Starting to see overnight battery drain

[plisken]

I'm starting to see some overnight battery drain, around 1% which is not something I have really noticed in the past 10 months. No sentry mode, not checking the app, nothing plugged into usb, indeed not doing anything different. I am going to raise a service request (probably a waste of time) but just wondered if there were any thoughts about this, especially relating to recent software updates. I'm on 2022.28.2 and while I cant say for sure that this coincided with this update, it is one of the only things that I am aware of that has changed.

I could also add that I still intermittently get the (SOS E-Call not available, check cellular connection) or words to that effect warning. Car has previously been in for this as I had it a few times and could not connect from the app. I'm now also seeing this sometimes while driving and was wondering if there was a problem with the cellular connectivity when the car is sitting parked, causing increased battery usage. Just a thought

 

[TheRealWatto]

Recent cooler weather could be affecting the percentage as the battery will have less range when cold? Would think you'd have seen that before though.

I've seen the e-call messages a few times too, we are in a bit of a phone signal dead spot where we live though. Is the car not connected to wifi?

Am on 2022.36.5 currently, can't say I'm super impressed by the battery drain either, but it's not near 1% per night.

 

[plisken]

Recent cooler weather could be affecting the percentage as the battery will have less range when cold? Would think you'd have seen that before though.

Even last year or earlier this year during the cold spells (frost/freezing temperatures), I can't say I ever noticed 1% over night.

I've seen the e-call messages a few times too, we are in a bit of a phone signal dead spot where we live though. Is the car not connected to wifi?

It's certainly not connected to wifi when driving but no, it isn't and that's despite having pretty decent wifi in the house. sometimes it manages to connect but that's rare. Again, nothing's changed, it's always been that way.

I took some mileage to charge notes last week and managed 36 miles for 13kWh of charge which I think is pretty poor and as it stands just now, I've went from 42% battery (charge on Sat afternoon) and I've done 9 miles and I'm sitting at 32%. so while post is mainly related to overnight losses, it is generally very poor.

 

[TheRealWatto]

It's certainly not connected to wifi when driving

Sorry, it was meant in regards to connecting via app which would presumably work OK at least while your car is on wifi even if the cellular network is down. You're running on a slightly older release now too - I've already had two updates since getting the car less than a month ago, so maybe a general connectivity issue unless you're avoiding them?

I know that efficiency isn't going to be great taking short trips also (is your car pre-heatpump?), but again something you should've encountered by now.

There's an updated energy app in the latest updates which might help you track what's going on.

 

[plisken]

@TheRealWatto got the heatpump and no software updates showing, maybe also an indication of connectivity issues.

I've got the power strut O ring recall thing being fitted today by mobile service, so might try and quiz him somewhat before raising another service request.

Reason i'm annoyed as I drive the same journey every day, same mileage ever week and know generally what it takes percentage wise for my commute so to find a 1% drop every night effectively means I'm losing a day's mileage a week, which is quite substantial in my bubble.

 

[init6]

1% loss per day is normal - it's even mentioned in the manual. So 1% loss overnight isn't too extreme given that there is likely some rounding there and we're heading into colder weather. Did you get the snowflake icon when you first went in the car?

Teslafi/mate will tell you instantly if the car is not sleeping as expected.

 

[plisken]

1% loss per day is normal - it's even mentioned in the manual. So 1% loss overnight isn't too extreme given that there is likely some rounding there and we're heading into colder weather. Did you get the snowflake icon when you first went in the car?

Teslafi/mate will tell you instantly if the car is not sleeping as expected.

Don't even know what this snowflake icon is, is that a new thing? It's been warm up here for days though.

As I said, I've had the car through freezing conditions and it never lost battery like it is now. I've had the car sit for 3 or 4 days and yes, maybe drop by 1% but not every night (12 hours).

I don't have any add-ons like Teslafi or anything.

 

[init6]

Don't even know what this snowflake icon is, is that a new thing? It's been warm up here for days though.

I'm surprised you haven't seen this if you've had the car in freezing conditions. From the manual:

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 warm.

So, sometimes the car reports the battery as having less energy than it really does and then it suddenly rises to the normal level when the battery is warm.

As I said, I've had the car through freezing conditions and it never lost battery like it is now. I've had the car sit for 3 or 4 days and yes, maybe drop by 1% but not every night (12 hours).

My average for this month is 0.78% loss overnight.
Keep a log of the start and end %s for a few overnight sessions and the temperatures to see if there is any pattern. Or...

I don't have any add-ons like Teslafi or anything.

Get a free trial of Teslafi and you'll see almost instantly if the car is sleeping properly. Normally though I'd expect about 4% loss if the car was awake, but at least you can see if the car is sleeping right through the night or waking up periodically as some people have had.

 

[doats1]

Boy are you in for a surprise in the next few months.

 

[init6]

I took some mileage to charge notes last week and managed 36 miles for 13kWh of charge which I think is pretty poor and as it stands just now,

Where did you get the 13kWh reading from?
361Wh/mi isn't outrageously bad. I'm grossing 335 for the last 30 days, but I've mostly been doing short journeys and have used the heating quite a bit.

 

[init6]

Deja vu?

LR picked up on Thursday and shocking mileage per charge

I picked the car up on The last week and I've covered about 98 miles. There were 6 miles on the clock when I picked it up and 41% battery. I brought the car home, went for lunch and charged it from 30% to 80%. Over Friday and Saturday (Saturday was a bit colder, probably below 6degC but rest of...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Jason71]

Don't even know what this snowflake icon is, is that a new thing?

Yes, its based on what the car thinks of your social media posts

 

[Romario786]

I am seeing around 10-15 miles drop a day on my 2022 lfp M3 battery

 

[Undecided_2]

I used to obsessively check the percentage everyday in the first couple of months. Living in Scotland the percentage can drop suddenly due to the cold.

For the past 7-months I stopped checking as it was spoiling the fun of having an EV. For all I know my battery is shagged. But as it’s still under warranty and will be when I trade it I’m good with that.

 

[plisken]

Deja vu?

LR picked up on Thursday and shocking mileage per charge

I picked the car up on The last week and I've covered about 98 miles. There were 6 miles on the clock when I picked it up and 41% battery. I brought the car home, went for lunch and charged it from 30% to 80%. Over Friday and Saturday (Saturday was a bit colder, probably below 6degC but rest of...

teslamotorsclub.com

Thanks for jogging my memory but, from same thread...

Sorry its not dropping just sitting, my bad explanation to blame...

Basically, going from 30% to 80% charge, driving 50 miles is bringing it back down to 30% again, give or take, thats my problem and concern.

My current situation is that it's dropping just sitting parked (be it overnight or during the day), i'm losing 1% every day/night where I didn't before, 12 degC where I am just now and I know from earlier this year or last year even, it sat in colder (freezing) conditions without such a drop.

As for the snowflake, I don't recall ever seeing that, what I do remember seeing when it was cold was the dotted grey line on the power meter (LHS), similar to what we still see if the battery is very low (RHS).

Where did you get the 13kWh reading from?

Energy charged as shown in the app. I measured between two percentage points, say percentage A and percentage B. Then charge from percentage A to percentage B and note the energy recorded in the app (as this is generally lower than that on the charge station as I'm sure you know).
Then do my short periods of driving until my percentage returns back to percentage A. Then I know how many miles I have done (give or take) for X% of battery under those conditions. To continue proof of concept, have in the past charged back to percentage B and found the energy noted in the app to be very similar to previous, so it remains (for me) as consistent way of measuring economy of sorts, especially if comparing to conventional fuel.

I am seeing around 10-15 miles drop a day on my 2022 lfp M3 battery

I know exactly what I'd be doing with that. My 1% is between 2 and 3 miles.

The problem here is (despite claims of cold weather or "thats normal", it hasn't been normal for me and something has changed. I'm drawn to thinking it's either poor cellular connectivity as I think I mentioned above or perhaps as issue with the 12v battery, possibly charging more or more frequently than previous. I mentioned this to the Tesla guy yesterday but I think he was more of an O ring expert. He did say he would pass on my concerns though...

 

[simon_rb]

After upgrading to 2022.36.5, my car didn’t sleep until I did a 2 button reset. Been fine ever since. This often happens after an update (even though the car does its own reboot at the end).

Good luck getting it sorted.

 

[init6]

I'm drawn to thinking it's either poor cellular connectivity as I think I mentioned above or perhaps as issue with the 12v battery, possibly charging more or more frequently than previous. I mentioned this to the Tesla guy yesterday but I think he was more of an O ring expert. He did say he would pass on my concerns though...

I'll say it again, you'd answer that question in 1 night with Teslafi. Probably less if it wasn't sleeping properly.

 

[ApexProxy]

2-3 miles loss in 12hrs and you are this concerned? That amount sounds rather background and well within margin of error for range estimations to me.

Also, it sounds like you do mostly super short trips which also could explain above standard usages. Simply powering on, getting your climate up to settings, and managing your battery temps could use a burst of power every time the car is used for a tiny drive. I cannot confirm this as your situation but to me this sounds like a logical explination. I can drive my car 20 feet and park and I hear various whirring and clicking for 15 mins easy usually.

Fully different situation but, this reminds me of a friend who always did 1 mile drives to work and their battery kept dieing every couple weeks because it was never given a chance to actually recharge lol. A 2A maintainer solved all their issues.

 

[bo3bdar]

I'm starting to see some overnight battery drain, around 1% which is not something I have really noticed in the past 10 months. No sentry mode, not checking the app, nothing plugged into usb, indeed not doing anything different. I am going to raise a service request (probably a waste of time) but just wondered if there were any thoughts about this, especially relating to recent software updates. I'm on 2022.28.2 and while I cant say for sure that this coincided with this update, it is one of the only things that I am aware of that has changed.

I could also add that I still intermittently get the (SOS E-Call not available, check cellular connection) or words to that effect warning. Car has previously been in for this as I had it a few times and could not connect from the app. I'm now also seeing this sometimes while driving and was wondering if there was a problem with the cellular connectivity when the car is sitting parked, causing increased battery usage. Just a thought

Everyone else on this thread appears to be missing the point- It was better before, and something changed to make it noticeably worse.

I wish people would stop saying "you're holding it wrong." In any case, I'm here to report that I've seen the exact same change in behavior, where the vampire drain was miniscule, to it now being noticeable. In my case, the only thing of note that changed is a software version. I live in Northern CA, so I think we can agree that temperature is not relevant.

I use TeslaFi, so I can can actually put numbers on what changed. TeslaFi reports a vampire drain/phantom battery drain number. Back in April, that number was 0.04 mph (0.2 kWh) of sitting. So in 10 hours, I'd lose 0.4 miles, 100 hours, 4 miles of range lost. My car could sit for weeks without being used during covid times, and lose a couple of percent of range.

My current TeslaFi reading shows the lowest it ever gets now is 0.08 mph, and averages 0.13 mph. So vampire drain is now 2x to 3x worse than it was.

This might be only our cars, but it's very helpful to know that someone else sees this problem as well. No, it's not a catastrophe, but all things considered, I'd rather have it be be the way it was. My car is not waking up at night. TeslaFi shows that it can actually go several days without waking.

I contacted Tesla support, and talked on the phone with a very nice guy, but of course we also did not solve the problem. I did not mention that I use TeslaFi- if you ever mention this to their support people, they drop you like a hot rock. The good part is he checked out my car logs and does not see any problems. The bad part is we did not successfully solve it.


My guesses-
1) Something changed in the software that is not as smart as it was. Some sloppy coder broke a finely tuned mechanism that keeps the vampire drain low. It's really easy to break stuff like this in software. My current version is 2022.20.12.1. Last April I was running 2021.44.6.
2) My 12V battery is getting crufty. 2.5 years old, we know they have a history of going belly up after 2 years. Tesla tech said mine checks out fine from software/log perspective, but I think we can agree their monitoring software is not exactly stellar when people report being stranded.
3) Battery pack rebalancing. There is a possibility that the pack is getting far enough out of whack that it is trying to rebalance, and that process burns just a bit of energy to rebalance the cells. My car has higher than average loss of range on 3500 total miles, so this is possible.

I've tried many experiments over the last month, including stuff like turning off TeslaFi, turning off bluetooth on my phone. No WiFi, anything that might wake it up. Nothing so far. Current experiment is to leave the battery below 20%, where the software disables everything. And also provides the pack with a better low number for rebalancing. Not promising so far, last phantom drain number was 0.09 mph. But I'll report back.

 

[Jason71]

Everyone else on this thread appears to be missing the point- It was better before, and something changed to make it noticeably worse.

I wish people would stop saying "you're holding it wrong." In any case, I'm here to report that I've seen the exact same change in behavior, where the vampire drain was miniscule, to it now being noticeable. In my case, the only thing of note that changed is a software version. I live in Northern CA, so I think we can agree that temperature is not relevant.

I use TeslaFi, so I can can actually put numbers on what changed. TeslaFi reports a vampire drain/phantom battery drain number. Back in April, that number was 0.04 mph (0.2 kWh) of sitting. So in 10 hours, I'd lose 0.4 miles, 100 hours, 4 miles of range lost. My car could sit for weeks without being used during covid times, and lose a couple of percent of range.

My current TeslaFi reading shows the lowest it ever gets now is 0.08 mph, and averages 0.13 mph. So vampire drain is now 2x to 3x worse than it was.

This might be only our cars, but it's very helpful to know that someone else sees this problem as well. No, it's not a catastrophe, but all things considered, I'd rather have it be be the way it was. My car is not waking up at night. TeslaFi shows that it can actually go several days without waking.

I contacted Tesla support, and talked on the phone with a very nice guy, but of course we also did not solve the problem. I did not mention that I use TeslaFi- if you ever mention this to their support people, they drop you like a hot rock. The good part is he checked out my car logs and does not see any problems. The bad part is we did not successfully solve it.


My guesses-
1) Something changed in the software that is not as smart as it was. Some sloppy coder broke a finely tuned mechanism that keeps the vampire drain low. It's really easy to break stuff like this in software. My current version is 2022.20.12.1. Last April I was running 2021.44.6.
2) My 12V battery is getting crufty. 2.5 years old, we know they have a history of going belly up after 2 years. Tesla tech said mine checks out fine from software/log perspective, but I think we can agree their monitoring software is not exactly stellar when people report being stranded.
3) Battery pack rebalancing. There is a possibility that the pack is getting far enough out of whack that it is trying to rebalance, and that process burns just a bit of energy to rebalance the cells. My car has higher than average loss of range on 3500 total miles, so this is possible.

I've tried many experiments over the last month, including stuff like turning off TeslaFi, turning off bluetooth on my phone. No WiFi, anything that might wake it up. Nothing so far. Current experiment is to leave the battery below 20%, where the software disables everything. And also provides the pack with a better low number for rebalancing. Not promising so far, last phantom drain number was 0.09 mph. But I'll report back.

The problem we are all struggling with is his "worse" is our normal for October in the UK.
if you park a car up warm from driving or charging or even just in the sun then come back to it in the morning here when the battery is many degrees cooler. it is quite normal to see an apparent drop in battery of 1% plus. Its not a real drop it's just a drop in voltage due to temp but it shows up all the same. If the car was not sleeping this drop over night would be 2-3% so the not sleeping theories don't seem to fit
So there may be an issue but the evidence presented is not adequate to demonstrate it
A real test would be let the car cool to ambient check the battery % leave car alone for 24 hours then check it at the same time next day assuming the temp was similar. Unless he can do that there are too many variables in his data to draw any conclusions.
I have left Two Teslas in airport carparks for multiple days this year and in both cases I have been impressed at how little they lose. Much less than they used to.