Polar Vortex vs Model 3 Performance 0-60 time. (okay, 0-59)

[rhuber]

My car cold soaked overnight and the recorded data shows outside temps of around -20F at the low point (around 7am). I made a quick 0-59 recording to show how much cold affects the car in extreme cold.

Some notes:

1) Combustion engines should never be run hard at these temps either, and doing so would likely cause permanent damage.
2) The car is great. This is a rare circumstance and I thought it would be fun to test. I don't care if it is slow when temps are ridiculously low.
3) It was quite interesting that the car refused to allow cruise control (and of course autopilot) until warming up for about 15 mins on the highway.
bonus..
4) For the nerdy car hacker types, I have full candump captures of the car overnight and throughout the drive.

Spoiler: it took about 18 seconds.

 

[SSedan]

A cold ICE shouldn't be run hard, but a warmed up one can LOVE the dense air.
Tires tend to not grip as well cold, and salt/sand screw up traction more.
Would be interesting to see what 0-60 is after a 15minute warmup, guessing it would be a lot closer to expected.

 

[Big Earl]

My car cold soaked overnight and the recorded data shows outside temps of around -20F at the low point (around 7am). I made a quick 0-59 recording to show how much cold affects the car in extreme cold.

Some notes:

1) Combustion engines should never be run hard at these temps either, and doing so would likely cause permanent damage.
2) The car is great. This is a rare circumstance and I thought it would be fun to test. I don't care if it is slow when temps are ridiculously low.
3) It was quite interesting that the car refused to allow cruise control (and of course autopilot) until warming up for about 15 mins on the highway.
bonus..
4) For the nerdy car hacker types, I have full candump captures of the car overnight and throughout the drive.

Spoiler: it took about 18 seconds.

How long did it take for the snowflake to disappear and for power to be restored to normal?

 

[voip-ninja]

My car cold soaked overnight and the recorded data shows outside temps of around -20F at the low point (around 7am). I made a quick 0-59 recording to show how much cold affects the car in extreme cold.

Some notes:

1) Combustion engines should never be run hard at these temps either, and doing so would likely cause permanent damage.

Vehicles with ICE are routinely run in these temps all over the world. It does require changing to different motor oil, using block heaters, etc., but it is totally doable.

 

[rhuber]

A cold ICE shouldn't be run hard, but a warmed up one can LOVE the dense air.
Tires tend to not grip as well cold, and salt/sand screw up traction more.
Would be interesting to see what 0-60 is after a 15minute warmup, guessing it would be a lot closer to expected.

Vehicles with ICE are routinely run in these temps all over the world. It does require changing to different motor oil, using block heaters, etc., but it is totally doable.

I totally agree and I should clarify what I meant: If you started a combustion engine that was sitting at -20F overnight and floored it a minute in to the drive, as I did with this Model 3, it is likely the lubricants are still sludge and aren't protecting things well. You are also causing a lot of general thermal stress on various parts of a hunk of frozen metal in a short period of time.

I am a realist and do think that combustion engines being inefficient and producing loads of waste heat works very much in their favor in extreme cold. I (used to) fly Cessnas pretty regularly, and they also perform amazingly well in cold dense air.

This car was unplugged all night, so I'd be interested to see how it would have performed if plugged in but not charging. I assume it keeps the battery a bit warmer with "shore power", but until we really dig in to the can bus data, we won't know what the batter management system does in the cases of cold weather.

 

[rhuber]

How long did it take for the snowflake to disappear and for power to be restored to normal?

It had not disappeared at the end of a 30 mile ~75mph drive. The car still registered -16F outside, so it was probably struggling to keep me warm.

 

[mark273]

hows it holding up in those temps? ive only experienced like 30F.... so can't imagine the negatives.

 

[Dre78]

Thanks for sharing! I like how Model 3 limits your capabilities to protect the system; I'm sure others feel differently for the sake/safety of the driver.

A cold ICE shouldn't be run hard, but a warmed up one can LOVE the dense air. Tires tend to not grip as well cold, and salt/sand screw up traction more.

This woman says, "That sounds great, and like a challenge. Hold my beer."
Illinois woman gets ticket for driving 115 mph in snowy weather

 

[mikefocke]

The motors have bearings don't they? And stressing them when cold isn't too great for them I'd imagine. Don't you want all the thermal changes to have occurred and for things to be in a steady "normal" state before stressing things?

 

[SSedan]

hows it holding up in those temps? ive only experienced like 30F.... so can't imagine the negatives.

Get solidly into the negatives and tires and shocks firm up, even seat foam seems to harden. I am near Green Bay and had -25f actual. Have seen this temp before, actually see -15f basically every winter.

I have a 2005 GMC and in cold weather it does all that plus a "yeti growl" as I call it where it is I think the power steering pump groans for a few seconds at start up below zero.

 

[voip-ninja]

The motors have bearings don't they? And stressing them when cold isn't too great for them I'd imagine. Don't you want all the thermal changes to have occurred and for things to be in a steady "normal" state before stressing things?

It's up to Tesla to communicate any such precautions to customers so I guess the question is whether any warnings about low temperature operation are in the owner's manual.

 

[voip-ninja]

hows it holding up in those temps? ive only experienced like 30F.... so can't imagine the negatives.

Well, 30F is not cold at all really, certainly you can experience much colder temps in huge parts of the planet. Even southern US states have had much lower temperatures than that;

U.S._state_temperature_extremes

I've experienced -20F many times, you have to be extremely careful in those temps as you can get frostbite extremely easily. Even breathing deeply can damage your lungs.

 

[ricohman]

I totally agree and I should clarify what I meant: If you started a combustion engine that was sitting at -20F overnight and floored it a minute in to the drive, as I did with this Model 3, it is likely the lubricants are still sludge and aren't protecting things well. You are also causing a lot of general thermal stress on various parts of a hunk of frozen metal in a short period of time.

I am a realist and do think that combustion engines being inefficient and producing loads of waste heat works very much in their favor in extreme cold. I (used to) fly Cessnas pretty regularly, and they also perform amazingly well in cold dense air.

This car was unplugged all night, so I'd be interested to see how it would have performed if plugged in but not charging. I assume it keeps the battery a bit warmer with "shore power", but until we really dig in to the can bus data, we won't know what the batter management system does in the cases of cold weather.

The oil in both of your diff/reduction housings are subject to the same cold operation limitations that any combustion vehicle is. Same goes for the CV's, unit bearings and all other moving bits.
I would never drive any vehicle hard at -30 for at least 20 minutes of operation. Do you think there is something special about your diffs or CV's? There isn't. And the surface hardening only goes so deep so you better hope the inner stubs are cold formed rolled splines and not machined or your cold launches are going to twist them.
The only vehicles I run full blast after starting are snowmobiles.

 

[dmurphy]

It had not disappeared at the end of a 30 mile ~75mph drive. The car still registered -16F outside, so it was probably struggling to keep me warm.

So I would assume you had the heat blasting pretty much full bore for the entire 30 miles?

That said - did you happen to take note of the battery range after ~30 miles? Curious what the range loss was due to the extreme cold, and having the heat blasting ....

Thanks! Fun quick video - cool to see how smart the software is.

 

[rhuber]

The oil in both of your diff/reduction housings are subject to the same cold operation limitations that any combustion vehicle is. Same goes for the CV's, unit bearings and all other moving bits.
I would never drive any vehicle hard at -30 for at least 20 minutes of operation. Do you think there is something special about your diffs or CV's? There isn't. And the surface hardening only goes so deep so you better hope the inner stubs are cold formed rolled splines and not machined or your cold launches are going to twist them.
The only vehicles I run full blast after starting are snowmobiles.

I'm still trying to locate the crankshaft, rocker arms, valve lifters, camshaft and pistons on my Model 3. Please help.

 

[rhuber]

The oil in both of your diff/reduction housings are subject to the same cold operation limitations that any combustion vehicle is. Same goes for the CV's, unit bearings and all other moving bits.
I would never drive any vehicle hard at -30 for at least 20 minutes of operation. Do you think there is something special about your diffs or CV's? There isn't. And the surface hardening only goes so deep so you better hope the inner stubs are cold formed rolled splines and not machined or your cold launches are going to twist them.
The only vehicles I run full blast after starting are snowmobiles.

Heat was set to 68F and worked fine on the drive. I didn't pay attention to the % but am busy writing scripts to get my teslafi + canbus dumps into a searchable form so I can start to answer some questions I have as well.

 

[timk225]

Wow, the acceleration bar wasn't even getting halfway across to the right edge, that thing was COLD!

 

[ricohman]

I'm still trying to locate the crankshaft, rocker arms, valve lifters, camshaft and pistons on my Model 3. Please help.

Maybe you should locate the CVs, inner stubs, ring gear, spiders and side gears, intermediate idler and input gears. They are sitting in a few litres of oil with the consistency of cold syrup. With nothing to warm them.

 

[nvx1977]

The oil in both of your diff/reduction housings are subject to the same cold operation limitations that any combustion vehicle is. Same goes for the CV's, unit bearings and all other moving bits.
I would never drive any vehicle hard at -30 for at least 20 minutes of operation. Do you think there is something special about your diffs or CV's? There isn't. And the surface hardening only goes so deep so you better hope the inner stubs are cold formed rolled splines and not machined or your cold launches are going to twist them.
The only vehicles I run full blast after starting are snowmobiles.

except "full blast" here was significantly nerfed by the firmware, so it's unlikely there was any significant stress.

 

[ricohman]

except "full blast" here was significantly nerfed by the firmware, so it's unlikely there was any significant stress.

That's good. Like many other vehicles it can somewhat protect itself from abuse.