Pre-conditioning and recognizing driver

[goin2drt]

New Tesla owner

1. Pre-conditioning. We have figured out how to schedule pre conditioning for the morning in the app. However how do you just select preconditioning any other time? For example in the weekend we want to go somewhere, it’s cold outside so how do you preconditioning then? Do you just turn on climate and that is what preconditioning is? I just don’t see an option for preconditioning.
2. We are having trouble getting the car to recognize which driver is getting in and it always just stays on the last driver that got out. My wife and I won’t be together but if I drive last it is set to me. Then when she goes out to drive it stays on me and doesn’t recognize her phone as being her. We know the phone function works because it unlocks the door but won’t change over to her as the driver unless she does it manually on the screen and vice versa if she was the last and I walk up to the car

Thanks

 

[Amped412]

New Tesla owner

1. Pre-conditioning. We have figured out how to schedule pre conditioning for the morning in the app. However how do you just select preconditioning any other time? For example in the weekend we want to go somewhere, it’s cold outside so how do you preconditioning then? Do you just turn on climate and that is what preconditioning is? I just don’t see an option for preconditioning.
2. We are having trouble getting the car to recognize which driver is getting in and it always just stays on the last driver that got out. My wife and I won’t be together but if I drive last it is set to me. Then when she goes out to drive it stays on me and doesn’t recognize her phone as being her. We know the phone function works because it unlocks the door but won’t change over to her as the driver unless she does it manually on the screen and vice versa if she was the last and I walk up to the car

Thanks

Yes just turn on the climate and it will precondition the car.

Within the settings under Locks, you can set a driver profile to each specific key card and to each phone key. Whichever key is being used is what driver profile will be set up in the car when unlocking

 

[goin2drt]

@Amped412 thanks on the precondition. I thought I did that on the locks but I will check again tonight. Appreciate the help.

 

[Relayer]

FYI on the preconditioning, I noticed a huge jump in my electric bill when I had it set to precondition 15 minutes before I left during the cold months of January. Only reason it ran so early is because I could only set it at 15 minute intervals.
Now I just turn it on from my phone a couple minutes before I leave.

 

[goin2drt]

FYI on the preconditioning, I noticed a huge jump in my electric bill when I had it set to precondition 15 minutes before I left during the cold months of January. Only reason it ran so early is because I could only set it at 15 minute intervals.
Now I just turn it on from my phone a couple minutes before I leave.

So that brings up another question. Is 15 minutes all you need to precondition?

 

[Relayer]

So that brings up another question. Is 15 minutes all you need to precondition?

Others might have a better answer, but I'm pretty sure it depends on conditions, like how cold it might be or if your car is outside or in the garage. I feel like the only time I really need to precondition the battery is if I am taking a longish trip and it's cold outside.
That being said, I wish I had a bit more control over preconditioning. Some days I wish I could just run heat without the battery preconditioning, like for school drop offs in the winter.

 

[GtiMart]

Yep, depends what you want to achieve, and how cold it is outside. 5-15min should be enough to get the car interior warm, especially if you turn on the seat heater, so you're comfortable when you drive. Even better if your car is equipped with a steering wheel heater.
When it's very cold you might need it to run longer to melt ice that formed on the car. You might also want the battery to warm up so it provides regen when it's under freezing outside.
It's not mandatory, you can leave directly without any preconditioning whatever the temperature. You car will reduce available power/regen when necessary. Preconditioning is mostly for comfort.

 

[goin2drt]

@GtiMart this is great info I honestly thought it wasn’t safe (bad for the car) to drive a ice cold car. Funny this morning my wife took her car for the first time this morning and we didn’t “schedule” preconditioning so I made her wait 15 min

What about then on YT I have seen people saying they need to condition their battery before charging at a supercharger?

 

[GtiMart]

The battery doesn't accept any charge at or under freezing, hence you lose regen. But you can drive the car fine and everything will adjust accordingly. You will not get as much power either.
Supercharging requires dumping a boatload of energy at once in the battery. Batteries such as the one in your Tesla need to be warm/hot to charge without hurting the battery. The Battery Management System protects the battery by reducing the charge rate when the battery's cold. IF you don't precondition before supercharging, you will get slow charging. The car will heat the battery at the SC and you will wait longer.

EDIT: It's MUCH worse to drive an ICE car when cold. A reputable organization here estimated each cold start (winter, well under freezing) of an ICE engine to be equivalent (in wear) to driving 100km with it.

 

[GtiMart]

Additional info: preconditioning your car's cabin will only heat the battery up to around 5-10C (40-50F) . You will get good regen but that's it. In order to charge fast at a SC, the battery needs to be closer to 40C (104F), there's quite a difference. The car never lets the battery go that high in normal driving.

 

[ChargePort]

When your battery is warmer you will get a higher charging rate when you plug into a supercharger. The charging in its self will warm the battery but by pre charging you will ramp up quicker.

 

[goin2drt]

Yes just turn on the climate and it will precondition the car.

Within the settings under Locks, you can set a driver profile to each specific key card and to each phone key. Whichever key is being used is what driver profile will be set up in the car when unlocking

@Amped412 thanks on the precondition. I thought I did that on the locks but I will check again tonight. Appreciate the help.

So I had our phones assigned to each of our names but not the key cards Once I also assigned each key card now it works. Thanks for the help.

 

[Marty3SR+]

Others might have a better answer, but I'm pretty sure it depends on conditions, like how cold it might be or if your car is outside or in the garage. I feel like the only time I really need to precondition the battery is if I am taking a longish trip and it's cold outside.
That being said, I wish I had a bit more control over preconditioning. Some days I wish I could just run heat without the battery preconditioning, like for school drop offs in the winter.

I won't swear to it, but I believe preconditioning is a by-product of turning on the climate. When you turn on the climate, it uses the battery, which helps warm it up which is what preconditioning does. I'm not so sure that preconditioning simply turns on the climate, either. I think that's only part of what it does. Tesla said in an article that one thing preconditioning does is "Actively warms the cabin while the battery is being warmed"

So you can't ever really turn on the climate without some preconditioning no matter what. What's missing is the ability to truly turn on preconditioning without scheduling it.

There is some information here that might be interesting, including a link to a third party free app to address some of these issues: Tesla Extreme Weather Considerations - How To Optimize Your Tesla Driving For Winter Months

I'm looking into this Optiwatt site they refer to. I see people from Optiwatt on Reddit, so I'm going to try it, I think. It allows you to schedule preconditioning and charging by calendar or days of the week rather than one single time. It also reports how much it's costing you.

 

[BobX]

Folks: I don't know why this subject is so confusing----or is it just me. I am less interested in heating the interior of the car but want the battery to be conditioned for the cold. Despite having read numerous forums and Tesla support articles, I have yet to successfully precondition my X for a long drive in cold weather (say 20F). When I say successful, I mean--no bars appear on the energy graph when I start my trip. So here are my questions:

1. According to Tesla winter driving tips:

Precondition Using the Tesla App
You can pre-heat your car by activating preconditioning or defrost in the Tesla app. This will save significant energy on the road to be plugged in while preconditioning.

• Precondition: Open the Tesla app and tap 'Climate' > 'Turn On.'
• Defrost: Open the Tesla app and select 'Climate' > defrost icon.

So I can simply use the app to turn on climate OR defrost options. Correct?

2. When turning on the climate or defrost using the app, does that warm up the battery? Tesla talks about preconditioning the car and not specifically the battery.

3. Can you precondition the battery so it is fully optimized--ie. no bars in the energy graph? I would hope so, but... If so, how long should it be on say if the weather is 20F.

3. Despite some cold nights here of 5F, I have never seen the snowflake. Is this the way it is supposed to be?

4. I have tried Departure Charging. Although the car is charged to the limit I have set, there are still bars on the energy graph indicating that the battery is not optimized. By the way it takes a lot of driving to get those bars to disappear and energy consumption is very high. Why doesn't Departure Charging condition the car for optimum range and performance?

I have some longer than normal road trips coming up and I would like to make sure that I am doing all this correctly to avoid unnecessary stops at superchargers. I appreciate all responses. Thanks.

 

[lensovet]

I have some longer than normal road trips coming up and I would like to make sure that I am doing all this correctly to avoid unnecessary stops at superchargers

The car will automatically precondition enroute anyway. So preconditioning before you leave would only shorten the amount of time at the first SC.

The quickest way to get full regen bars is to simply plug the car into the charger and let it charge.

Finally you’re overthinking this. Just drive the car. It will do whatever it needs to do.

 

[Marty3SR+]

Folks: I don't know why this subject is so confusing----or is it just me. I am less interested in heating the interior of the car but want the battery to be conditioned for the cold. Despite having read numerous forums and Tesla support articles, I have yet to successfully precondition my X for a long drive in cold weather (say 20F). When I say successful, I mean--no bars appear on the energy graph when I start my trip. So here are my questions:

1. According to Tesla winter driving tips:

Precondition Using the Tesla App
You can pre-heat your car by activating preconditioning or defrost in the Tesla app. This will save significant energy on the road to be plugged in while preconditioning.

• Precondition: Open the Tesla app and tap 'Climate' > 'Turn On.'
• Defrost: Open the Tesla app and select 'Climate' > defrost icon.

So I can simply use the app to turn on climate OR defrost options. Correct?

2. When turning on the climate or defrost using the app, does that warm up the battery? Tesla talks about preconditioning the car and not specifically the battery.

3. Can you precondition the battery so it is fully optimized--ie. no bars in the energy graph? I would hope so, but... If so, how long should it be on say if the weather is 20F.

3. Despite some cold nights here of 5F, I have never seen the snowflake. Is this the way it is supposed to be?

4. I have tried Departure Charging. Although the car is charged to the limit I have set, there are still bars on the energy graph indicating that the battery is not optimized. By the way it takes a lot of driving to get those bars to disappear and energy consumption is very high. Why doesn't Departure Charging condition the car for optimum range and performance?

I have some longer than normal road trips coming up and I would like to make sure that I am doing all this correctly to avoid unnecessary stops at superchargers. I appreciate all responses. Thanks.

It's confusing, because they say different things in different articles, and part of the problem is probably the authors are not really experienced writers, and don't put as much thought and detail into it as the reader wants. As a technical person who learned two careers from books (HiFi repair and programming), I analyze every word sometimes, but authors don't. Also, they imply things without actually explaining a lot of the time.

The main takeaway I get from reading is that conditioning the battery (warming it) is done mainly by using it, except for parking in a warm area all the time. But even then, the outside temperature will affect it once you drive.

They say that something in the battery chemistry makes it possibly unsafe to charge when cold, so it may be that even when driving in very cold weather, the regen braking will be reduced to avoid problems. Where I live, it barely freezes at night and i park in a garage, so I don't have experience with a lot of this, but even parked in a garage when it's not freezing out, I sometimes see a notification that regen braking is being reduced until it's driven more.

They say to keep the car plugged in as much as possible, because then it uses the charging circuitry instead of the battery to heat the car, so that might mean that keeping the charging circuitry warm is part of conditioning.

They also mention preconditioning for an hour, but they don't say at what temperature. But in your situation, it may take a lot longer.

And they have said that heating the interior of the car is a desired side effect of preconditioning, so that implies that simply heating the car is not the same as preconditioning to me. But who knows?

 

[GtiMart]

Yes, conditioning the cabin conditions the battery. Heat is generated in the motors and circulated. You have no control over the target battery temperature, the car decides. Last winter it was around 20C, this winter it's between 5-6C I think, I don't remember exactly. You get good regen but not full. I find this better /less wasteful than what it did last winter.

Edit: you mentioned an X? Those have a dedicated battery warmer I think, different than the 3/Y. Unsure if the temperatures I listed are the same in thet car though.

 

[BobX]

Hey GtiMart, I see you are in Quebec City where you get a real winter. Have you been able to precondition to the point where you do not get any "dashes" on the energy graph on the instrument panel.

 

[sandman1330]

Hey GtiMart, I see you are in Quebec City where you get a real winter. Have you been able to precondition to the point where you do not get any "dashes" on the energy graph on the instrument panel.

Just a thought. Could you trick the car by setting the closest supercharger into the nav system? It should then start preconditioning for SC, which will heat the battery more from what I’ve gathered here. Whether that will start before you start driving though, I’m not sure.

 

[GtiMart]

95% of the time my car sleeps in a garage In the other 5%, I don't mind a few dots on the regen side. Looking at ScanMyTesla I see I can have a good 50kW of regen once battery heating stops. It gives good enough regen for driving and the rest comes back as you drive. It's far less wasteful that trying to heat the battery more. You will not recuperate that energy with regen.