Range reduction in cold

[cdeleo]

So I've been watching my range reduction as the weather gets colder in my area. Today was the worst I've seen with a 55% reduction. My normal morning commute is 33 miles. and I used 51 miles of range. I have not adapted my driving style from ICE for the EV as I want to see how they compare directly. The weather was 24F this am when I left and when I got to work it was 26F. I heated the cabin to 66F for approximate 30min. Before I left. I left with 246miles of range and got to work with 195miles.

Overview of my commute driving style. about half is 60mph on 55mph roads and then EAP at 77 mph on expressway for almost all of the last half. city driving for the last 5min. Yes I know range degrades with speed but again I wanted to emulate exactly what I would drive with ICE.

Weather was clear with a wind of around 11mph which was mostly perpendicular to my vehicle for the duration of the drive.

Oh and lastly Areos where off and I have the LR AWD non P version.

Just posting for information for other people that would like a direct comparison from EV to ICE. in cold weather.

I am shocked at how much range is reduced due to cold on the EV. I knew there was going to be a reduction, I had figured around 30% and planned for 50% when looking at EVs. In my ICE vehical I would typically see a MPG reduction of around 1.5 mpg in the winter. which for my drive in to work would be around 4 or 5 miles range reduction. The EV is seeing on this day an 18 mile reduction.

We will have to see when the real cold comes and we are in February with around 0F days.

Anyway just an FYI post.

 

[Nocturnal]

Are you basing your range on the battery meter or the energy graph? I'm having troubles nailing down real values for my own driving. I've seen range hits of 50% in extreme weather based on the battery meter (snowing, wind, snow accumulation on car and road, 69 cabin temp, 2 seat heaters, driving 70, 14 degrees, all season tires in my P3D+). Last night I monitored it on my trip home and in 30 degrees driving at about 65mph on dry roads I was only seeing a 20% range hit based on the energy graph.

 

[brobinson]

Displayed range is not the most accurate way to calculate consumption due to weather. You need to compare Wh/mi and kWh usage to fair weather usage.

My round trip commute is 60 miles day. I'm typically seeing about 90 miles of used range in winter months, compared to 57-63 miles during spring/summer. That doesn't mean that I'm seeing 50% increased consumption, though.

My increases for Wh/mi and total kWh used per day has increased by about 25-30%

 

[Petrlol]

You will see a pretty large reduction on short trips. If you were to consume all 100% of the battery on a cold day, you wouldn't be taking a 55% reduction in range, it would be more like 25% depending on the temperature.

What helps a lot is if you can not only pre-heat the cabin, but have the charge finish just before you leave. Let's say each day when you get home and plug in it takes 4 hours to charge back to your set limit.

Then if you leave for work at 7am each day, tell your car to start charging at 3am each day. That way your battery is already warm when you leave for work.

 

[WATT TF]

I've only owned my M3 for 2 weeks and can already relate to the significant decrease in range due to cold weather.

My range reading on the dashboard tablet is displayed using the battery percentage rather than miles. I need to change that to miles today to get a better idea for lost range!

A couple days after taking delivery I drove straight through from Chicago to Atlanta on a Tuesday evening. The weather in Chicago at my 10PM departure was about 25° and the weather in Atlanta the following day at 2PM when I arrived was 55-60°. Prior to this trip I noticed a 1-2% loss overnight while parked for 8-10 hours in a 45° garage - no surprise here.

During the first half of my drive through the frozen tundra I lost 30-40% of my overall range stopping every 150-200 miles with a near empty battery. I typically drove with cruise control on 75-77 mph. I departed superchargers at 60-70% full while my tablet navigation said I would arrive at the next supercharger with 18-20% charge. Within about 10 minutes of driving this drops to 10-12% and continued to drop slowly or hold as long as I drove 70-75 mph. Driving 80+ mph resulted in a much faster loss of energy. Things improved quickly as I began to drive through warmer weather. I can't say they were back to normal as I was only there 3 days and it froze every night, but definitely better.

All things considered it was the most fun I had ever had on a long distance road trip. Total time in each direction was 15 hours with 4-5 stops for roughly 30-50 minutes each.

In my opinion loss of range due to cold weather shouldn't be a huge issue as long as it is accounted for...

-WATT

 

[outdoors]

Hey @cdeleo. Great to see people like you put stats out for others. Helps people understand what to expect.

I had a Subaru Outback with AS tires on for three years and noticed about 15% range reduction in winter time. Was one of those folks that tried to get every last drop of gas to calculate the range of tank and mileage. Which my engineer friends told me i was dumb for doing. Just wanted to see what stuff is made of I guess.

So on the 3 RWD. I have had it for one year in a couple weeks. I drive pretty fast. My average without snow tires last year in south eastern lower MI was 250 kw/h average. About 25k in miles over the year. Got some really sweet numbers in summer and not bad in the winter.

Note: I don't drive around in long underwear and drive with gloves on. Don't wear the mukluks to keep the feet warm. I use the climate control for what it does. Keep me comfortable. Summer time. Not the guy showing up to the drive thru in undies to keep my energy usage low.

This winter with about 900 miles thus far with snow tires (X-Ice3's) I am averaging @ 306 k/wh.

Are you garaged at night and while charging? I am. So my garage temp in the coldest of cold hovers around freezing due to a heated inlaw suite above. Even a carport or something really helps. Any chance at workplace charging even on a lower powered outlet during day?

I try to end my charging as close to leave time in the am. I know this will take a bit of math to figure out each night depending on usage during the day. Like others I wish for a charge end time rather than a start time.

I precondition the cabin when I am done taking a shower. Slows the rate of charge which usually coincides with a done breakfast and charged car.

According to TeslaFi, which uses some number to calculate efficiency I am at 72% with snow tires.
111.28% July
96.68% August
95.4 in September
91.21 October
77.41 November
72.71 Thus far in December (snows on now)

 

[cdeleo]

Are you basing your range on the battery meter or the energy graph? I'm having troubles nailing down real values for my own driving. I've seen range hits of 50% in extreme weather based on the battery meter (snowing, wind, snow accumulation on car and road, 69 cabin temp, 2 seat heaters, driving 70, 14 degrees, all season tires in my P3D+). Last night I monitored it on my trip home and in 30 degrees driving at about 65mph on dry roads I was only seeing a 20% range hit based on the energy graph.

Yes on the battery meter, is this not an accurate way of deducing this?

 

[Nocturnal]

Yes on the battery meter, is this not an accurate way of deducing this?

It doesn't seem like it. I'm trying to compare to the rated WhM on the graph versus my actual.

 

[cdeleo]

Displayed range is not the most accurate way to calculate consumption due to weather. You need to compare Wh/mi and kWh usage to fair weather usage.

My round trip commute is 60 miles day. I'm typically seeing about 90 miles of used range in winter months, compared to 57-63 miles during spring/summer. That doesn't mean that I'm seeing 50% increased consumption, though.

My increases for Wh/mi and total kWh used per day has increased by about 25-30%

Would it be accurate if I changed to percentage of battery? Wouldn't this give me a calculable Kwh used?

 

[cdeleo]

You will see a pretty large reduction on short trips. If you were to consume all 100% of the battery on a cold day, you wouldn't be taking a 55% reduction in range, it would be more like 25% depending on the temperature.

What helps a lot is if you can not only pre-heat the cabin, but have the charge finish just before you leave. Let's say each day when you get home and plug in it takes 4 hours to charge back to your set limit.

Then if you leave for work at 7am each day, tell your car to start charging at 3am each day. That way your battery is already warm when you leave for work.

I actually talked about this in another thread. I wish that tesla had a way to do split charging for this very reason. I know I could do this but there are times that due to my job I get called out again to go back to work. So when I get home I like to charge as soon as I get home so I can try and get as much range as I can as quick as I can in the event I get called back out. I would love to be able to charge to say 70 or 75% right when I get home and then do another say 5 or 10% in the am right before I leave.

 

[dusdev]

I did a winter trip and while there was a range reduction, it wasn't nearly as bad as what you're reporting. Here are a few easy suggestions to try:

- slow down 10% to around 70 mph
- accelerate slowly
- turn on seat warmers and turn down the air heat
- put the aero covers back on! (totally function over form here - who cares what it looks like if you get more range!)

I suspect with these changes you should may be drop to 25-30% range loss vs room temp.

That said, if you're not 'concerned' about range (since you're doing a round trip commute not requiring a charge or have a destination charger), then don't worry about it and just enjoy the car.

 

[cdeleo]

I've only owned my M3 for 2 weeks and can already relate to the significant decrease in range due to cold weather.

My range reading on the dashboard tablet is displayed using the battery percentage rather than miles. I need to change that to miles today to get a better idea for lost range!

A couple days after taking delivery I drove straight through from Chicago to Atlanta on a Tuesday evening. The weather in Chicago at my 10PM departure was about 25° and the weather in Atlanta the following day at 2PM when I arrived was 55-60°. Prior to this trip I noticed a 1-2% loss overnight while parked for 8-10 hours in a 45° garage - no surprise here.

During the first half of my drive through the frozen tundra I lost 30-40% of my overall range stopping every 150-200 miles with a near empty battery. I typically drove with cruise control on 75-77 mph. I departed superchargers at 60-70% full while my tablet navigation said I would arrive at the next supercharger with 18-20% charge. Within about 10 minutes of driving this drops to 10-12% and continued to drop slowly or hold as long as I drove 70-75 mph. Driving 80+ mph resulted in a much faster loss of energy. Things improved quickly as I began to drive through warmer weather. I can't say they were back to normal as I was only there 3 days and it froze every night, but definitely better.

All things considered it was the most fun I had ever had on a long distance road trip. Total time in each direction was 15 hours with 4-5 stops for roughly 30-50 minutes each.

In my opinion loss of range due to cold weather shouldn't be a huge issue as long as it is accounted for...

-WATT

Thanks for the post, I'm not trying to insinuate that it's a huge issue for me, more just wanted to really give a good idea to anyone who is trying to compare ICE to EV. for me when I was looking at purchasing I always got the question how much are you going to save over gas. I tried my best to estimate with my commute and annual driving and I came up with about $7500 over 5 years. I'm starting to think I may have been a bit generous and mainly didn't expect the drastic reduction in range due to cold. again i only planned on around 30% range reduction due to cold with my calculations.

 

[cdeleo]

Hey @cdeleo. Great to see people like you put stats out for others. Helps people understand what to expect.

I had a Subaru Outback with AS tires on for three years and noticed about 15% range reduction in winter time. Was one of those folks that tried to get every last drop of gas to calculate the range of tank and mileage. Which my engineer friends told me i was dumb for doing. Just wanted to see what stuff is made of I guess.

So on the 3 RWD. I have had it for one year in a couple weeks. I drive pretty fast. My average without snow tires last year in south eastern lower MI was 250 kw/h average. About 25k in miles over the year. Got some really sweet numbers in summer and not bad in the winter.

Note: I don't drive around in long underwear and drive with gloves on. Don't wear the mukluks to keep the feet warm. I use the climate control for what it does. Keep me comfortable. Summer time. Not the guy showing up to the drive thru in undies to keep my energy usage low.

This winter with about 900 miles thus far with snow tires (X-Ice3's) I am averaging @ 306 k/wh.

Are you garaged at night and while charging? I am. So my garage temp in the coldest of cold hovers around freezing due to a heated inlaw suite above. Even a carport or something really helps. Any chance at workplace charging even on a lower powered outlet during day?

I try to end my charging as close to leave time in the am. I know this will take a bit of math to figure out each night depending on usage during the day. Like others I wish for a charge end time rather than a start time.

I precondition the cabin when I am done taking a shower. Slows the rate of charge which usually coincides with a done breakfast and charged car.

According to TeslaFi, which uses some number to calculate efficiency I am at 72% with snow tires.
111.28% July
96.68% August
95.4 in September
91.21 October
77.41 November
72.71 Thus far in December (snows on now)

I think you and I would get along really well lol. I'm in the same boat I don't think that I should have to adapt my driving style just because I want to drive an EV. I also think that if EVers keep thinking this way adoption will slow. My wife, family are not going to go for the idea of you need to keep the cabin cold and wear a hat all the time and gloves. They are going to want to get in the car and drive like they always have.

I too was one of the people who would bring my range on my ICE down to 0 lol.

I am charging in my garage, not heated so probably only 5 degrees or so warmer than outside. at work I'm in an underground garage so it's pretty good around 55F in there. No outlet though for me to plug in.

 

[cdeleo]

I did a winter trip and while there was a range reduction, it wasn't nearly as bad as what you're reporting. Here are a few easy suggestions to try:

- slow down 10% to around 70 mph
- accelerate slowly
- turn on seat warmers and turn down the air heat
- put the aero covers back on! (totally function over form here - who cares what it looks like if you get more range!)

I suspect with these changes you should may be drop to 25-30% range loss vs room temp.

That said, if you're not 'concerned' about range (since you're doing a round trip commute not requiring a charge or have a destination charger), then don't worry about it and just enjoy the car.

Thanks for the reply, I wouldn't say I'm worried about it, and for a long trip I would defiantly do all the suggested. I just wanted to post my findings for an FYI for people looking to do direct comparison to ICE. I wanted to drive the same way I drove my ICE car and see how the EV did. I think this is important for people to be able to really compare when trying to decide if an EV would work for them. Not so much can I make an EV work for me but can I drive like I do and live like I currently am and what can I expect my cost to be with an EV.

 

[dusdev]

I wanted to drive the same way I drove my ICE car and see how the EV did. I think this is important for people to be able to really compare when trying to decide if an EV would work for them.

I guess in order to truly do that, you should not charge at home and only charge at Superchargers Or perhaps try and fill-up your ICE at home. I'm joking of course. But I guess as long as your vehicle got you to your destination and back, without having to charge, and the next morning you're good to go again without having to "fill-up" at the gas station, then your experiment was a total success. What does it matter what the remaining range was? In my opinion this would only matter on road trips, and as you said you can adjust as required in that situation.

Your data point is a good one and thanks for posting. My specific daily commute in the winter weather seems to be similar (50% or more reduction). But since my commute is short I haven't really cared. It was mostly in-city driving with a lot of stop/go and acceleration. I only recently did a road trip and the reduction was far less than feared (probably around 20-25%).

I do wish that Tesla adds "range booster" driving mode that tweaks power output to optimize range. That is, less acceleration, throttle the air heater more, give some indication on the UI to hit an 'ideal' power output compared to the speed limit, etc. As it stands I've been doing all these things manually to try and hyper-mile on the road trip.

I've now had the Model 3 for just over two months. I have to say I absolutely love not having to go to the gas station. I'd say that's saved me at least 10 gas station visits.

 

[cdeleo]

I guess in order to truly do that, you should not charge at home and only charge at Superchargers Or perhaps try and fill-up your ICE at home. I'm joking of course. But I guess as long as your vehicle got you to your destination and back, without having to charge, and the next morning you're good to go again without having to "fill-up" at the gas station, then your experiment was a total success. What does it matter what the remaining range was? In my opinion this would only matter on road trips, and as you said you can adjust as required in that situation.

Your data point is a good one and thanks for posting. My specific daily commute in the winter weather seems to be similar (50% or more reduction). But since my commute is short I haven't really cared. It was mostly in-city driving with a lot of stop/go and acceleration. I only recently did a road trip and the reduction was far less than feared (probably around 20-25%).

I do wish that Tesla adds "range booster" driving mode that tweaks power output to optimize range. That is, less acceleration, throttle the air heater more, give some indication on the UI to hit an 'ideal' power output compared to the speed limit, etc. As it stands I've been doing all these things manually to try and hyper-mile on the road trip.

I've now had the Model 3 for just over two months. I have to say I absolutely love not having to go to the gas station. I'd say that's saved me at least 10 gas station visits.

I can totally agree with the gas station thing, especially in the winter. I can remember all last year when I was at the pump thinking I can't wait until I don't have to do this. What I'm trying to gauge, without waiting for a full year is my true savings on using an EV to ICE. that is in terms of fuel. before buying the EV I mainly used the calculation based on EPA range. I knew this wasn't very accurate but I didn't have a whole lot of data to go off. so basically I took my avg. annual yearly mileage. Which I figured out by using my ICE car that I had for 5 years and it came out to be about 25,000 miles a year. I then took the range of the tesla of 310 miles for the 75kwh battery pack and divided the 25000 miles a year to get about 81 "fill ups" a year. so 81 X 75kwh gives me 6,075kwh for a year. I took that and multiplied by my kwh rate from my electric company to get a very rough approximate cost for the year. Again i know that this is not how you would be driving and charging between say 30% and 80% but at the time I didn't have the particulars due to the limited data that was out for the car. Also not having ever owned an EV not knowing much about the different efficiencies. So now that I own the car and am starting to get more data with weather and driving I'm trying to paint a more accurate picture and share my findings.

But I think if someone just looks at EPA stuff and says oh 116mpge and my current car gets 23mpg I'll be only using 1/5 the amount of fuel, cool! when actually that's not really an accurate picture especially for us who live in cold areas of the country/world.

And don't get me wrong I love the car, but it is some what of a toy for me and as the price gets lower especially with the SR M3 this will become more of an area of concern for people.

I'll also be honest and say I was originally planning on the SR model which at 220 miles of EPA range and if we take 50% of that so 110 miles and then we say well I only should be charging to around 80% daily for battery life. that I should have really only planned on around 88 miles of range in the winter. for me and my 66 mile a day commute that would have been close. but at first look 220 looks like it's way more than I would have needed.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I actually talked about this in another thread. I wish that tesla had a way to do split charging for this very reason. I know I could do this but there are times that due to my job I get called out again to go back to work. So when I get home I like to charge as soon as I get home so I can try and get as much range as I can as quick as I can in the event I get called back out. I would love to be able to charge to say 70 or 75% right when I get home and then do another say 5 or 10% in the am right before I leave.

I'll suggest that you set your charge to 70% so that it fills up when you get home, should you need it. Then in the morning use your phone to resume charging an hour or two before you leave, which will warm the battery somewhat — you can also turn on climate control remotely a few minutes before you leave. If you forget, no big deal since you have enough charge to do your commute, albeit with reduced regen and power.

I don't see anything like 50% reduction in range for winter driving but I tend to dress warmly in winter and live in sunny Colorado so the heater is mostly used briefly to defog the windshield from time to time — it does get cold here, though: 3ºF this morning and it is only the first week of December. Pushing through snow does take a lot more energy, however.

Truth be told, I never pay attention to the cost of charging because I have solar panels at home and there are lots of free L2 charge stations where I live and drive — haven't paid for electricity since 2012.

If you really want to be rigorous about how much electricity your car is using you could install a meter, as I did years ago:



^ Refurbished electric meter from Hialeah meter.
EZ Read Meter
Socket

With a meter you could track electricity use per mile, from the "wall," over the seasons and see what the difference really is from summer to winter.

 

[cdeleo]

I'll suggest that you set your charge to 70% so that it fills up when you get home, should you need it. Then in the morning use your phone to resume charging an hour or two before you leave, which will warm the battery somewhat — you can also turn on climate control remotely a few minutes before you leave. If you forget, no big deal since you have enough charge to do your commute, albeit with reduced regen and power.

I don't see anything like 50% reduction in range for winter driving but I tend to dress warmly in winter and live in sunny Colorado so the heater is mostly used briefly to defog the windshield from time to time — it does get cold here, though: 3ºF this morning and it is only the first week of December. Pushing through snow does take a lot more energy, however.

Truth be told, I never pay attention to the cost of charging because I have solar panels at home and there are lots of free L2 charge stations where I live and drive — haven't paid for electricity since 2012.

If you really want to be rigorous about how much electricity your car is using you could install a meter, as I did years ago:

View attachment 357840

^ Refurbished electric meter from Hialeah meter.
EZ Read Meter
Socket

With a meter you could track electricity use per mile, from the "wall," over the seasons and see what the difference really is from summer to winter.

Ok just so I'm understanding this correctly because I do want to try this. Set charge limit in car to 70% so it stops charging at 70% then plug in when I get home. Then in the a.m. on my phone how do I resume charging? do I have to set the limit higher to 80% or will it allow me to just hit resume and charge further past the 70% limit?

I already do the climate control thing in the a.m. Love that.

Just curious what temperature do you keep your cabin heat set at? 3F is very cold.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Ok just so I'm understanding this correctly because I do want to try this. Set charge limit in car to 70% so it stops charging at 70% then plug in when I get home. Then in the a.m. on my phone how do I resume charging? do I have to set the limit higher to 80% or will it allow me to just hit resume and charge further past the 70% limit?

I already do the climate control thing in the a.m. Love that.

Just curious what temperature do you keep your cabin heat set at? 3F is very cold.

You would need to use your phone to adjust the charge setting from 70% to 90% (and then back to 70% later, either on the phone or in the car). If you have timed charging off, the car will immediately begin to charge as soon as you raise the charge limit.

My cabin heat is currently set at 62ºF — same as my house — and the seat heater stays at setting 1 all winter. Being a thin-blooded fifth generation Hawaiian, I dress warmly in winter.

My car is garaged so it never gets below freezing, regardless of how cold it is outside (lowest I've seen in my thirty-four years in Colorado was -19ºF, but below zero is relatively uncommon here — a few times a winter). When parked outside all day in cold weather, I have been known to use my phone to preheat the car before walking to it, but on sunny days it is usually above ambient temperature — that changes quickly once the sun sets, however!

 

[dgpcolorado]

I'll add that I've commuted by bicycle much of my life and that is a different perspective on cold in winter, compared to a car. 25ºF at 25 mph on a bicycle is "brisk!" My personal best was getting home one night on my bicycle and finding that the temperature was -4ºF. I was younger then...