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Regen today seems way worse...

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#21
The batteries don't get warmer because they charge or discharge if its really cold outside.

The batteries will accept regen if conditions are correct. If the heater in the batteries comes on....then regen will be stronger.

If the heater in the batteries is not on when its cold...then regen will not be as strong.

Heater = fluid running through the heat exchanger supplied by the motors.
 
#22
highway regen feels weaker because there is less physical deceleration. This is because at those speeds, regen would be charging the battery faster than it can handle, so it is nerfed.

I suspect this is just your mind playing tricks on you; perhaps you expect regen to be weaker in the cold, so you are noticing things you never noticed before.

Every firmware update, you'll get someone starting a thread about how regen feels weaker. Just mind tricks.
 
#24
As a reminder and as was alluded to above, there is no real battery heater in the 3. It’s the ‘coolant’ loop from the drive motors, which is a ‘warmant’ loop in the colder months. :D

So, first, if you’ve just started off, even that loop isn’t that warm and the battery will take a while to warm up.

The best bet in cold climates/overnight, etc., if you can swing it, is to schedule charging to start say an hour or two before you are going to leave (using either the built-in timer or something like TeslaFi to have it end charging at a particular point).

That way you can start off with a warm battery and also have room in the battery for regen to ‘fit’.
 
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#25
novox77 said:
one other phenomenon to be aware of: the regen bar (green part) will be shorter if you have the heater on. This is because the heater uses a lot of energy, canceling out some of the charging potential of the regen.
Click to expand...
Right, but the regen will still ‘work’ as the energy will have a place to go. Where it may not if the battery is cold/full.
 
#26
ifitzgerald said:
I was just going to post a topic on this issue - I'm experiencing the same thing. I have a LR RWD Model 3 and live in Wisconsin - I just took my car on its first road trip in the cold (it was in the 30s today). Forgive my somewhat rambling post that follows, I just want to accurately describe the state of the car/battery at the time I started to notice the issue.

At home I charged to 100% from 80% (which took a few hours), then departed and drove ~120 miles with the heat on - my point being that there was quite a bit of activity to warm up the battery. The car sat for a few hours outside, then I drove ~70 miles to a supercharger. When I got there I had 18% battery left... I was charging at about 115KW up to 55% battery, then left for home (I would assume the battery was nice and warm at that point). After another 30 miles I got off the interstate, and noticed that I didn't really have much regen on the off-ramp.

I noticed NO DOTS on the regen bar, and I was definitely on standard regen. I tried to toggle to low and back, just to make sure. I performed a few experiments to try to determine what was going on. I found that if I was traveling at highway speeds, like 60 MPH, and suddenly let off the accelerator, I would get a small "burst" of regen, then the regen decreased noticeably. If I kept my foot off of the accelerator, regen got MUCH stronger once the car slowed down to about 20 MPH, and remained strong until I had to use the mechanical brakes to stop. I was able to repeat this over and over again with the same results.

I had assumed it had to do with the cold - but the car offered no indication that regen would be limited, and I would have assumed that given the amount of driving/charging I had done that the car would have been warm enough to avoid issues.

From reading the thread so far this sounds like "normal" behavior for a Tesla in the cold?
Click to expand...

Yep! this is exactly some of the same symptoms I have. I supposedly have full regen but it is nowhere near what it is like when the weather was a few degrees warmer. I guess it is something to protect the battery. We shall see....
 
#27
Ha, it's definitely not just my mind playing tricks on me. When I got off of the interstate I had to almost exclusively use my friction brakes to stop. When it was warmer out, I'd only have to use my friction brakes to come to a complete stop at the end of my deceleration.

The point made about the heater is an interesting one. I've noticed that when I'm on shore power the heater can take 6-7KW, which is quite substantial. I'm willing to considering that my kinetic energy was simply offsetting the use of the climate control. Next time I notice this issue I'll have to do some experiments with my heat turned off :) Actually, that doesn't make sense when I'm thinking about it further. Regen would still be converting my kinetic energy into electricity - whether it was going to my battery or the heater shouldn't matter, it would still be slowing me down. It wasn't.

My biggest concern is that the driving experience with respect to deceleration seemed rather unpredictable. Obviously it's wise advise to give yourself plenty of time to stop, especially when it's cold and there might be snow/ice on the ground... but not knowing what I need to do to get the car to slow down is not ideal.
 
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#28
lots of variables here. in my experience, if my regen is not limited (no dotted line), it feels about the same as usual. If there's a bit of nerf, the portion that I have feels about the same as usual. Basically, the dotted line indicator seems pretty representative of how much regen I have.

Now, I have a RWD, which recently got a regen boost in firmware. so maybe cold weather and that boost are canceling each other out.

Also, Model 3 takes way longer to unlimit regen than Model S. I'm attributing this to Model 3 not having a dedicated resistance heater for the battery. I suspect on really cold days coming, I won't get back regen much at all (long dotted line) even after a lot of driving.
 
#29
Jtt777 said:
It was 80% charge (what I set it to), fresh off the charger in the morning. Same as I've had it every day since I've gotten it (about 3 weeks now). It was substantially colder yesterday and it wasn't behaving this way.
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter what the ambient temperature is per se, what matters is what the battery pack temperature is and it's state of charge. That's a pretty large thermal Mass so it can change at a rate much slower than ambient temperatures do.
 
#31
Same here! I just got my Model 3 back from the shop (swapped to winter wheels) and thought they broke something...

Going at road speed seems to sorta kill regen. braking, but in a parking lot they work fine.

It has been pretty cold (30-50 f) in WA the last week or so, so it would make sense if the cold is doing it. I wish the UI would just tell me!
 
#32
My car put up a message when that regen was limited when it got down into the 30F's one night, but I have dots and no written warnings for last couple days when it's been a bit warmer (low 40F's) . I think the actual message is reserved for cases where the regen is severely limited vs. just a little limited.

On a more positive note: I used autolane change several times yesterday and it was flawless! First time I've tried since .4 was released. It's much better now.
 
#37
Garlan Garner said:
That sounds like a "your car" thing. Not a Tesla thing.

Has everyone in Vancouver with a Model 3 experienced the total absence of regen?
Click to expand...

Here is the 24 page thread on loss of regen with winter tires: Who has lost regen with winter tires?

So, I don't think it's "his thing".. it most definitely is a *Tesla thing*. Basically, Tesla's regen is broken on the Model 3 with winter tires. They need to fix this ASAP.
 
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#38
dusdev said:
Here is the 24 page thread on loss of regen with winter tires: Who has lost regen with winter tires?

So, I don't think it's "his thing".. it most definitely is a *Tesla thing*. Basically, Tesla's regen is broken on the Model 3 with winter tires. They need to fix this ASAP.
Click to expand...

That makes absolutely no sense at all. However....I'm not going to argue about it.

There just can't be that much slippage...etc. with winter tires. I have a winter 20" ( Michelin ) tire on the rear drivers side of my P3D+ and its been there for months ( don't ask ) and my regen has been just fine.

I can see regen having an issue because of slippage on ice and cold and possibly tire/wheel weight, but simply because you put on a winter tire?
 
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