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REGEN off or limited every morning or after car off for a while

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fbitz777

Member
Apr 6, 2016
491
643
Wexford, PA
#1
My REGEN is pretty much OFF every morning (dashed lines on energy meter) ; sometimes only half OFF. Does not matter what the battery charge is. However it seems to depend on temperatures being cold (30's to 40's) ...once I had also the Power limited for a few minutes but the battery was low at 15%.

Goes ok after driving 5 miles or so.

Not warnings and not error codes...Is it a feature? I am thinking that Tesla is telling me to manage my battery better.
 
#6
fbitz777 said:
If the car is plugged in all is fine and least at L2 (I assume that that keeps battery warm); will try with a 110V as well.
Click to expand...
Does not work with 110V. No battery heating with that power.

But even on a HPWC plugged in if it's not charging when I hop in my car it will still degrade regen until it's driven for awhile. I have not tried letting the car run while plugged in first though, but I don't see the point of that unless you are going for range. I just take it a bit easier going down my hill and use the brakes if absolutely necessary.
 
#7
It's all in the manual.

I dont live in the cold climate but based on others' comments, you need to plan the charging of the battery to be completed right before you plan on using the car - only then the battery will be warm enough to accept regen. Also, some say that keeping "Range Mode" off helps battery temperature, while others claim it does nothing - try and see if it helps you.

Try charging to 80% and then in the morning, as you wake up and begin getting ready, bumping it to 90% to begin charging again which would warm up the battery a bit
 
#8
fbitz777 said:
My REGEN is pretty much OFF every morning (dashed lines on energy meter) ; sometimes only half OFF. Does not matter what the battery charge is. However it seems to depend on temperatures being cold (30's to 40's) ...once I had also the Power limited for a few minutes but the battery was low at 15%.

Goes ok after driving 5 miles or so.

Not warnings and not error codes...Is it a feature? I am thinking that Tesla is telling me to manage my battery better.
Click to expand...
Li Ion batteries have the unwanted detriment if plating out metallic lithium during their operation. Plating out the Li happens during charging at low temperatures and removes the ionic form from the battery and degrades the capacity rather severely. Consequently, the battery management system limits or turns off regenerative braking (battery charging) until it has warmed up the battery (the battery has internal heaters that maintain battery temperature). In cold mornings, after you have not driven for a while, the batter gets cold and it takes some time to heat up.
 
#9
Enable precondition on your car. It will learn your habits for a few days and then, one of the features apart from preheating the cabin, it's going to preheat the battery as well.
 
#11
Our MX and MS do the same thing when it’s cold and the car has been sitting for awhile. I ended up scheduling charging for early morning. Whenever you charge, the batteries warm up and typically allows for full regen as soon as you leave home. When setting you scheduled time, be sure to allow enough time to get the charge you need for the day.
 
#13
beths11 said:
Maybe it didn't have as sophisticated a battery management or battery reporting systems as the Tesla?
Click to expand...
Probably battery management was not so fancy and I think it had a battery heater of 5KW (had a cooler for sure)...However the regen power was quite powerful ...I think it was 50KW which for a 23kwh battery was outstanding.

The only time Regen was limited was when battery was at 100 percent and starting downhill.
 
#15
fbitz777 said:
If the car is plugged in all is fine and least at L2 (I assume that that keeps battery warm); will try with a 110V as well.

My ford focus EV never had that regen issue unless the battery was 100 percent full.
Click to expand...

This may be why some people are reporting battery degradation on their Ford Focus EVs even though the batteries are thermally managed. Charging (regen) a cold lithium battery damages it due to lithium plating of the anode. It takes time for the battery to warm up during normal operation.

Your best bet is to set your charging timer so that the vehicle completes charging at approximately the same time as you're ready to use it in the morning. The heat from charging will be enough for the battery to allow some regen. You may still get a limit, but it wouldn't be as bad.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: FarmerDave and beths11
#16
SO now something new about the cold and Supercharging:

Last night I had enough range (27 miles rated ) for a 15 miles trip to the supercharger on way home with a 20F outside temp. Arrived at SC with ZERO range but Regen warning not on (i.e battery was warm) The drive power was limited to about 100KW.

Plugged car but would NOT charge even after plugged there for half hour (as suggested from a simple google search of forum) but no luck even trying other spots. SC was trying to put like 0-10kw for a few seconds and then go to zero repeating this every 20 seconds or so.

I ended up risking it home and both my L2 and L1 chargers charged right away....took a long time...like I only got 10 miles in it in 10 hours of L1.

Scary; there was NO warnings for the 45 minutes at SC that I tried to charge.
 
Last edited:
#17
fbitz777 said:
SO now something new about the cold and Supercharging:

Last night I had enough range (27 miles rated ) for a 15 miles trip to the supercharger on way home with a 20F outside temp. Arrived at SC with ZERO range but Regen warning not on (i.e battery was warm) The drive power was limited to about 100KW.

Plugged car but would NOT charge even after plugged there for half hour (as suggested from a simple google search of forum) but no luck even trying other spots. SC was trying to put like 0-10kw for a few seconds and then go to zero repeating this every 20 seconds or so.

I ended up risking it home and both my L2 and L1 chargers charged right away....took a long time...like I only got 10 miles in it in 10 hours of L1.

Scary; there was NO warnings for the 45 minutes at SC that I tried to charge.
Click to expand...

You’re brave. Unlike your Focus that adjusts the range display based on driving conditions, Tesla always uses rated range. Taking a 15 mile trip with 27 rated miles remaining in 20F weather is either brave or foolish, depending on how you look at it. As others have shared in various cold weather threads, you can end up using double or even triple your rated power consumption in cold weather.
 
#18
Yes the Focus gives much more info on range and power consumptions in general including power used by accessories.

However on the Focus I have always have been able to get rated range (70-80 miles) even on cold weather. The only time
you'd suffer 30 percent or so was with the cabin heater on (5kw+) and somehow on AC in very hot days.

My problem as of now is using the Tesla on ten short trips (5-15 miles) a day and having to find out about these cold weather penalties.

Seems like this would not be an issue for long trips and I should concentrate on longer distance trips and used another car to run errands.
 
#19
fbitz777 said:
Yes the Focus gives much more info on range and power consumptions in general including power used by accessories.

However on the Focus I have always have been able to get rated range (70-80 miles) even on cold weather. The only time
you'd suffer 30 percent or so was with the cabin heater on (5kw+) and somehow on AC in very hot days.

My problem as of now is using the Tesla on ten short trips (5-15 miles) a day and having to find out about these cold weather penalties.

Seems like this would not be an issue for long trips and I should concentrate on longer distance trips and used another car to run errands.
Click to expand...

You're right that the Tesla suffers more when you take multiple short trips on cold days than it does on a long trip. Most of that is due to the car having to heat itself back up from frequent cold soaks. The initial heating is what uses the most energy since Teslas have both a 6kW cabin heater (Model X seems to be 6kW + 2kW if you have rear HVAC) plus the 6kW battery heater.

Range mode will reduce the power of the HVAC and turn off the battery heater in most situations. The downside is that you and your passengers will be cold and the battery will take much longer to warm up enough to allow regenerative braking. It may also require that the battery heater run for quite some time before it will start charging (some members here have reported as much as 45 minutes), although this can happen even with range mode off.

If you keep the car plugged when you're at home as well as charge as close to your departure time as possible, your consumption will be greatly improved. I've noticed these exact same characteristics in my Fiat 500e that also has a 6kW cabin heater and a 6kW battery heater. Its battery is only 24 kWh, so it heats up much more quickly.

A plugged-in Tesla is a happy Tesla. :)
 
#20
It still seems like something changed with the latest software releases. The algorithm seems to be different. I had my car all last winter and do not recall ever seeing the regenerative braking limited to this degree when it’s 47° outside
 
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