GOPJEW
Member
Good for you.There is no doubt that the BEV drivetrain does offer some inherent benefits in winter-time, such a very steady power-delivery, and no cold start issues with the motor. OTOH, there is the cold battery question, that does limit performance and of course eats faster into the battery power. Pre-heating and pre-cooling are benefits too, though pre-heating of course is available in ICE as well depending on your equipment.
This reminds me of another thing on the "California" list that has popped up in recent days:
My Model X doors and windows have already started freezing solid this winter so opening and closing the doors becomes hard as the frameless windows don't bow down. And opening the door is hard because there is no handle and you kind of have to get your fingers under the door's edge and wedge it out, a unique worry with Model X as Model S handles did extend reliably (the handles did not always close when cold, though)...
I've definitely had already more issues with Tesla's frameless windows than with, say, an Audi A5 with frameless windows - though of course frameless windows are more susceptible to this in general than framed ones. In my Model S, during the three winters I had it, I had to push the passenger side door closed manually from the outside during winter-time so that I could push the window downwards enough to fit closed and not stay on top of the chrome trim... on my Model X, where driver's side so far has been acting up, pushing the window inwards does not seem to move it enough, so the door closes with the window stuck on top of the chrome trim (thus partially open). The only remedy so far has been to heat the car and wait, or to bring out the hairdryer, a trick I've learned to use with the charge port door.
The side-mirror folding has to be disabled for the winter, something I've never hard to do on my Germans. The chrome pedestal design simply is more susceptible to freezing up and the exposed paint on the moving edges means pushing it to move it is not really an option either. I've learned some tricks there, but mostly the mirrors simply are more trouble than before.
But clearly the most insane thing is Model S/X shutting down window defrosters when the driver leaves the seat. That's insanity. Anyone living in a cold climate knows the first thing you do when you get to a car is get in, turn on all the blowers at maximum setting and maximum heat to warm the windows and clear out fogging/ice etc... and then you get out of the car and start clearing the windows of external ice and snow, all the while the car is supposed to keep pumping heat on the windows inside. Not because you can't clear the snow and ice otherwise, but because the temperature differences mean you can not see out due to fogging before the windows are warmed by the airflow (of course warming the windows also makes clearing the windows on the outside a bit easier).
No, what Tesla does is turns off the defrosters when the driver steps out. I have never, ever seen any other car that I've owned do that - and nobody who actually operated a car in a cold climate would design it like that.
Have you sent an email to Tesla with the suggestion on keeping th defroster going when you hit the button to keep the climate running when you exit the vehicle with the new software update? Seems like a simple programming opportunity.
