Range Loss and climate control [phantom drain?]

[JelleV]

I recently noticed a strange range loss pattern for my 2019 model 3 SR+.

All in all, phantom drain is low. But when I commute, I noticed I lost several percents of range by the time I return home. Temperatures are pretty average here in Belgium now, and there is no overheat protection, dog mode, or anything similar. And the car is locked.

Still, I found out I don’t loose the range if I manually turn off climate control before leaving the car. So it seems climate control just keeps running though it shouldn’t.

I only noticed this issue only occurs on working days, no significant range loss overnight or in the weekend.

Anyone experienced something similar, or should I reach out to service? In total, it is not dramatic, but why waste precious energy.

 

[GtiMart]

When you say "range loss" or "drain", how much are we talking about?
After you've used the climate's AC, once you get out of the car chances are high that the car will continue to run the fan for a while to dry the heat exchanger. That is to prevent mold buildup and bad smells. It's possible that by stopping the climate before exiting you're preventing this feature from running. I don't think running a fan would drain a lot but obviously the car doesn't sleep during that time.

 

[JelleV]

It varies, but between 2 to 5%, which does feel a bit excessive, as if the climate control doesn’t turn off for a long time.

 

[JelleV]

Example of a few weeks ago, this was recorded as sleep.

 

[JelleV]

And a week later, same scenario with climate control off. It was an exceptionally warm day for this time of the year, so the inside temperature quite a bit. But no range loss.

 

[jjrandorin]

What you are describing appears to be a setting called "cabin overheat protection". Check to see if that is on, and if so, you can turn it off (it runs the climate control if the car gets over a certain temperature inside).

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

What you are describing appears to be a setting called "cabin overheat protection". Check to see if that is on, and if so, you can turn it off (it runs the climate control if the car gets over a certain temperature inside).

He said that was off though.

There have been a few reports of this. I am not sure I believe the connection to climate control status; I'd like to see if it can happen when climate control is left off - try several times or at least make sure it happens at a similar frequency (just turn off AC 10-15 minutes before getting home, but leave fan running, to make sure it dries out, then turn off climate entirely when parking).

These "special" vehicles seem to somehow lose many miles when parked but may sometimes gain miles while parked at other times, see @insaneoctane data for example, though I think he may have always seen loss, not sure if it ever resolved. Very consistent, presumably due to something about the OCV monitoring and some sort of error there. In any case not enough information here yet to say whether or not this situation is anything like that or caused by something much more mundane (Summon Standby Mode was not mentioned).

I'd just make sure the car is sleeping, and password is changed and not given back to any apps including TeslaFi. Then see if it sleeps, contactors make it super easy to tell, or just strap on a relatively cheap 12V monitor.

I've seen my car gain as much as 8 miles when parked, and probably it's dropped a similar amount on occasion (though I've never seen it). And these are not with extreme temperature changes either (not to say that there is no temperature change - could be a factor).

 

[KenC]

Example of a few weeks ago, this was recorded as sleep.View attachment 811077

I'm not understanding how a 2.18kWh loss equates to 16.82 miles, or 5% SOC. Is something wrong with the math?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I'm not understanding how a 2.18kWh loss equates to 16.82 miles, or 5% SOC. Is something wrong with the math?

These numbers are in km (it's not easy to tell from the capture, but you can tell given it is an SR+ 2019 and it has 260 (km) at 75% => 347km @100%, 215 miles; it clearly can't be 260 miles at 75%)

Anyway 16.82rkm (incredible precision, lol!) is 52.5kWh/240rmi *0.955 *16.82rkm / 1.609rkm/rmi = 2.18kWh.

This battery has 47kWh including buffer (10.5% capacity loss), so 5% is 47kWh*0.955*0.05 = 2.24kWh (obviously limited by 1 significant figure of 5%, so call it 2kWh).

It's all consistent.

 

[Vinouzeu]

I recently noticed a strange range loss pattern for my 2019 model 3 SR+.

All in all, phantom drain is low. But when I commute, I noticed I lost several percents of range by the time I return home. Temperatures are pretty average here in Belgium now, and there is no overheat protection, dog mode, or anything similar. And the car is locked.

Still, I found out I don’t loose the range if I manually turn off climate control before leaving the car. So it seems climate control just keeps running though it shouldn’t.

I only noticed this issue only occurs on working days, no significant range loss overnight or in the weekend.

Anyone experienced something similar, or should I reach out to service? In total, it is not dramatic, but why waste precious energy.

I am seeing something that might be related. Tonight, while I (am trying to, and hence for this very reason am unable to) sleep in the car while parked, the climate keeps setting itself on. Every time I try to switch it off, it will relaunch after some 15 mn, around the time the car usually disconnects itself from power.

I often sleep in the car no problem, and overheat protection is disabled here, camping mode disabled here, and when the climate sets itself it doesn’t even set itself to the settings I have it to. I have no app connecting to the car to avoid phantom drain.

This bug is at this very moment driving me mad. I am very used to sleeping regularly in the car (did like a 100 nights in it in the 8 month since I got the car), and have never ever experienced a bug like this until now. And I cannot sleep for I need to switch off climate putting itself back at strong force every 15mn. This is a nightmare.

Someone at Tesla software please urgently look into this. This is a showstopper here. Will need to have this fixed or the car is worthless to me. I move a lot and have a dreamcase and sleep a lot in the car (model Y LR).

 

[JelleV]

He said that was off though.

There have been a few reports of this. I am not sure I believe the connection to climate control status; I'd like to see if it can happen when climate control is left off - try several times or at least make sure it happens at a similar frequency (just turn off AC 10-15 minutes before getting home, but leave fan running, to make sure it dries out, then turn off climate entirely when parking).

These "special" vehicles seem to somehow lose many miles when parked but may sometimes gain miles while parked at other times, see @insaneoctane data for example, though I think he may have always seen loss, not sure if it ever resolved. Very consistent, presumably due to something about the OCV monitoring and some sort of error there. In any case not enough information here yet to say whether or not this situation is anything like that or caused by something much more mundane (Summon Standby Mode was not mentioned).

I'd just make sure the car is sleeping, and password is changed and not given back to any apps including TeslaFi. Then see if it sleeps, contactors make it super easy to tell, or just strap on a relatively cheap 12V monitor.

I've seen my car gain as much as 8 miles when parked, and probably it's dropped a similar amount on occasion (though I've never seen it). And these are not with extreme temperature changes either (not to say that there is no temperature change - could be a factor).

Thanks. It is pretty consistent that turning climate control off resolves this. And I have lately see range added too on occasion, although less and without a clear pattern.

I’ll try without TeslaFi connected to be sure, with and without climate control off, and just manually record range drop. Don’t want to mess with that too much as I’m a bit of a numbers freak and don’t want to mess up my stats too much

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Thanks. It is pretty consistent that turning climate control off resolves this. And I have lately see range added too on occasion, although less and without a clear pattern.

I’ll try without TeslaFi connected to be sure, with and without climate control off, and just manually record range drop. Don’t want to mess with that too much as I’m a bit of a numbers freak and don’t want to mess up my stats too much

Weird. Sounds like it could be a new bug. The power draw is about 250W which is a bit low for AC though - might be consistent with just the fan running interminably (it's detecting that it needs to get rid of moisture or something). Or maybe the cabin overheat protection is running even though it is disabled (which would explain why this only happens for the first ~10 hours).

Obviously the contactors are staying closed in your case.

If you don't want to mess up your TeslaFi data just pay attention to those contactor sounds and get a 12V monitor.

 

[Vinouzeu]

So, I’ve found when trying to solve my related problem of the climate setting itself on when sleeping inside, instead of the battery relays to disconnect, that a simple workaround is to press on driver seat presence detector, then release it, then opening and closing driver door.

So maybe in case after parking you decide to get out by passenger side, that situation can happen where after some 10mn without activity, instead of shutting down power , the vehicle switches on climate control.

Try (maybe with driver window released for convenience) pressing and depressing driver seat bottom, then opening closing driver door, if that helps your condition of range loss.

 

[Vinouzeu]

TL;DR : It seems like there are situations where after a time of inactivity, instead of switching off power, the vehicle switches on AC. Fix : press then depress driver seat bottom, then open and close driver door.

 

[GtiMart]

Hum... I've had problems with the car "staying on" sometimes and the culprit was the seat sensor. They replaced it and since then I haven't had any issues. In my case, the lights stayed on, climate stayed running etc, as if I was still sitting in the car.

 

[JelleV]

Hum... I've had problems with the car "staying on" sometimes and the culprit was the seat sensor. They replaced it and since then I haven't had any issues. In my case, the lights stayed on, climate stayed running etc, as if I was still sitting in the car.

Well, everything else seems to shut down correctly.

Today, I tried something different. Leave Climate Control on on exit, but then enable/disable it through the app after 10 minutes. And after only a few hours, I lost 1 kWh (2%) again. So I assume this has another effect than completely disabling CC in the car.

I'll retry tomorrow with physically disabling Climate on exit and post the results.

I don't have a 12V monitor available, so can't physically test whether the car sleeps. The closest alternative I can think of is finding an app which monitors whether there is power on my iPhone charging port and leave it in the car.

Also, I now see 'similar threads' picked up here on the forum with similar issues, and it does feel like a software update might be at the root cause of this.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I don't have a 12V monitor available, so can't physically test whether the car sleeps.

You can still tell by:

1) Response time of app (“last seen”…vs. “parked”)

2) Noises car is making. If it is making whirring pump noise it is not sleeping.

3) Contactor clunking when opening a car door.

1 & 3 will of course wake up the car. But anyway it is relatively easy to tell if the car is sleeping at least some of the time.

 

[JelleV]

You can still tell by:

1) Response time of app (“last seen”…vs. “parked”)

2) Noises car is making. If it is making whirring pump noise it is not sleeping.

3) Contactor clunking when opening a car door.

1 & 3 will of course wake up the car. But anyway it is relatively easy to tell if the car is sleeping at least some of the time.

Thanks for the tips, the Tesla app confirms it is sleeping (until I open the app indeed, as expected).

Today I turned off Climate control, and I gained 4% in just two hours ... So there is definitely off with calibration too. I'll just keep turning my climate control off, at least for my daily commute, and see if things change after new software updates.