Pre-conditioning/warming the car for the school run

[nufan]

Guys,

Testing my thinking by you all/stating it for new owners who might need a pointer as the seasons turn:

To prep the car for my other-half doing the school run, I’d like to warm the cabin up.

Also - I would like to warm the batteries (at least a bit) for semi-consistent regen-braking at the bottom of our steep hill. I can adapt - I’d rather not test if she can.

Looking at Scheduled Departure - the manual says it needs to be plugged in for aircon to run - but I don’t want to encumber her with cables of a morning. So that’s a less attractive option.

I think the solution is to Enable/Disable HVAC for 1/4hr M-F via TeslaFi’s scheduled-actions - wary that I’m responsible for making sure there’s enough power in the car - and I need to turn it off for days when not needed.

Mimics just doing it from the app as seems to be what many do.

Sound sensible? Thanks. It’s the behaviour of Scheduled Departure that throws me. I had a recollection it would work for cabin/battery as long as there was 20% SoC.

Given the not-plugged-in prohibition seems deliberate, I wonder if I’m forcing the system against the Great Designer’s wishes to do something bad for battery health (or if the coder that day just made a bad call there).

 

[akenham]

I believe it will precondition whether plugged in or not if from the app yoy

1. Turn on climate
2. Hit the de-ice / max Aircon button

You have to do this w/o being in the car if you want it to precondition the battery - on the model 3 it uses to the motors to generate heat to warm the battery .

If you're plugged in it'll draw as much as possible from the wall rather than the battery but the total load is something like 7kW for battery heating and 6kW for cabin so on a 7kW / 32A charger around half is drawn from battery - so 20 minutes could take a couple of kWh.

If you schedule your charge to finish just before you leave your battery will likely be warm and thus make battery heating unecessary.

Personally I kick off the Aircon and turn on heated seats 10-15mins ahead - it's always plugged in as I charge cheap rate overnight for 5/kWh

 

[brkaus]

Scheduled departure is focused on the timing of charging.

I use teslafi as you suggest.

they should probably add a “schedule next climate control”. I’ve noticed it elsewhere.

 

[Yev000]

I would like to warm the batteries (at least a bit) for semi-consistent regen-braking at the bottom of our steep hill.

Model 3 does not have a dedicated battery heater. It redirects motor heat when driving for supercharger preconditioning and it will naturally warm up while charging - the latter will take an hour on 7Kw...

So yeah scheduled departure helps, but then you don't get the cheapest rates. Basically you want it to charge for a good 2 hours before you leave.

If you got bugger all to charge - used 2% on a school run the previous day - this wont help you much.


Preconditioning the car for a good 30-45 min will also help - some of it will soak into the battery, but use up a good amount of energy 2-3Kwh. It uses a lot at the start then less to keep the temp. Of course if you have a sizable trip that will happen anyway, just while you are driving.

My suggestion would be, just use the brakes... Having hard regen on back ice can catch you off guard if you are not used to it. Precondition for comfort and use it like a normal car.