Ridiculous battery drain, this can't be right?

[BittermanAndy]

Got my Model 3 Performance last Friday. Over the weekend, charged it up to 291 miles (so not completely full, but as full as it recommends for everything but a road trip).

Today I commuted 15 miles to work and 15 miles home. I've also had Sentry Mode on, both at home (you never know) and at work (a couple of people have been scraped in the work car park). I now have only 201 miles remaining.

That can't be right???

I'm effectively losing 60 miles of range per day before I even consider actually driving. (I'll need to try a few days without Sentry Mode to confirm that's the cause, but surely running three webcams can't be more energy-draining than driving the entire car?) To put it another way, I'm losing 90 miles of range for every 30 miles I drive. If this continues, the battery will run to zero in three days having driven only 90 miles in total, not 291. This is not the future that I expected!

I mean, I can plug in at home every night if I have to, but the electricity bill to recharge 90 miles every day will be enormous and completely eradicate any financial savings from giving up petrol. And if I went on holiday for a week, I'd come back to a completely empty battery. This can't be right.

Surely something must be wrong? Has anyone else had a problem like this? Is it indeed Sentry Mode that's the problem? Why? What use is it as a feature if it's too battery-draining to actually use? Or might something else be causing it?

 

[reheat]

Sentry mode uses about 1 mile of range per hour, it could be higher depending how much activity is setting it off.
Your driving habit and environmental condition can affect your range greatly as well, so need more information to see what's the cause here. Were you flooring the car a lot, what was the temperature outside, rain/snow/wind, AC/heater use etc.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Got my Model 3 Performance last Friday. Over the weekend, charged it up to 291 miles (so not completely full, but as full as it recommends for everything but a road trip).

Today I commuted 15 miles to work and 15 miles home. I've also had Sentry Mode on, both at home (you never know) and at work (a couple of people have been scraped in the work car park). I now have only 201 miles remaining.

That can't be right???

I'm effectively losing 60 miles of range per day before I even consider actually driving. (I'll need to try a few days without Sentry Mode to confirm that's the cause, but surely running three webcams can't be more energy-draining than driving the entire car?) To put it another way, I'm losing 90 miles of range for every 30 miles I drive. If this continues, the battery will run to zero in three days having driven only 90 miles in total, not 291. This is not the future that I expected!

I mean, I can plug in at home every night if I have to, but the electricity bill to recharge 90 miles every day will be enormous and completely eradicate any financial savings from giving up petrol. And if I went on holiday for a week, I'd come back to a completely empty battery. This can't be right.

Surely something must be wrong? Has anyone else had a problem like this? Is it indeed Sentry Mode that's the problem? Why? What use is it as a feature if it's too battery-draining to actually use? Or might something else be causing it?

Sounds like you've had Sentry mode on for 50 hours or so. So this all makes sense (it's not the cameras - it's the computer that has to stay running that burns ~250W...). Probably best to use it only when you need it!

For your driving in your Performance, you'll find that if you get ~230Wh/mi on the trip meter, you will have "mile-for-rated-mile" rolloff of the battery gauge miles.

For usage while driving: typically (if you have 20" wheels), you'll be getting closer to 280Wh/mi, so you should multiply your miles traveled by about 1.2 to determine how many rated miles you will use (or used) on the battery gauge. If the trip meter is higher or lower than 280Wh/mi, of course you need to adjust accordingly.

For longer trips, just use the Energy page "Trip" tab. That will take into account important factors (like elevation and your particular vehicle efficiency!) to project your arrival charge, after you enter a destination.

I can plug in at home every night if I have to

It's recommended by Tesla to plug in the vehicle whenever you are not using it.

 

[HG Wells]

electricity bill to recharge 90 miles every day

Lets do the math as to how much 90 miles costs.
Ill use my electric rate of 11 cents per KWH and my average energy usage per mile.

90 * 0.220 wh per mile = 19.8 kwh

19.8 * 0.11 = $ 2.18

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Lets do the math as to how much 90 miles costs.
Ill use my electric rate of 11 cents per KWH and my average energy usage per mile.

90 * 0.220 wh per mile = 19.8 kwh

19.8 * 0.11 = $ 2.18

* 1.1 to account for charging losses. (assuming you are quoting the car meter)

Another way to look at it: Running Sentry Mode 24/7 would increase energy use by 80% for a typical 10k-mile-per-year driver.

 

[jjrandorin]

Unless they measure the miles different where you are than where we are, a model 3 performance charged to the "recommended" top charge line charges to 279 to 281 miles, not 291 miles.

Also, with sentry mode on, as mentioned it uses 1-2 miles PER HOUR (yes, per hour, so somewhere between 24-48 miles per day, so no, you should not be using it at home unless you feel you need to).

Finally your car does not store "miles" it stores energy, and 15 miles may take you 15 rated miles of energy, or it could take you 30 rated miles of energy. Short trips are less efficient than rolling along on the highway... just like your petrol car was.

So yeah, you drove 30 miles, and used between 24 and 48 miles of sentry (which wont let the car sleep, because.. sentry). The 30 miles was likely 40 ish miles of range, so 88 "miles used".

 

[Maaz]

No big deal, no one is forcing you to use sentry mode. Turn it off.

 

[vickh]

No big deal, no one is forcing you to use sentry mode. Turn it off.

i think they should have a sensitive function choice for sentry (like break ins only) not just people walking by.

 

[jjrandorin]

i think they should have a sensitive function choice for sentry (like break ins only) not just people walking by.

I dont believe the car was designed around keeping the cameras on. I feel they bolted this on, in response to the window break ins. So, it keeps the car awake, thus draining extra power.

 

[vickh]

I dont believe the car was designed around keeping the cameras on. I feel they bolted this on, in response to the window break ins. So, it keeps the car awake, thus draining extra power.

mine keeps recording @ home even though I selected not @ home. I might just start pulling out the usb or selecting off

 

[webbah]

mine keeps recording @ home even though I selected not @ home. I might just start pulling out the usb or selecting off

That seems odd to have that behavior. Mine works fine. I’d ask Tesla Service about that. Also you can check the Tesla Stats app as they have a function to disable sentry at specific locations.

Also the Tesla Stats App (iOS) allows you to monitor phantom power drain and many other things. Highly recommended.

 

[fr100]

TeslaCam, not Sentry Mode, records whenever the car is awake. You can try forgetting your home Wi-Fi network so the car will go to sleep sooner while you're at home.

 

[Wennfred]

So to Summarize what is off:

Sentry mode (turn off switch) not just the red dot on top, its in the Safety & Security page

Data Sharing down in the Safety & Security page, select No to both fields, then select Submit.

Cabin Overheat Protection (off) Safety & Security page

“Keep Climate On” (off) press the Fan icon to see it.

TeslaCam (off) press and hold the camera icon until it flashes and it will grey out. Leave the memory card installed, don’t need to pull it.

Wifi (off) press the WiFi icon and press WiFi settings and select off. (Optional)

Bluetooth (off) press Bluetooth icon and select Disconnect. (Optional)

On the media (music) page I set it to phone to ensure Its not getting any radio signal.

Allow Mobile Access is on but I didn’t wake up the car at all in those 12 hours.

Lock the car to shut it down for the night. Press the Lock on the App.

Started with 219 miles and the next morning,12 hours later 219 miles

That should do it, give it a try.

Fred

 

[Wennfred]

Three services I keep off are;

Teslafi
Stats
A better route planner

If you do use these make sure you’re logged off

Fred

 

[vickh]

TeslaCam, not Sentry Mode, records whenever the car is awake. You can try forgetting your home Wi-Fi network so the car will go to sleep sooner while you're at home.

thx. soon as I get v10 i'm going back to LTE only till I see the next upgrade here.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

I haven't seen another reply from the OP, but there are two completely separate issues here potentially.

Sentry Mode uses about 1 mile of range per hour as people have stated. Now you could argue that almost 250w/Hr drain for 3 cameras and the USB is unreasonable, given there are plenty of devices on the market that can record video at a tiny fraction of the power drainage. The simple fact is, the computer system when driving is a very small part of the drain, but when parked it's 100% of the drain (assuming you don't have climate on).

Regardless, this should only account for about 25 miles of range per 24 hours, or about 5% of the battery. At 80% charge, that's 16 days of idle, so if the OP is seeing a lot more than that, something else is going on.

The second potential issue is the 30 miles of commute which is using more than 30 miles of range. The rated range is as meaningless as it is in ICE cars. My old GTI with a full tank would say anything from 425 miles of range to 260 miles of range, depending on how I'd driven the last 10 miles.

The Tesla's trip planner works the same way and is more accurate, IMO, than the static rates miles. However I always recommend to anyone new to Tesla to switch the display to % because the rates miles is, at best misleading, and at worst causes you stress and anxiety. I switched to % during my first long road-trip and only ever switch back occasionally to check in on my battery health.

 

[ShaolinEV]

I take delivery last Friday and drove 6 miles to the tint/pff/ceramic coating shop and the car be at the shop since then. My range go down from 270 miles to 214 miles now. Just wonder, the car sitting there will lose approx. 20 miles a day? or the car try to do some software update? Any idea?

 

[jjrandorin]

I take delivery last Friday and drove 6 miles to the tint/pff/ceramic coating shop and the car be at the shop since then. My range go down from 270 miles to 214 miles now. Just wonder, the car sitting there will lose approx. 20 miles a day? or the car try to do some software update? Any idea?

If the car does not go to sleep, it will drain. If you turned on sentry mode because you left it at the shop, then it wont go to sleep, then it will drain. If the car needs to do a software update, it will wake up, and car not asleep = drain.

See the post #13 in this thread by @Wennfred , if you havent already, for answers to your "any ideas?" question.

 

[davewill]

i think they should have a sensitive function choice for sentry (like break ins only) not just people walking by.

It wouldn't help with energy usage. The drain comes from running the system. The act of saving off the videos in the event of a trigger is almost nothing, powerwise.

 

[mswlogo]

Lets do the math as to how much 90 miles costs.
Ill use my electric rate of 11 cents per KWH and my average energy usage per mile.

90 * 0.220 wh per mile = 19.8 kwh

19.8 * 0.11 = $ 2.18

And who is getting 220 wh/mi on a Performance with 20" wheels?