Real World Range During Harsh Canadian Winters (-18C/0F)

[wallstguy]

With winter out in full force, I finally had a day where I've been out driving all day and arrived home with 0% battery! (Just made it haha!)

Background: Model X AP2 75D - Charged to 90%, and got to my car in the morning with 335km on the battery (was 340km in the summers). Had 1-2 passengers in the car most of the time with seat warmers at level 1 activated.

Driving throughout the day at about a 30/70% split highway/city.

Temperature was freezing throughout the day, and it was between -15 degrees Celsius and -20 degrees!

Anyhow, here are the results. I took the pics in both US and Canadian format for reference.

Summary: Car used up 335km of range to produce 136km

What I'm a little shocked at....car says its only used 50.4kWh....
90% charge should've given me 74kWh (useable as posted by someone on the 75D) * 90% = 66.6kWh...so if the car only used 50.4kWh...what happened to the other 16kWh? Are they still there and the car is using it as a "reserve"....or is it just not calculating the power it used when not driving, or non driving functions?

Thats about 30% of my "gas" that "disappeared"? I was using the Cars "meter" to track how much I've used in total electricity throughout car ownership through "trip A" (currently showing 6400kWh)....but I guess this means thats way off? So actual cost of driving/ownership is considerably higher?

 

[Tiger]

See related discussion:

• Winter range anxiety
• Model S battery range problem in Minnesota winter | Tesla
  
• Why does Tesla use a Resistance Heater instead of Heat Pump
• Cold Weather Range - Model 3 | Tesla

 

[jdw]

Were you parked with the cabin heat running? Preheating? Driving->Parking->Driving->Parking?

The car doesn't record energy use while it is not moving, most likely where your kW went ...and it can use an enormous amount of energy if you had a number of short drives with parking outdoors in between.

Plus, last numbers I saw for the 75D battery pack were 72.6 kWh usable at 100%, so about 65kWh at 90%

 

[bikeandsail]

My experience in below freezing winter conditions is you shouldn't plan on more than 50% of rated miles without watching. The colder it is the more juice used. On a long non stop trip I can get rated miles in the summer in the winter it would probably be about 65% of rated. My winter temps are not as cold as wallstguy. If I do a lot of short trips over several days without charging I will average less than 50%.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

Maybe this helps explain why you can't get as much energy at cold temps?

 

[wallstguy]

Were you parked with the cabin heat running? Preheating? Driving->Parking->Driving->Parking?

The car doesn't record energy use while it is not moving, most likely where your kW went ...and it can use an enormous amount of energy if you had a number of short drives with parking outdoors in between.

Plus, last numbers I saw for the 75D battery pack were 72.6 kWh usable at 100%, so about 65kWh at 90%

Not much "preheating" manually. But yes this was me running errands so car was parked 1-2 hours at a time between several smaller trips (30-40km trips)

 

[jdw]

Not much "preheating" manually. But yes this was me running errands so car was parked 1-2 hours at a time between several smaller trips (30-40km trips)

Turning range mode on when doing a number of drives and stops in cold weather will really help. It prevents your battery heater from heating the battery, only to have it cool off again while parked.

 

[jlund]

Range mode really confuses me.

A warm battery helps with regen and range. Using energy from the battery to heat the battery hurts range. A sort of catch 22.

 

[alexhoff]

For what its worth, I just did a trip from Ottawa to Waterloo with average outside temp of -20c. I had it on range mode (but had the battery warm before I left). My X75D was safe for 200km - not 360 like my charge said. I had to stop at Kingston, Port Hope, Vaughn (Saw a Model 3!) to make it home. Brutal. I even turned off the heat at one point and bundled up the little ones to conserve energy on the long stretches.

 

[wallstguy]

For what its worth, I just did a trip from Ottawa to Waterloo with average outside temp of -20c. I had it on range mode (but had the battery warm before I left). My X75D was safe for 200km - not 360 like my charge said. I had to stop at Kingston, Port Hope, Vaughn (Saw a Model 3!) to make it home. Brutal. I even turned off the heat at one point and bundled up the little ones to conserve energy on the long stretches.

You saw an M3 at Vaughan? Nice! But yeah 200 for 360 is better but still pretty bad, especially if you turned off the heat. Mine was with Range mode off as I wanted it to "Stay comfortable"....although once i got down to my last 10km of range the heating pretty much all but turned off anyways

 

[ytwytw]

I have 100D and from 90% to 5% I drove 237km today
-20 Celsius
Range mode ON
Heater 23C
Mostly short trips, longest is 70km but low avg speed (60 kmh on 401)

 

[Canuck]

Temperature was freezing throughout the day, and it was between -15 degrees Celsius and -20 degrees!

So actual cost of driving/ownership is considerably higher?

If -15 to -20C was the year round temperature, then yes, the actual cost of driving would be considerably higher. But it's not -- so it seems a bit of an exaggeration to use "considerable", at least in my view.

Fuel Economy in Cold Weather

 

[bikeandsail]

Real world usage of Model X 100D from TeslaFi.

 

[wallstguy]

Real world usage of Model X 100D from TeslaFi.

Miles records from 0F to 20F are tiny. But do seem somewhat consistent with what I was experiencing.

 

[ytwytw]

351D342B-75A6-4A7C-A5D6-4C2AC55786CF

• ytwytw
• Dec 31, 2017

 

[alexhoff]

You saw an M3 at Vaughan? Nice! But yeah 200 for 360 is better but still pretty bad, especially if you turned off the heat. Mine was with Range mode off as I wanted it to "Stay comfortable"....although once i got down to my last 10km of range the heating pretty much all but turned off anyways

Not the best picture - it was still -20 and I had my toddlers in tow.

 

[Martin VanB]

Wow a Canadian Model 3!

 

[Struja]

I was planning on a Toronto to Buffalo road trip in two weeks and I am getting a bit of range anxiety because of the cold weather. I have a Supercharger in Buffalo 14km from my hotel and I have a L2 charger that I think I can use at a neighbouring hotel. Need you guys to reassure me that I won’t have any problems.

 

[wallstguy]

Yeah I've done Toronto to Buffalo no prob without stopping at Grimsby! You'll be fine, especially in a 90D. Worst case you supercharge instead of L2 before making the trip back.

 

[Gwgan]

TL;DR P90DX in single digit temps (F) can go about 150 miles.

Just took a trip in my X in cold temps on 20" Pirelli Winter Scorpions. Preheated in a 45F/ 7C garage, charged to 98% and unplugged just before leaving. Rear HVAC not on except to preheat before departure. Interior temps set to 64F/ C. Started out at ambient 1F/ -17C ended at -3F/ -19C. Traveled 154 mi/ 248km and used just about my whole battery capacity* of 84kW from a 90kWh battery. That’s 63% of Rated range and 52% of Ideal range. The in-car energy prediction at each stop was good, but the forecast dropped a few percentage points a few minutes after getting underway and then stayed on the new, higher consumption, track until the end.

*During this trip the car was parked for over an hour with climate on (and maybe battery pack heating too, but no snowflake), Wh/mi was about 490 immediately after resuming the trip so I assume the pack did not need heating or it would have been well over 500 for a while. There was a 3%/2.5 kWh drop over the 1.5 hours near 0F. About halfway home we leisurely ate dinner for about an hour and a half while the car charged at a destination charger with the climate on and arrived at home with 18% buffer.

BTW The windows fogged up easily and would clear with either forcing fresh air or using cold defrost for a few minutes at a time. I don’t know which is better; cold defrost may force fresh air anyway, but it is fewer screen taps. Either worked better and was more pleasant than blasting hot defrost.