"Snowflake" icon seen Model-3 dashboard & phone app.

[Steve_in_DE]

Note also the blue part of the battery is showing how much the battery is impacted. It should return to normal after a little bit of driving. It shouldn’t take long in Virginia.

My M3 has been at an airport for 4 days now. I left it with 57 miles in the battery... less than i would choose but anyway.. today i checked the battery and it showed the snowflake and 37 miles remaining! It's not that cold but quite windy there right now. I will return in 2 days; the nearest supercharger is 11 miles away. There are chargers in the parking lot but are usually full.

Looking forward to seeing that number go back up a bit as it warms up!

 

[CharleyBC]

My M3 has been at an airport for 4 days now. I left it with 57 miles in the battery... less than i would choose but anyway.. today i checked the battery and it showed the snowflake and 37 miles remaining! It's not that cold but quite windy there right now. I will return in 2 days; the nearest supercharger is 11 miles away. There are chargers in the parking lot but are usually full.

Looking forward to seeing that number go back up a bit as it warms up!

One thing to help is to stop checking on the car remotely. That wakes it up, which uses up some energy. Let it sleep until you get there. If you're nervous about making those 11 miles to the Supercharger, don't turn on the heat until you get plugged in.

Good luck!

 

[Steve_in_DE]

Good news. 2 1/2 days after I wrote the post above I returned to the airport parking lot to find 47 miles on the "rangeometer". Apparently it was particularly cold (for October in Philly) one night which triggered the range restriction, but it apparently "went away". So rather than continue the unusual drain/drop in range, and putting my escape from the airport at risk, it was "restored".

Bottom line, after 6 1/2 days in the parking lot, 10 miles of range lost. That's what I expected at the beginning of all this. Next time I won't forget to charge to 100% before the long drive to the airport!

 

[Dmagyar]

LMGTFY


The snowflake means that the battery is very cold and power and capacity will be limited.

First stage of cold: Limited or no regen available
Second Stage of cold: Available power is slightly reduced
Third stage of cold: The snowflake appears and power is seriously limited and no regen available

It hit -22 here yesterday and after the car sat in that all day, I’ve never driven a Tesla that gutless. I had zero regen and only about 50kW of drive power. I could barely get up to highway speed ...

-22, here in San Diego???

 

[MacGreiner]

Might be time to add the annual sticky to the forums for first-time winter EV drivers. Although I thought I saw it already?

 

[Joelgjr]

-22, here in San Diego???

I moved from Boston to San Diego January 1 2019

 

[mmiketa]

You must be in NOVA, no snowflake for me in Hampton Roads.

 

[ChrisH]

Reviving an old post here. Does anyone know if the snowflake only shows up when the battery is at a lower (less than 30%) SOC? I’ve never seen the snowflake before and it’s 50 degrees in my garage. Not exactly that cold where I would expect to see it but sure enough I’ve got the snowflake this morning (and a bit of blue battery)

 

[anandoc]

Reviving an old post here. Does anyone know if the snowflake only shows up when the battery is at a lower (less than 30%) SOC? I’ve never seen the snowflake before and it’s 50 degrees in my garage. Not exactly that cold where I would expect to see it but sure enough I’ve got the snowflake this morning (and a bit of blue battery)

From the Model 3 user manual (page 78)

"A blue snowflake icon appears on your touchscreen when some of the stored energy in the Battery is unavailable because the Battery is cold. This portion of unavailable energy displays in blue on the Battery meter. Regenerative braking, acceleration, and charging rates may be limited. The snowflake icon no longer displays when the Battery is sufficiently warmed"

It doesn't say anything about SoC - just that below a certain temperature part of the energy stored in the battery is unavailable.

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_3_owners_manual_north_america_en.pdf

 

[KenC]

Reviving an old post here. Does anyone know if the snowflake only shows up when the battery is at a lower (less than 30%) SOC? I’ve never seen the snowflake before and it’s 50 degrees in my garage. Not exactly that cold where I would expect to see it but sure enough I’ve got the snowflake this morning (and a bit of blue battery)

I've seen the blue snowflake when I'm charged at 80% in the mornings. Knocks off up to 10% of range until the battery warms up.

 

[SMAlset]

I’ve noticed the blue snowflake already this fall season. SOC was not low. Temps here have been in low 30s to 40s a number of mornings. My car, parked in driveway, is shaded from the morning sun by the house. Seen ice on it a few times already this month after a rain. Back to getting the dotted line reduced regen alerts, and with the daylight to standard time change, back to low morning sun blinding a sensor on occasion. Had my car since 2018 so a familiar seasonal thing.

From past experience I can say that temps in the 50s can trigger the cold-related alerts.

 

[timk225]

My 3 generally shows the cold snowflake if the overnight temperature gets down to 45 degrees or so. I've noticed that if the battery is closer to a full charge it seems to be a little more resistant to getting the snowflake icon.

 

[Candleflame]

ive seen the blue snowflake once and it never gets below 18 degrees here lol.

 

[KenC]

I often take a screenshot of my widgets when they show a blue snowflake:

Here you can see that the Tesla widget shows a blue snowflake and 58% SOC. The Stats widget shows 61% SOC, so the amount of battery that is unavailable until the batter warms up is 3%. Also, the Stats widget is showing that it's 38F outside. Looking thru my photos, that's the warmest temp where I showed a blue snowflake. Usually, it has to be in the 20s to trigger a snowflake.

 

[KenC]

I often take a screenshot of my widgets when they show a blue snowflake:
View attachment 608821
Here you can see that the Tesla widget shows a blue snowflake and 58% SOC. The Stats widget shows 61% SOC, so the amount of battery that is unavailable until the batter warms up is 3%. Also, the Stats widget is showing that it's 38F outside. Looking thru my photos, that's the warmest temp where I showed a blue snowflake. Usually, it has to be in the 20s to trigger a snowflake.

The other thing you learn from having both apps open, or in this case, both widgets, is that they use different SOC apis. The result of that, is 3rd-party apps, like Stats or TeslaFi, give you spurious ESTIMATED rated range figures. In this case, you take the 181 estimated rated range miles, and divide by the SOC of 61% and get 297 miles. That's not correct. The correct figures should be 181 estimated rated range miles, and divide by the SOC of 58% and get 312 miles. For some reason, Stats' estimated rated range reflects the cold temps, but the SOC api does not, so you get the wrong result. The Tesla app, will show both figures correctly, and you get the correct estimated rated range.

In the chart below that I made from the Stats data, I've arrowed the blue snowflake day. And you can see how the 297 miles is an outlier:

The other thing you realize is that people with supposed battery deg, looking at Stats or TeslaFi, need to consider that potentially 12 miles of range drop could just be temperature swings. Also, when benchmarking your car against a group of cars; the group of cars will have seasonality or temperature swings cancelled out. I've pointed this out to the Stats developer, and he's made some attempts at showing efficiency vs temp, and apparently, he's coming out with a new chart showing moving averages and not straight-line trends, but I've been pointing this out to him for almost 2yrs.

 

[puckpurnell]

I often take a screenshot of my widgets when they show a blue snowflake:
View attachment 608821
Here you can see that the Tesla widget shows a blue snowflake and 58% SOC. The Stats widget shows 61% SOC, so the amount of battery that is unavailable until the batter warms up is 3%. Also, the Stats widget is showing that it's 38F outside. Looking thru my photos, that's the warmest temp where I showed a blue snowflake. Usually, it has to be in the 20s to trigger a snowflake.

Love the name of your car! Your info is interesting, too.

 

[KenC]

Love the name of your car! Your info is interesting, too.

Apparently, the Lone Ranger says Hi-Yo Silver!, but growing up, I heard it as Hi-Ho Silver, so that's what it is.

 

[Gasaraki]

Have you considered reading the owners manual?

Why would anyone do that? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

/s