Precondition battery iOS app update out

[AnxietyRanger]

Well, it is a California car. All the heating features work only in California.

 

[gde_eu]

Well, it is a California car. All the heating features work only in California.

Ok, now we know it works in California and in Norway. It remains the countries in between

 

[pilotSteve]

Aha!!! Yes it was either (a) posting on TMC about it, (b) lining up valve stems toward Freemont, (c) asking Santa nicely or (d) none of the above........ but I got 50.2.3bd9f6d last night and installed this morning.

Thank you Santa! .... or Elon Claus, whoever......

 

[Tdreamer]

Did you guys press the red battery icon?

No red button to press in my case - same image of the car pre-heating as usual w/o the new battery precondition image [button?] in the center. I still don't know if that was due to the battery not being cold enough to enable the feature, or that I was not plugged in. I do hope being plugged in is NOT an absolute requirement, as it diminishes the value of this feature for some of us. In my case, I have a short commute and will almost always have my car in the 70-80% charge range at the end of the work day. I'd prefer to put some of that energy into battery preconditioning to have fully functional regen so I can remain a single-pedal driver.

 

[pilotSteve]

“Ho ho ho”! Awesome.

 

[gde_eu]

Linked or not, I was on 50.1 but I just receive a new update that is currently installing !

 

[tga]

Did you guys press the red battery icon?

As far as I can tell, it's not a button (at least not on Android), just an indication that the battery is preheating. I tried pressing it and nothing happened.

Also, I installed 2017.50.2 last night. This morning I couldn't get preconditioning to turn on (it would appear to turn on, then turn off a minute or two later). I went out to the car, closed the release notes and rebooted both screens. That seems to have cleared the issue.

 

[lucy]

Got the software update on car now, still nada.

I think the whole vehicle needs to be oriented towards Fremont for that upgrade trick to work. After all they use GPS to locate the most devout during releases and especially at Christmas time.

orientation towards Fremont for activation of specific powers not possible due to geographic & economic limitations.
Guess I'm SOL.

 

[arcus]

Still on 44.xxxx. I even topped up my tire pressures and pointed all valve stems toward Fremont. Come on Santa.... I mean Elon.... push those updates!

It's because you pointed them at the wrong direction.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Tesla tells you to start pre-conditioning your car an hour before you leave. What a thoughtfully, delightfully manual, non-automated, completely lazy way to implement a feature. The right way to implement this feature is by allowing drivers to specify a departure time and THAT'S IT! The car should know what it needs to do, and should do it automatically, so your car is ready to drive off at the prescribed time. Whether that's charging, or pre-heating, or even pre-cooling. No rain dance required.

 

[PhaseWhite]

Tesla tells you to start pre-conditioning your car an hour before you leave. What a thoughtfully, delightfully manual, non-automated, completely lazy way to implement a feature. The right way to implement this feature is by allowing drivers to specify a departure time and THAT'S IT! The car should know what it needs to do, and should do it automatically, so your car is ready to drive off at the prescribed time. Whether that's charging, or pre-heating, or even pre-cooling. No rain dance required.

This ++. This is the feature we need. This would be way more practical than the smart preconditioning feature. Let us set the time, we don't need a predictive algorithm to solve when we leave, let us set the time for each day of the week and have the car ready at that time.

 

[MacGreiner]

Tesla tells you to start pre-conditioning your car an hour before you leave. What a thoughtfully, delightfully manual, non-automated, completely lazy way to implement a feature. The right way to implement this feature is by allowing drivers to specify a departure time and THAT'S IT! The car should know what it needs to do, and should do it automatically, so your car is ready to drive off at the prescribed time. Whether that's charging, or pre-heating, or even pre-cooling. No rain dance required.

This is how the i3 implements battery preconditioning - set a departure time in the app.

 

[jeffro01]

Tesla tells you to start pre-conditioning your car an hour before you leave. What a thoughtfully, delightfully manual, non-automated, completely lazy way to implement a feature. The right way to implement this feature is by allowing drivers to specify a departure time and THAT'S IT! The car should know what it needs to do, and should do it automatically, so your car is ready to drive off at the prescribed time. Whether that's charging, or pre-heating, or even pre-cooling. No rain dance required.

Relax... We'll get that after we get the ability to actually schedule charging completely instead of just the start time... That was coming 2+ years ago so any moment now we'll get it...

Jeff

 

[AWDtsla]

As far as I can tell, it's not a button (at least not on Android), just an indication that the battery is preheating. I tried pressing it and nothing happened.

Also, I installed 2017.50.2 last night. This morning I couldn't get preconditioning to turn on (it would appear to turn on, then turn off a minute or two later). I went out to the car, closed the release notes and rebooted both screens. That seems to have cleared the issue.

I believe I have confirmed. Actually when I discovered this late last night I pretty damn livid with Tesla. 100 man hours into a stupid easter egg, and 1 in adding an stupid icon? Then tell electrek about it so they can make a big deal out of absolutely *nothing*.

edit - and I meant to add, the preconditioning failure is a regression. I started experiencing it before 50. What a friggin letdown.

 

[Peter_M]

I have firmware 2017.50.2 and app version 3.2.3 and I have Range Mode off.

Yesterday morning, after the car sat overnight at about -25C and it had warmed up to -20C (-4F), I plugged into a 30A 240V outlet and turned climate control on. The battery heating icon came on in the app and it was drawing 24A (6kW), but in an hour and 45 minutes, the charge level went down from 54% to 53%. The car was nice and warm and regen was available but limited to 30kW for about 1/2 hour after I started driving. There was also a power limit due to the cold.

So it's clear that the battery was warmed up, but it wasn't enough to eliminate the regen limit. That seems similar to what I've seen before this update, but I've never seen charging get completely stalled like that due to the cold, other than on a 15A 120V outlet. Maybe there's more power going to the battery heater than before when pre-heating, at the expense of charging, but it doesn't seem able to charge and preheat the battery at the same time when it's that cold.

 

[MacGreiner]

I wonder if longer preconditioning would have changed anything - e.g. 2 hours? With the smaller i3 battery it was a 3 hour process.

 

[tga]

I have firmware 2017.50.2 and app version 3.2.3 and I have Range Mode off.

Yesterday morning, after the car sat overnight at about -25C and it had warmed up to -20C (-4F), I plugged into a 30A 240V outlet and turned climate control on. The battery heating icon came on in the app and it was drawing 24A (6kW), but in an hour and 45 minutes, the charge level went down from 54% to 53%. The car was nice and warm and regen was available but limited to 30kW for about 1/2 hour after I started driving. There was also a power limit due to the cold.

So it's clear that the battery was warmed up, but it wasn't enough to eliminate the regen limit. That seems similar to what I've seen before this update, but I've never seen charging get completely stalled like that due to the cold, other than on a 15A 120V outlet. Maybe there's more power going to the battery heater than before when pre-heating, at the expense of charging, but it doesn't seem able to charge and preheat the battery at the same time when it's that cold.

It's been said around here that the battery and cabin heaters are both 6kw. You can't run both on a 24A feed without draining the battery a bit.

Try dialing back the charge rate slider well below the battery's current SOC (so the car isn't putting any shore power into the battery) and turn on the cabin heat. On cool days (50F), I've seen it spike to 24A (maxing out my 14-30), then drop as the cabin warms and the heater dials back the output. It seems to keep the draw at 24A longer (with some drop in battery SOC) if it's running both heaters, but I don't have enough data to confirm.

When I get the service upgrade (part of other house reno projects), I'll install am 80A HPWC (I have dual chargers); it'll be much easier to figure out what's going on then.

 

[Peter_M]

I wonder if longer preconditioning would have changed anything - e.g. 2 hours? With the smaller i3 battery it was a 3 hour process.

It was 1.75 hours for me but yes, I would think after more time - 3 hours, 4? - the battery would have been fully warmed and it would have started to charge.

 

[RDoc]

I really don't understand why Tesla has been so reluctant to implement battery pre-heating. Not having regen and sucking down battery energy for the first half hour when the car is cold is really a pain.

As for how long to preheat to get full regen, at the current time I'd suggest about 5 months.

 

[sc123]

Any idea what these snowflake icons mean? Car has been outside, I believe, sitting in the cold for ~24 hours not plugged in (it's at the service center) ... but shows this snowflake on the battery icon, and a sliver of blue color as well.