Reduced AC after hard acceleration?

[FatherTo1]

I don't know if this warrants a visit to the SC, but has anyone else noticed reduced A/C performance after a short burst of speed? Car was registering 107-degrees outside and I had the AC set at 70. I was merging onto the freeway and sprinted for about 4-5 seconds and instantly felt warmer air coming out of the vents. I never noticed this phenomena before. This is our first Summer with the S and am not yet sure if it is normal behavior. It looks a few minutes for the air to feel cool again. Has anyone else experienced this? I have accelerated hard before but never noticed it affecting AC performance.

EDIT: Actually, maybe I do have an AC issue. I just remembered yesterday we were on the road and tried to set the air to recirculate and instead it got warmer (later I realized it probably was already automatically on recirculate and me pressing the button switched it to fresh air, but this alone usually reduces the strength of air from the vents without affecting the temperature). Maybe I'm low on refrigerant? On a 10-month old car with this being the first hot Summer for us?

 

[Ostrichsak]

I wouldn't put much stock in the low refrigerant guess unless you've got some sort of other issue causing a leak. I think I read where someone said that in extreme conditions (hot ambient temps and spirited driving type stuff) you may notice a dip in your car's ability to cool the cabin completely as it uses maximum resources to cool the batter pack to avoid catastrophic issues. I would venture a guess that the latest updates that gave a bunch of changes to make the packs "safer" could have tweaked whatever parameters they previously used for this. Sounds like it was pretty hot where you are and you were driving your car spiritedly so this could very likely be what you were experiencing. If your system is already nearly at it's maximum capacity just to keep the battery at a safe temperature it doesn't have as much to give to the cabin cooling if that makes sense.

 

[ucmndd]

I wouldn't put much stock in the low refrigerant guess unless you've got some sort of other issue causing a leak. I think I read where someone said that in extreme conditions (hot ambient temps and spirited driving type stuff) you may notice a dip in your car's ability to cool the cabin completely as it uses maximum resources to cool the batter pack to avoid catastrophic issues. I would venture a guess that the latest updates that gave a bunch of changes to make the packs "safer" could have tweaked whatever parameters they previously used for this. Sounds like it was pretty hot where you are and you were driving your car spiritedly so this could very likely be what you were experiencing. If your system is already nearly at it's maximum capacity just to keep the battery at a safe temperature it doesn't have as much to give to the cabin cooling if that makes sense.

Agree. Over the years I’ve seen this message more and more in the summer and noticed the temporary reduction in cooling. I think recent firmware versions are getting more aggressive about keeping the battery cool.

I also live in a very hot area of CA like OP with summer temps well above 100F.

 

[dannycamps]

Do you by chance have Range Mode enabled? This will affect cabin air temps at times.

 

[FatherTo1]

Do you by chance have Range Mode enabled? This will affect cabin air temps at times.

An interesting point, Danny. I just checked and confirmed Range Mode is still off.

 

[eyedrop]

Expect the car to shut the fun down sooner as it ages. It’s not just the recent firmware updates. A brand new MYP walks away from a beat up M3P no problem. I drove the crap out of my P85D and definitely saw a sustained performance drop. By 100k miles, I had Golfs and civics keeping up/passing me on repeated highway rolls. My AC also stopped blowing cold during supercharging. These, and even the newer ones, are basically beta cars. Bleeding edge, high performance. Yet 8 years old and dated...

 

[2101Guy]

Reduced AC during max accel, wouldnt suprise me. That's how ICE cars typically work. There is a sensor that determines when an ICE engine is under max acceleration and will temporarily disengage the AC compressor to reduce parasitic power loss/give max power to the engine itself. Not 100% certain if Tesla's AC works the same way