Supercharger preconditioning

[Pagemakers]

On my drive from Manchester to Stansted today via Rugby Supercharger, the car pre-conditioned the battery for most of the journey to Rugby.

Am I reading this correctly…

Is this saying it’s used over 31 miles or range to precondition my car in order to save 4 minutes charging time?

If so, that makes no sense to me at all.

 

[CaptFish2003]

If you are not in a hurry battery preconditioning does not make sense at all.

 

[Pagemakers]

There’s a hurry and there’s taxing 30 miles of range for 4 minutes of charging.

Can Supercharger pre conditioning be turned off?

 

[MrBadger]

Unfortunately that sounds about par for the course.

Hadn’t seen it put quite so clearly (extra use vs time saved) as your energy app put it but my experience using TeslaFi shows pre conditioning adds a huge inefficiency in average drive energy use - probably not far off an extra 100Wh/mile - ~280Wh/mile => ~370Wh/mile.

If I’m going to supercharge I don’t tell it until much later on in the journey if possible.

Seeing it as clear as above it’s a ridiculous waste of energy for a few minutes saved.

 

[Adopado]

There’s a hurry and there’s taxing 30 miles of range for 4 minutes of charging.

Can Supercharger pre conditioning be turned off?

Don't navigate specifically to the SC. I've sometimes cancelled the nav and only put the SC in there when I'm 10 minutes away ... invariably I'm Supercharging when I've been driving for a length of time on a motorway so the battery is going to be reasonably warm anyway.

 

[WllXM]

Don't navigate specifically to the SC. I've sometimes cancelled the nav and only put the SC in there when I'm 10 minutes away ... invariably I'm Supercharging when I've been driving for a length of time on a motorway so the battery is going to be reasonably warm anyway.

Yes or just zoom in and pinpoint somewhere on the SC parking lot instead via a long press, and remove the specific SC stop.

But I agree that Tesla should have made battery preconditioning a toggle option on the nav preferences by now...

 

[bjhinkle]

If you tap the option to remove charging stops it will not precondition. But you’ll need to manually pick your charging stops.

 

[init6]

On my drive from Manchester to Stansted today via Rugby Supercharger, the car pre-conditioned the battery for most of the journey to Rugby.

It may not have been on for all that time. Depends on battery temp and distance, but this is the most common pattern that I see:

 

[MARKM3]

Wow, that's really bizarre. Definitely not worth the 31 mile or what roughly 10% range hit? Crazy.

 

[browellm]

Superchargers are still doing their trick of suggesting way too much charge to get to destination as well. I have to use ABRP to get a better estimate every time I stop now. Once I've stopped the charge, the car quickly recalculates/updates with the correct battery % estimate to destination.

 

[MARKM3]

Superchargers are still doing their trick of suggesting way too much charge to get to destination as well. I have to use ABRP to get a better estimate every time I stop now. Once I've stopped the charge, the car quickly recalculates/updates with the correct battery % estimate to destination.

I'd rather them do that then the opposite.

 

[Rooster6655]

On my drive from Manchester to Stansted today via Rugby Supercharger, the car pre-conditioned the battery for most of the journey to Rugby.

Am I reading this correctly…

Is this saying it’s used over 31 miles or range to precondition my car in order to save 4 minutes charging time?

If so, that makes no sense to me at all.


View attachment 912885

They seem to now be "heating the battery to optimise the charging speed" when you plug in if you don't pre heat for chargers.

Now they have third party chargers on the map they also try to pre heat the battery like they do with superchargers, fair enough if people are in a hurry, so I navigate somewhere close by to avoid this preconditioning. I then plug the car into a rapid charger and the car now says heating battery to optimise the charging, fair enough I thought, until I look at the cost at the end and I have ended up paying around for an extra 4-5Kwh @ 67p per KwH on a 44kWh charge , I wasn't in the car and the heating wasn't left on either.

It's not great and ultimately is adding extra costs on to the already expensive cost to charge on public chargers, this combined with the pre heating taking from the grid when plugged in needs to have some sort of toggle function as its costing people unnecessarily which isn't great at the current rates.

 

[browellm]

I'd rather them do that then the opposite.

I'd rather they do it correctly, like they used to.

 

[init6]

I'd rather them do that then the opposite.

I've had it underestimate the charge needed. Not fun.

 

[MARKM3]

Yeah underestimating the charge is certainly no good!

 

[WllXM]

Superchargers are still doing their trick of suggesting way too much charge to get to destination as well. I have to use ABRP to get a better estimate every time I stop now. Once I've stopped the charge, the car quickly recalculates/updates with the correct battery % estimate to destination.

Actually I've found it somewhat better on 2023.2
The car let me arrive back home with 3% remaining last week, without suggesting a SC en route. Quite pleased with it and the potential savings.

 

[MARKM3]

Actually I've found it somewhat better on 2023.2
The car let me arrive back home with 3% remaining last week, without suggesting a SC en route. Quite pleased with it and the potential savings.

That's great news

 

[GRiLLA]

I would take the information in that battery report with a pinch of salt, mine regularly suggests I would be better driving downhill to save the battery, or to not drive into a headwind, and the Everything Else category is always about twice what it forecast.

What I'm saying is that I wouldn't believe what it's telling you anyway, not worth thinking about. Maybe it only think it will save you 4 minutes because it's assuming that you will only charge for a short time to reach your next destination, whereas really you will charge for longer and it then has a larger effect.

 

[Jason71]

I figure pre-heating is as much for Tesla's benefit as ours these days. Sell more electricity. Get you out of the stall faster.
That may not have been the intention but its how it is now.
Of course when they open up the chargers no one else will be forced to preheat ( if they even can)

 

[Jason71]

I would take the information in that battery report with a pinch of salt, mine regularly suggests I would be better driving downhill to save the battery, or to not drive into a headwind,

Those examples you give are not wrong. They may be useless but they are not wrong. So as an example of why to disbelieve the information given to you by the energy graph they do not really support your point.