miles on them. I got my wife’s highlander on it with literally zero miles on it.

So now that Tesla is building inventories to some degree they have a new problem. I think the average state of charge of vehicles delivered to the delivery center is lower, so now they struggle with getting them all charged for delivery. Hence why we have seen photos recently of temporary superchargers setup in delivery center parking lots.

I wonder if they have a report they run daily on all the cars in the inventory to make sure they don’t run out of battery. Eventually they will need to pay people to go grab those cars and charge them.

 

[Trevlan006]

Yes the vehicle as mentioned has been sitting in the HUB for over a month and still would be 1-2 weeks before I get it. This is what makes me think as you mentioned , how do they track them and how do they keep the charge?

This will be my question to my advisor just for fun lol

 

[Ulmo]

Coming up we will be away from home for 2 1/2 weeks, leaving our Model 3 at home. Do I:

1) give it a full charge and leave it unplugged

OR

2) keep it plugged in?

1. Set it to 50% state of max charge (or whatever the minimum is; I think actually the minimum is 60%).
2. Drive it around until it's down to about 60% charge level, so that it isn't sitting at too high a charge level.
3. Leave it plugged in, so it can stay at or above 47% charge the whole time you are gone.
4. When you come back, make sure that it came on enough to keep it at the minimum charge point, so that on your next long term outing, you will get this to work reliably. There might be settings you need to set to make sure it stays charged to the minimum the whole time.

The theory is that for long sitting idle Lithium batteries, somewhere around middle state of charge is best.

I think for this in most climates, the 120VAC 12 amp charge connection might be enough! That opens up more options using your UMC, such as using a different part of your garage, or an exterior extension cord, or a neighbor's parking situation.