Preconditioning for fast charging, worth it?

[804son]

You will also need wind direction and wind speed. Those two factors have a significant impact on wh/mi. Without those aspects you can't tell what is impacting your wh/mi increase. As I stated earlier, there are a lot of variables and complex interactions. Good Luck!

 

[STS-134]

Yes - the "stupid implementation" is what most people are complaining about here. I'm sure that someone has run out because of preconditioning, though I wouldn't be surprised if preconditioning turned off below 20% SOC like a lot of other things do.

I'm not sure how you just run out of battery in these cars. I always try to get to a SC that the car thinks I can reach with 15-20% SoC (and that ABRP thinks I can reach with 10-20% SoC). And then I try to use up all of the buffer by increasing speed. I can generally arrive with somewhere between 2-6% if I do this. If I am predicted to be short on energy during the drive, all I need to do is have less of a lead foot.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I'm not sure how you just run out of battery in these cars. I always try to get to a SC that the car thinks I can reach with 15-20% SoC (and that ABRP thinks I can reach with 10-20% SoC). And then I try to use up all of the buffer by increasing speed. I can generally arrive with somewhere between 2-6% if I do this. If I am predicted to be short on energy during the drive, all I need to do is have less of a lead foot.

I do roughly the same thing especially from Portland, OR to Centralia, WA where the speed limit is 70mph most of the way. The speed limit for Semi's is 60mph so I can modulate realistically between 65mph and 80mph.

If the car tries to precondition early its using MY energy.

I don't mind it saying "Hey, I need 6-7% near the destination to warm", but I do mind it turning on at the start and tumbling down my estimate from 40% to 20% before I've even reached the 70mph speed limit.

It's basically saying "Nope, I'm going to use this energy so guess who gets to drive in the slow lane?"

I used to have a beautiful relationship with preconditioning, but over the last 6 months its just been an arsehole.

 

[804son]

I do roughly the same thing especially from Portland, OR to Centralia, WA where the speed limit is 70mph most of the way. The speed limit for Semi's is 60mph so I can modulate realistically between 65mph and 80mph.

If the car tries to precondition early its using MY energy.

I don't mind it saying "Hey, I need 6-7% near the destination to warm", but I do mind it turning on at the start and tumbling down my estimate from 40% to 20% before I've even reached the 70mph speed limit.

It's basically saying "Nope, I'm going to use this energy so guess who gets to drive in the slow lane?"

I used to have a beautiful relationship with preconditioning, but over the last 6 months its just been an arsehole.

That's so strange for me, because "I Feel" like mine is more representative of the 6-7% range at most. and most of the time I don't notice it preconditioning usage at all. I find that when I'm consuming more energy than usual It's related to the wind or my speed.

 

[davraker]

That's so strange for me, because "I Feel" like mine is more representative of the 6-7% range at most. and most of the time I don't notice it preconditioning usage at all. I find that when I'm consuming more energy than usual It's related to the wind or my speed.

My feeling is that the preconditioning algorithm has changed somewhere in the last few updates. I have definitely noticed that preconditioning starts the moment I navigate to the Supercharger and this can be a substantial distance.

Further, and think this is clearly an issue, I have sometimes had the Supercharger as my final destination, but also included way stop. Even here, the preconditioning starts prior to my way point. If I choose to stop for any time at all, the preconditionin, it would seem, is wasted.

This makes no sense.

 

[804son]

My feeling is that the preconditioning algorithm has changed somewhere in the last few updates. I have definitely noticed that preconditioning starts the moment I navigate to the Supercharger and this can be a substantial distance.

Further, and think this is clearly an issue, I have sometimes had the Supercharger as my final destination, but also included way stop. Even here, the preconditioning starts prior to my way point. If I choose to stop for any time at all, the preconditionin, it would seem, is wasted.

This makes no sense.

I'm certainly not saying that the preconditioning alogrithm hasn't changed. I'm just saying I just finished up a 2,500 mile week long road trip with a whole bunch of supercharger to supercharger stops. Nowhere along the distance did it impede my ability easily reach the next stop. Most stops were around 120 to 150 miles apart (pretty standard really). If that preconditioning allowed me to supercharge quicker and get me on my way faster. I'm all for it.

 

[Tonedog77]

We did a trip in a Model 3 around the ring road in Iceland last summer and really wished we could've manually enabled preconditioning or that it could be enabled for non-Supercharger level 3 charging. There were many locations around the country where we had to use the ON network since there were no Superchargers nearby. Even after driving for hours, the cool temperatures and low speed limits prevented the battery from warming up sufficiently from driving alone. While most of the ON chargers were 50 kW max, we were lucky if the charging started at 30 kW when we plugged and it usually took nearly an hour before the car was able to ramp up to 50 kW. In parts of the country where Supercharging (and preconditioning) was available, we were able to plug in and instantly charge at 150 kW at v2 Superchargers and 250 kW at v3 Superchargers, greatly reducing the amount of time we spent charging.

im jealous, Been to Iceland before and loved it. We are planning to go back and drive the entire ring road as well

 

[iamnid]

I recently took a 400 mile trip. Started with 90% and the car started preconditioning as soon as I hit the road; HOWEVER, it stopped after about 10-15 minutes and did not resume preconditioning until I was about 15 minutes from the first supercharger stop. So, just because it starts the preconditioning earlier, it doesn't mean it preconditions for 2 hours now. It seemed like it warmed the battery up, let me drive 1.5 hours, and then started the preconditioning again, as usual. The car knows what it needs for optimal charging better than we do -- I say we just let it do its thing. I'd rather have it charge at up to 250kw (however briefly) than arrive and have it charge at 50kw until the battery warms up and then only ever get up to 125kw or so.

 

[MY-Y]

With the trips I showed, when it was in the teens (F) the preconditioning stayed on for over an hour. The battery climbed from 20F to 120F.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

That's so strange for me, because "I Feel" like mine is more representative of the 6-7% range at most. and most of the time I don't notice it preconditioning usage at all. I find that when I'm consuming more energy than usual It's related to the wind or my speed.

There could be differences in how my 2018 Model 3 does it, and your model Y. Or a difference in actions we took before the drive. My vehicle was sitting outside in 42F weather without charging (was already at 90% from the charge the night before).

From everything I've read it seems to want to get the battery to temp, and then to keep it there. This to me is silly because what's the point of keeping it at that temp especially if I'm 2 hours away or more? Plus traffic can be unpredictable. No sense in preconditioning before sitting for 30+ minutes because of an accident ahead.

On my car its a very binary thing where I don't even need the UI indicator. I can hear the whine from the motors because on the Model 3 it uses Motor heating while its an inefficient mode to heat the battery. I think the Model Y uses the same setup, but I could be mistaken as I haven't looked into it.

I do plan on going to Portland again this weekend, and I'll do the same thing again. This time my plan is to document the estimate without preconditioning (using the name of the outlet mall instead of the super charger), and then document the estimate with the supercharger destination at the outlet mall. This typically show about 6-7 less.

Then I'll do the drive down, and this time I'll let preconditioning continue to function and I won't give up on unless the destination percentage estimate goes under 10%. I stopped it at 20% last time which might have been premature. I also stopped it as there was no wind/speed/rain reasons why it would be using that much wattage (it was well over 400 with speeds of around 40-60).

Preconditioning in normal ambient temps (45-50F or so) shouldn't be much more than the 6-7%.

I'm also collecting this data for the Tesla service center to try to get to the bottom of what's going on. The whole is it your car or the SW kind of thing.

I'm determined to get this annoyance fixed as it drives me nuts.

I'm also determined to get the auto-lights to turn on when the wipers turn on, but that's a separate battle.

These are the two firmware bugs that plague my Tesla ownership experience. Both of them were not issues when I got the car, but came after updates.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I recently took a 400 mile trip. Started with 90% and the car started preconditioning as soon as I hit the road; HOWEVER, it stopped after about 10-15 minutes and did not resume preconditioning until I was about 15 minutes from the first supercharger stop. So, just because it starts the preconditioning earlier, it doesn't mean it preconditions for 2 hours now. It seemed like it warmed the battery up, let me drive 1.5 hours, and then started the preconditioning again, as usual. The car knows what it needs for optimal charging better than we do -- I say we just let it do its thing. I'd rather have it charge at up to 250kw (however briefly) than arrive and have it charge at 50kw until the battery warms up and then only ever get up to 125kw or so.

Do you remember what the ambient temp was? and whether you preheated or charged right before the trip?

Was there any traffic?

I think what you experienced is a "this is what it's designed to do" case, but I think this falls apart when conditions aren't ideal.

If there is traffic that significantly alters the length of the trip
If the battery starts off cold like being left outside
If the ambient temperature is really cold. I noticed you're in Cali so higher ambient temp than the PNW
If the person behind the wheel gets nervous at the energy usage and turns it off
Single supercharger stops are also a disadvantage as its likely relying on the battery being kept warm on average so the usage might be high during the first leg, but additional legs will have less of a hit as less heating is necessary

 

[avs007]

I do roughly the same thing especially from Portland, OR to Centralia, WA where the speed limit is 70mph most of the way. The speed limit for Semi's is 60mph so I can modulate realistically between 65mph and 80mph.

If the car tries to precondition early its using MY energy.

I don't mind it saying "Hey, I need 6-7% near the destination to warm", but I do mind it turning on at the start and tumbling down my estimate from 40% to 20% before I've even reached the 70mph speed limit.

It's basically saying "Nope, I'm going to use this energy so guess who gets to drive in the slow lane?"

I used to have a beautiful relationship with preconditioning, but over the last 6 months its just been an arsehole.

What was the weather when your estimate dropped from 40 to 20? I ask, becuase I drive from Portland to Seattle like every 2-3 weeks. I usually go from Portland to the Tumwater SC. I've never had the estimate be off from what it said it was... It was always spot on, including when it preconditions... (Which has been every trip for the last several months) And I've seen it start preconditioning well in advance, usually before I even get to Kelso... It seems to want to start preconditioning about an hour before arrival, which makes sense, because the owners manual even states that preconditioning the battery can take up to an hour...

With that being said, the ONLY time I've had the estimate be off by 20%, are the times I drove during a rain storm. I normally try to arrive in the Portland area with around 20%, but the times it was raining, I arrived with 9%. That's why if I anticipate rain/wind, I always add like a 15% buffer to the estimate.... I've even made this trek when it was 17 degrees, and the navigation estimate was still pretty spot on.

And with all this being said, not once have I ever had to drive in the slow lane... Every trip I do, I'm usually doing close to 80 between Portland and Tumwater, and closer to 70 between Tumwater and Seattle/Northgate

 

[avs007]

I do roughly the same thing especially from Portland, OR to Centralia, WA where the speed limit is 70mph most of the way. The speed limit for Semi's is 60mph so I can modulate realistically between 65mph and 80mph.

If the car tries to precondition early its using MY energy.

I don't mind it saying "Hey, I need 6-7% near the destination to warm", but I do mind it turning on at the start and tumbling down my estimate from 40% to 20% before I've even reached the 70mph speed limit.

It's basically saying "Nope, I'm going to use this energy so guess who gets to drive in the slow lane?"

I used to have a beautiful relationship with preconditioning, but over the last 6 months its just been an arsehole.

By the way, have you tried going to Tumwater instead of Centralia? The reason I ask, is becuase I remember in another thread, someone had posted when they navigated to two different SC that were like 30-45 minutes apart, when it was preconditioning, he had the same arrival SoC regardless which of the two SC he navigated to. He concluded that it was more aggressively preconditioning when going to the closer SC vs the one that was further away.

That's why I ask if you experimented with going to Tumwater or even Lacy instead of Centralia... Centralia is only a v2 anyways, tumwater is a v3., It's probably preconditioning right away when you go to Centralia, becuase Centralia is pretty close. When I navigate to Tumwater, it usually doesn't start preconditioning until after I get to Castle Rock or somewhere near there, which is like 50-70 miles before Tumwater... Centralia is only 70 miles from Portland, so maybe that's why it starts preconditioning right away for you.

 

[804son]

There could be differences in how my 2018 Model 3 does it, and your model Y. Or a difference in actions we took before the drive. My vehicle was sitting outside in 42F weather without charging (was already at 90% from the charge the night before).

From everything I've read it seems to want to get the battery to temp, and then to keep it there. This to me is silly because what's the point of keeping it at that temp especially if I'm 2 hours away or more? Plus traffic can be unpredictable. No sense in preconditioning before sitting for 30+ minutes because of an accident ahead.

On my car its a very binary thing where I don't even need the UI indicator. I can hear the whine from the motors because on the Model 3 it uses Motor heating while its an inefficient mode to heat the battery. I think the Model Y uses the same setup, but I could be mistaken as I haven't looked into it.

I do plan on going to Portland again this weekend, and I'll do the same thing again. This time my plan is to document the estimate without preconditioning (using the name of the outlet mall instead of the super charger), and then document the estimate with the supercharger destination at the outlet mall. This typically show about 6-7 less.

Then I'll do the drive down, and this time I'll let preconditioning continue to function and I won't give up on unless the destination percentage estimate goes under 10%. I stopped it at 20% last time which might have been premature. I also stopped it as there was no wind/speed/rain reasons why it would be using that much wattage (it was well over 400 with speeds of around 40-60).

Preconditioning in normal ambient temps (45-50F or so) shouldn't be much more than the 6-7%.

I'm also collecting this data for the Tesla service center to try to get to the bottom of what's going on. The whole is it your car or the SW kind of thing.

I'm determined to get this annoyance fixed as it drives me nuts.

I'm also determined to get the auto-lights to turn on when the wipers turn on, but that's a separate battle.

These are the two firmware bugs that plague my Tesla ownership experience. Both of them were not issues when I got the car, but came after updates.

I totally agree, there's no sense in keeping the battery that hot for hours unless there would be an equal payback in efficiency that seems unlikely in your case where the wh/mi went so high. I never experienced that particular scenario. My preconditioning would sometimes start early, but then turn off after a while

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

By the way, have you tried going to Tumwater instead of Centralia? The reason I ask, is becuase I remember in another thread, someone had posted when they navigated to two different SC that were like 30-45 minutes apart, when it was preconditioning, he had the same arrival SoC regardless which of the two SC he navigated to. He concluded that it was more aggressively preconditioning when going to the closer SC vs the one that was further away.

That's why I ask if you experimented with going to Tumwater or even Lacy instead of Centralia... Centralia is only a v2 anyways, tumwater is a v3., It's probably preconditioning right away when you go to Centralia, becuase Centralia is pretty close. When I navigate to Tumwater, it usually doesn't start preconditioning until after I get to Castle Rock or somewhere near there, which is like 50-70 miles before Tumwater... Centralia is only 70 miles from Portland, so maybe that's why it starts preconditioning right away for you.

This experiment is going to South to Portland, and the Centralia supercharger is a little over 100 miles away. Without too much traffic its about 2 hours.

As to why I go to Centralia? Partly because I'm a creature of habit, and partly because of the hostility the Pilot Gas Station owner has displayed towards Tesla. there was some argument in 2020 or 2021. I think its been resolved, but my mind still sees it as ugly despite knowing its V3.

 

[avs007]

As to why I go to Centralia? Partly because I'm a creature of habit, and partly because of the hostility the Pilot Gas Station owner has displayed towards Tesla. there was some argument in 2020 or 2021. I think its been resolved, but my mind still sees it as ugly despite knowing its V3.

Interesting... I know one time I went to Tumwater last year, and a stupid tanker truck was blocking 6 of the 8 stalls... That only happened once tho...
You should try the Kelso supercharger. It's also a v3, and isn't that much further south from Centralia.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Interesting... I know one time I went to Tumwater last year, and a stupid tanker truck was blocking 6 of the 8 stalls... That only happened once tho...
You should try the Kelso supercharger. It's also a v3, and isn't that much further south from Centralia.

I like that one in terms of location, but the traffic into the target parking lot can be intense.

If I had 18 or 19" tires I could make it to the Vancouver mall one, and there is a Voodoo Donuts there.

 

[avs007]

If the car tries to precondition early its using MY energy.

I don't mind it saying "Hey, I need 6-7% near the destination to warm", but I do mind it turning on at the start and tumbling down my estimate from 40% to 20% before I've even reached the 70mph speed limit.

Ok, so in the midst of a spring break trip right now... I set the destination to the Tumwater Supercharger while I was at a McDonalds in Vancouver... It was 50 degrees and cloudy. As soon as I set the destination, I noticed it started preconditioning the battery.... I looked at the Navigation, and it estimated I would arrive at 24%. When I got on the freeway, I periodically looked at the preconditioning, and saw it would periodically cycle preconditioning on and off... For most of the entire drive, while I was on the 5, I was averaging > 80 mph. It started lightly sprinkling towards the end of this leg.... I arrived at Tumwater at 22% SoC which was pretty close to the original estimate of 24%. When it gave me the original estimate, it was not raining... So even tho it started raining towards the end, and most of the entire drive I was driving 80+ mph, the navigation was spot on with its arrival SoC estimate, even tho it started preconditioning at the very beginning of this leg...

 

[DanDi58]

Ok, so in the midst of a spring break trip right now... I set the destination to the Tumwater Supercharger while I was at a McDonalds in Vancouver... It was 50 degrees and cloudy. As soon as I set the destination, I noticed it started preconditioning the battery.... I looked at the Navigation, and it estimated I would arrive at 24%. When I got on the freeway, I periodically looked at the preconditioning, and saw it would periodically cycle preconditioning on and off... For most of the entire drive, while I was on the 5, I was averaging > 80 mph. It started lightly sprinkling towards the end of this leg.... I arrived at Tumwater at 22% SoC which was pretty close to the original estimate of 24%. When it gave me the original estimate, it was not raining... So even tho it started raining towards the end, and most of the entire drive I was driving 80+ mph, the navigation was spot on with its arrival SoC estimate, even tho it started preconditioning at the very beginning of this leg...

The rain wouldn't have impacted you as much as the driving 80 - the car could not have predicted that... I've always found the predicted arrival SOC to be pretty accurate, certainly accurate enough to follow it and not worry.

 

[804son]

The rain wouldn't have impacted you as much as the driving 80 - the car could not have predicted that... I've always found the predicted arrival SOC to be pretty accurate, certainly accurate enough to follow it and not worry.

I've had a good headwind, take as much as 10% SOC arrival out. Granted I had extra so I didn't slow down LOL