Supercharger preconditioning

[Drew57]

I haven't (& won't) use supercharging since 2020, I always set the nav to the destination, not the SuC.

The range consumed by preconditioning required extra charging to replace it which seemed to negate any real time advantage (& adds cost to do so).

 

[Pagemakers]

I noticed yesterday if I clicked the battery conditioning notice on the display, it disappeared. I wonder if that is turning it off?

 

[WannabeOwner]

I noticed yesterday if I clicked the battery conditioning notice on the display, it disappeared. I wonder if that is turning it off?

No, only turns off (hides) the displayed message

 

[Jason71]

This seems like a good subject for a YouTube video Someone should suggest it to Richard Symonds. ( I would but I don't do social media).
suprised Tesla Byorn has not done it already TBH
Take two identical/similar Teslas drive both to a supercharger a significant distance away. Set one with the charger as the destination and the other not.
See how much energy is used preheating and how much time it saves if any bearing in mind the preheated one will charger a bit faster but will need more energy to replenish that used preheating.
Can also check out the accuracy of the recommended charge levels.

 

[init6]

bearing in mind the preheated one will charger a bit faster but will need more energy to replenish that used preheating.

Surely the battery heating will just get done while charging rather than on the drive to the SuC as mentioned above?

 

[Horatio Alger]

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.

Last year, when there was a discrepancy between the delivered charge power displayed on the touchscreen and in the app, I'd see a difference of 12kW on a charger that was delivering 48kW while heating the battery. Pretty sure the touchscreen was showing the total power drawn, and the app was showing power actually going into the battery.

So, the heating was taking 25% of the energy being delivered. I know heating is protective of the battery but that's quite a cost, if the numbers are accurate. Shame they've fixed that discrepancy now.

 

[yessuz]

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...

well, why would they?

with the preconditioning eating 10 kwh of your battery and charging 10 kwh more than it is neceserry, you add 20 kwh per car per SC @ 0.5 gbp per kwh.

It should be nice to get additional 10 pounds per car

 

[Pagemakers]

Surely the battery heating will just get done while charging rather than on the drive to the SuC as mentioned above?

On my journey yesterday it pre-conditioned all the way from Manchester to Rugby and when I plugged in it displayed “battery heating” so it kind of defeats the whole point of pre-conditioning for 90 minutes. And to use 31 miles of range to cut the charge short by 4 minutes is ludicrous.

 

[Jason71]

Surely the battery heating will just get done while charging rather than on the drive to the SuC as mentioned above?

I guess that is what we would find out....

 

[init6]

On my journey yesterday it pre-conditioned all the way from Manchester to Rugby and when I plugged in it displayed “battery heating” so it kind of defeats the whole point of pre-conditioning for 90 minutes. And to use 31 miles of range to cut the charge short by 4 minutes is ludicrous.

See my earlier post with graph - just because the message is on doesn't mean the heater is on all that time.

I wonder if the "to save x minutes" is just a badly worded message. If the battery needs to reach Y degrees to charge then the message should say so rather than give some sort of value statement. Like you a lot of folk wouldn't want to 'save' 4 minutes. Perhaps something like "Heating battery to reach charging temperature" may be better.

 

[greenbottle123]

4 mins less of supercharging means more profit for Tesla and more cost out of your pocket.

A quick calculation works out that to be over 9% of a M3 range (basic model), roughly 4.8 KW wasted (if you dont value 4 mins) at a cost of £2.88. Which prob doesnt mean anything if you are a CEO or some sort.

I dont bother navigating to the nearest supercharger anymore. Dont let them know your next move!

Also doesnt the car charge via regenerative braking. Wasnt this a feature of Tesla cars. If so where are the stats for this?

 

[WllXM]

well, why would they?

with the preconditioning eating 10 kwh of your battery and charging 10 kwh more than it is neceserry, you add 20 kwh per car per SC @ 0.5 gbp per kwh.

It should be nice to get additional 10 pounds per car

Well they don't get their leccy for free, imho they make little profit from that.. maybe 10-20% tops... Not sure if they disclose SC revenue vs car sales in their financial statements?

 

[yessuz]

I also agree with the comments on this thread regarding the supercharger vastly over-estimating the charge level to continue the journey. I needed 99 miles to get me home and I stopped the charge passing 170 miles with the app still wanting another 10 minutes to charge my car. I’ve now paid for 100 miles of charging at 57p when I can get this at home for 10p!

Tesla Super Charger conspiracy let me leave this here

 

[yessuz]

Yep. I’ll never navigate to a Supercharger again. I’ll just navigate to the service station. Even after pre-conditioning all the way from Manchester to Rugby this morning the app still showed “battery heating“ for a few minutes after plugging in to change.

I would suggest to navigate near to SC, and then 10-15 miles before arrival - change navigation to SC. it will precondition enough

 

[Rooster6655]

On my journey yesterday it pre-conditioned all the way from Manchester to Rugby and when I plugged in it displayed “battery heating” so it kind of defeats the whole point of pre-conditioning for 90 minutes. And to use 31 miles of range to cut the charge short by 4 minutes is ludicrous.

It is ridiculous but if you don't pre heat the charger still does the "battery heating" whilst charging, seems like they have given little consideration to high energy prices over here, its not just superchargers either happening at third party ones too!

Basically the only way to avoid this battery heating now is to use AC charging which is fine if your destination has that, which right now for most people traveling it isn't the case.

 

[yessuz]

Well they don't get their leccy for free, imho they make little profit from that.. maybe 10-20% tops... Not sure if they disclose SC revenue vs car sales in their financial statements?

exactly.

2 gb profit on 10.000 cars a day - quite nice, no?

p.s. check the wholesale electricity price...

 

[Grafix]

See my earlier post with graph - just because the message is on doesn't mean the heater is on all that time.

I wonder if the "to save x minutes" is just a badly worded message. If the battery needs to reach Y degrees to charge then the message should say so rather than give some sort of value statement. Like you a lot of folk wouldn't want to 'save' 4 minutes. Perhaps something like "Heating battery to reach charging temperature" may be better.

I think we'd all agree it's not necessarily on all the time - but for however long it was on it still 'stole' 30 miles of range which doesn't then seem to pay back proportionately in terms of charging time saved.

I wonder if this is really all because of the relatively low temps in the UK lately and presumably if it was warmer there would be hugely less range loss used up to warm the battery and we'd all ignore it! Motorway speeds at low temps (under 9 degrees C say) probably chill the battery due to airflow - needing more heating to cancel it out.

 

[yessuz]

interesting. went to teslamate to check my last drive I had with supercharger... and whole drive is missing from teslamate.

 

[WllXM]

It is ridiculous but if you don't pre heat the charger still does the "battery heating" whilst charging, seems like they have given little consideration to high energy prices over here, its not just superchargers either happening at third party ones too!

Basically the only way to avoid this battery heating now is to use AC charging which is fine if your destination has that, which right now for most people traveling it isn't the case.

To me preheating is a zero sum game : if you don't precondition, you'll save some kWh on the journey to the SC but you'll get less kWh back in the battery pack as they will be extra kWh spent when plugged in to heat the battery pack then.
For Tesla the benefit at congested stations is that you'll stay less and increased rotation. And for a long term owner, less battery degradation from rapid warming/rapid charging.
But this indeed contradicts the miscalculation / extra charging time by underestimating the remaining SoC at final destination...

 

[init6]

interesting. went to teslamate to check my last drive I had with supercharger... and whole drive is missing from teslamate.

Check for unclosed drives.