Preconditioning for Supercharger...

[Drew57]

I stopped using preconditioning several months ago when it seemed to start a long distance before charging. Although the car charges faster, arrival SOC is lower than without so the actual time difference isn't so great, especially as the car has usually been driven for a couple of hours & the battery is already warm (instead of using a supercharger site as a destination I set the postcode as the nav address & if I do want to precondition, just set the on screen SC location as the destination about 15 minutes beforehand).

Given that I'm retired, still have plenty of referral miles and time saving isn't a major factor I'm happy to spend a little longer on the relatively few occasions I supercharge. I also wonder if this lengthy preconditioning is just as much a benefit for Tesla given that cars will depart the stall faster and maybe pay them a little more to replace the extra electricity consumed in getting there?

 

[prabhu]

I stopped using preconditioning several months ago when it seemed to start a long distance before charging. Although the car charges faster, arrival SOC is lower than without so the actual time difference isn't so great, especially as the car has usually been driven for a couple of hours & the battery is already warm (instead of using a supercharger site as a destination I set the postcode as the nav address & if I do want to precondition, just set the on screen SC location as the destination about 15 minutes beforehand).

Given that I'm retired, still have plenty of referral miles and time saving isn't a major factor I'm happy to spend a little longer on the relatively few occasions I supercharge. I also wonder if this lengthy preconditioning is just as much a benefit for Tesla given that cars will depart the stall faster and maybe pay them a little more to replace the extra electricity consumed in getting there?

You will be surprised to hear that EV batteries would hardly get warmer even after two hours of driving. This is because the motors are quite efficient by default. During preconditioning, Tesla would purposefully run the motors in an inefficient manner to generate the extra heat. Agreed that the time difference is not great and given the per kWh cost and free parking we can easily afford to stay for a few extra minutes without preconditioning.

 

[spdpsba]

I stopped using preconditioning several months ago when it seemed to start a long distance before charging. Although the car charges faster, arrival SOC is lower than without so the actual time difference isn't so great, especially as the car has usually been driven for a couple of hours & the battery is already warm (instead of using a supercharger site as a destination I set the postcode as the nav address & if I do want to precondition, just set the on screen SC location as the destination about 15 minutes beforehand).

Given that I'm retired, still have plenty of referral miles and time saving isn't a major factor I'm happy to spend a little longer on the relatively few occasions I supercharge. I also wonder if this lengthy preconditioning is just as much a benefit for Tesla given that cars will depart the stall faster and maybe pay them a little more to replace the extra electricity consumed in getting there?

I think as a comparison, whoever is registered with Abetterrouteplanner can try and construct few imaginary trips (North to South, South to North, E to W, W to E) and then use both Tesla and Abetterrouteplanner (with/without preconditioning, excluding other chargers) and see whether they predict the same SuC in that ideal conditions. I think they would. But in real world, once you accept preconditioning the SuC sites I guess will change with Tesla and that’s the missing bit or the gap - the question is whether Tesla creates this artificial early preconditioning to manage quicker charging time because of expectations or is there any monetary gain for Tesla b’cos of preconditioning and more battery drain. Is it a ‘battery gate’ similar ot VWs ‘diesel gate’?

 

[Overworked]

On my journey to Scotch Corner today I paid attention to the indicator. My first call was Abington SC and the precondition indicator appeared when I was 99 miles from it! I then knocked off the navigation until I was 30 miles away when I turned it back on and allowed it to precondition, following the Tesla Bjorn advice. I got a good charge there at 37p/unit as I had noted that Scotch Corner is 40p/unit.

As I then trundled South I set the navigation at 30 miles away again. I noted only 1 stall free and thought might free up in the next 20 mins but it went the other way. First to Short Wait, then to Medium Wait so I knocked off precondition. As I arrived there was a full house so I have just parked up as I am staying the night. Will charge in an hour or so when it is quiet and I am eating dinner. Those needing fuel in a hurry can have priority

The units here are V2 and the V3 bases are still piled below the restaurant window (but nothing else).

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I honestly don't know if this is a bug or a feature.

Initially I assumed it was a bug, and I reported it (during an online chat as Tesla has no written bug report mechanism) so I figured it would be fixed many months ago. The lack of any fix makes me wonder if they're doing this on purpose to torture us. From this thread it seems like its worldwide torture of anyone the least bit OCD.

It's torture because I want to have control over when this 7% or so of energy is used.

I don't want to snack on this 7% during the entire drive, and instead I want to keep it in reserve to expend it around the 30min to the destination mark.

I want to keep it in reserve because things happen on the roadway. I might get turned around or detoured. So I started to enter in a destination close to the supercharger, and then once I hit the 30min mark I'd switch it to the supercharger to allow it to precondition. Other people have said you can just tap the notification to stop it, but I think that only removes the notification.

Preconditioning is kinda funny in a way.

It's basically Tesla telling us to pay them more money as preconditioning improves the efficiency of Supercharger. Which they do have that nice notification yelling at us if we don't precondition.

I don't know about anyone else, but Tesla is preconditioning me for a Porsche Taycan.

 

[Overworked]

...

It's basically Tesla telling us to pay them more money as preconditioning improves the efficiency of Supercharger. Which they do have that nice notification yelling at us if we don't precondition.

I don't know about anyone else, but Tesla is preconditioning me for a Porsche Taycan.

Again, I don't see this as just a win for Tesla Inc. as it also benefits all us drivers on longer journeys too. We all want availability of chargers when in transit and cars being fully preconditioned on arrival allows for faster charging and therefore faster throughput of customers if the "splash and dash" is used. This is particularly important when there is sharing of v2 or even queuing at any SC.

There is no "notification yelling at us" if we don't tell the car navigation that the SC is our destination but not being preconditioned just takes longer to charge to your desired capacity. If you choose to do this more slowly than your car is capable of then you may hold up those sharing a v2 with you or waiting behind you in a queue. The charging etiquette and consideration of others is the balancing act you need to consider. When you are at a SC at a quiet time you can do as you please, dawdle around and take as long or as much power as you wish, but when there is a queue or time constraint at the SC I think arriving preconditioned is the considerate way forward.

I am sure similar problems apply at the Taycan charging points! The grass is not always greener - sometimes it is moss

 

[exlatccatsa]

On my trip from Builth Wells to High Wycombe last week I lost, or would have lost 6% battery if I hadn't turned the preconditioning off. It was the difference between supercharging at Bristol and Membury. Membury showed arrival with 1% till I turned off the preconditioning. I've just about given up preconditioning as charging has become so fast that I don't have time to order and eat before the car is charged and penalty charges start.. especially at Gretna.

 

[Overworked]

If you are charging at a SC from 1% then you are going to get a rapid charge irrespective of preconditioning I would reckon!

Rather you than me cutting it that fine

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Again, I don't see this as just a win for Tesla Inc. as it also benefits all us drivers on longer journeys too. We all want availability of chargers when in transit and cars being fully preconditioned on arrival allows for faster charging and therefore faster throughput of customers if the "splash and dash" is used. This is particularly important when there is sharing of v2 or even queuing at any SC.

There is no "notification yelling at us" if we don't tell the car navigation that the SC is our destination but not being preconditioned just takes longer to charge to your desired capacity. If you choose to do this more slowly than your car is capable of then you may hold up those sharing a v2 with you or waiting behind you in a queue. The charging etiquette and consideration of others is the balancing act you need to consider. When you are at a SC at a quiet time you can do as you please, dawdle around and take as long or as much power as you wish, but when there is a queue or time constraint at the SC I think arriving preconditioned is the considerate way forward.

I am sure similar problems apply at the Taycan charging points! The grass is not always greener - sometimes it is moss

I agree with all that while simultaneously finding the whole thing to be a bit funny.

Normally I do precondition out of courtesy to others as the supercharger I go to can be busy at times.

I don't believe the Taycan has any need to precondition, but I'm not a Taycan owner so I don't know for certain.

The grass certainly isn't greener as I'd be reliant on a charging network where charging hasn't been optimized in a way preconditioning allows a Tesla to be optimized for charging.

Ultimately preconditioning is something I wish owners had more control over. Like being able to turn it off without having to route to a nearby location or being able to tell it to delay the preconditioning to when we're close to the destination. It should also tell us how much time we're saving, and how much its going to cost us.

I'm not good with the "just trust the car".

I can't even trust my automatic lights to turn the lights on in the rain, and that's something I want as a courtesy to other drivers.

 

[exlatccatsa]

If you are charging at a SC from 1% then you are going to get a rapid charge irrespective of preconditioning I would reckon!

Rather you than me cutting it that fine

Which is why I stopped it and gained 6%

 

[spdpsba]

Ultimately preconditioning is something I wish owners had more control over. Like being able to turn it off without having to route to a nearby location or being able to tell it to delay the preconditioning to when we're close to the destination. It should also tell us how much time we're saving, and how much its going to cost us.

I think this is what is not being discussed widely, we need more flexibility in terms of preconditioning similar to abetterrouteplanner and also details regarding cost/saving/charging duration etc.,

Time to fire a tweet to Elon, hope others will join!

 

[blert]

I was driving from Liverpool to Bristol yesterday and the car started preconditioning for Hilton Park (81 miles,1h 20m) as soon as I put in the destination. Decided to go to Trentham (57 miles, 1h) instead and that cancelled the preconditioning which then only started about 15 minutes before I arrived there.

Fairly new to all of this but couldn't make sense of that.

 

[spdpsba]

I think this is what is not being discussed widely, we need more flexibility in terms of preconditioning similar to abetterrouteplanner and also details regarding cost/saving/charging duration etc.,

Time to fire a tweet to Elon, hope others will join!

Please join if you have a twitter account

https://twitter.com/x/status/1503109106273599499

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

On my last road trip in my 2018 P3D with 20" wheels I decided to test out a theory.

The theory was that the total energy used by preconditioning would be the same regardless of when it started. That I could simply allow it to do its thing, and not worry about it.

With a 90% charge I entered in the destination supercharger which was a little over 90 miles away, and it immediately indicated that it was preconditioning. The trip planner was estimating 34% at the destination which makes sense as it normally says around 40% without preconditioning.

Within the first 30 minutes the destination estimate kept dropping. I figured eventually it would settle out, but it didn't. When it got down to 20% I selected a different destination to get it to turn off.

Then today I finally remembered to chat with Tesla between 8am and 3pm PST to see if they knew how preconditioning was supposed to work. When they heard my story they said it was abnormal energy usage, and to schedule a service appointment. I did that, but I'm expecting service to cancel it. If they do I hope they push it up the chain as I believe its a bug and it has nothing to do with my vehicle.

 

[spooksman]

it has nothing to do with my vehicle.

I would totally agree - I've seen similar and that is what I experienced when I started this thread.

 

[Drew57]

I supercharged without preconditioning yesterday from 70%, set Buttonwood services as the destination & it charged at 72kWh. Overall consumption getting there was 212kWh but would have been well into the 300s with preconditioning.

On a previous occasion with preconditioning I recall charging was only fractionally faster so it's really not worth it for me (& while I was there yesterday at least four stalls remained empty so the theoretical extra minutes charging didn't inconvenience anyone)

 

[interbear]

I’ve noticed this on more recent trips that I do from South Wales up to Glasgow. Much earlier preconditioning.

As I know the route well, rather than set the navigation for the complete journey, I usually navigate to a particular supercharger, stop, charge, grab a coffee and have a rest for 20-25 mins.Then navigate to the next supercharger. I tend to stop a couple of times, often Hilton Park and Tebay, for example, sometimes Gretna, then on arrival get a decent charge at Eurocentral ready for the drive home a day or two later. Works fine for me but Im one of those EV drivers who gets anxious if it goes below 20%

I noticed the earlier preconditioning but had no idea that it impacted efficiency. That’s interesting. Maybe I should review my charging or rather navigation practices for longer journeys.

 

[Drew57]

I noticed the earlier preconditioning but had no idea that it impacted efficiency.

... maybe that's why Tesla have removed the easy-to-monitor trip card, so we don't notice it

 

[Louis0w]

I don't believe preconditioning is earlier, in that it occurs earlier and continues throughout. I have Scan My Tesla so can see what's happening with the Battery temperature and inlet flow temperature. Yes, preconditioning now occurs earlier in the journey - however, it's also now a multi-stepped process rather than a very rapid precondition, in one-go, closer to the destination. Perhaps this earlier but stepped process uses more energy over a longer journey than the previous rapid but singular precondition - however, I assume it's changed because it's kinder to the battery over time. Whether old or new method, if the gains preconditioning offers in charging speed is less important to you than the extra energy preconditioning uses, then I agree it would be helpful to have the option to turn it off. There are times when I purposely don't navigate directly to the SuC as either it's a V2 and I know it's busy and will have to share, or I intend to stay longer so am happy with a slower initial charging speed.

 

[hairysteve]

I'm two years into using my M3P, and have done quite a few long trips in that time, with stops at various Superchargers along the way. However, I've noticed the car seems to pop up the 'preconditioning' message earlier and earlier of late, so as I was on a real long trip this time, I looked at things a bit more closely...

I'm trundling down the M6 averaging 270Wh/mi for 100 miles or so, when about 90 miles (or about 90 minutes in this case) from the Supercharger it starts preconditioning the battery - I found it odd (it was a nice day!) but just let the car 'do it's thing'. However, once preconditioning kicked in, this rocketed to 385Wh/mi almost instantly and stayed there, with my arrival SoC then being way under the original plan on the graph (I was in 'credit' before).

The road conditions hadn't really changed, I was just mooching along - so my question is, is the preconditioning really worth the loss of range?

I realise charging time will be reduced, but I needed to stop and eat anyway...

Exactly what happened to me on Saturday on the way back from Wales. Arrived at schedulled SUper Charger with 6% of charge. Lessons learnt on my part.