Tesla Motors Club
Hello,
New owner of a LR AWD M3 (did I abbreviate that correctly?).
We live in CO in the mountains so cold weather with temps falling down to -20F not out of the question. Car will be garaged, but still looking at temps in the garage to be below freezing in some cases.
I am a little confused on how to properly treat the batteries.
Do I preheat, which I don't really understand. Is this just turning on the car and not driving it for an hour? Is it just having it plugged in. I can't really find a solid concise instruction for what preheating is and how to preheat a M3.
It also doesn't make sense to me that preheating is turning on the motors to generate heat. Doesn't running the motors require the batteries to be discharging, thus defeating the purpose.
Additionally, Lithium in general doesn't like to be charged below 32F/0C, but also prefers to not discharge past -4F. You can do either of these beyond the range but with degradation and often permanent damage to the battery, so if it is -20F out how are Tesla's protecting the battery? Having the BMS shut it down doesn't seem like a safe way to handle things in a car.
If that is the case, then what about shallow discharge? This is my wife's car and she has a 80 mile total commute. So if we plug it in every night or very least in the morning then we are never getting that deep discharge and are constantly charging between 75%-90%.
Thanks for the feedback
New owner of a LR AWD M3 (did I abbreviate that correctly?).
We live in CO in the mountains so cold weather with temps falling down to -20F not out of the question. Car will be garaged, but still looking at temps in the garage to be below freezing in some cases.
I am a little confused on how to properly treat the batteries.
Do I preheat, which I don't really understand. Is this just turning on the car and not driving it for an hour? Is it just having it plugged in. I can't really find a solid concise instruction for what preheating is and how to preheat a M3.
It also doesn't make sense to me that preheating is turning on the motors to generate heat. Doesn't running the motors require the batteries to be discharging, thus defeating the purpose.
Additionally, Lithium in general doesn't like to be charged below 32F/0C, but also prefers to not discharge past -4F. You can do either of these beyond the range but with degradation and often permanent damage to the battery, so if it is -20F out how are Tesla's protecting the battery? Having the BMS shut it down doesn't seem like a safe way to handle things in a car.
If that is the case, then what about shallow discharge? This is my wife's car and she has a 80 mile total commute. So if we plug it in every night or very least in the morning then we are never getting that deep discharge and are constantly charging between 75%-90%.
Thanks for the feedback