Underwhelming cold weather performance

[pcons]

Out of all the many many things I love about my model 3, the choices made on Regen in cold weather still confuse me relative to all the other EVs I've owned.

Aside from the tire related Regen reduction which is well documented: my car basically always has over half the Regen bar full of dots because I don't have workplace charging and because I don't plug in every night. This makes it more convenient to summon the car out if the garage in the morning, and with such a large battery I only charge every 3-4 days when I get down to 100km of range or so.

But here's what prompted this post:

Today it was -8C, and when I got into the car there was literally zero Regen at all speeds because it was all dots on the Regen bar. It was like that for over 1/2 of my commute. I've never lost Regen so dramatically on my other EVs due to temperatures and it's really one thing I wish tesla would address. But it does seem like this is the way they have always been.

Maybe it's because their batteries can't take it, but I find that hard to believe since my wife's bolt can still Regen up to 60 kW in the dead of winter after sitting parked for 3 days.

Also, even though Regen was so limited, the full battery was available. Yesterday it was warmer, I didn't lose full Regen, and yet when I got into the car I had the blue snowflake icon which didn't go away until the end of my drive. Today it was colder, lost all Regen, but no battery snowflake.

Tesla does so many things better than others, butbthis Regen behaviour is really annoying. I'll basically be using brakes for over 1/2 of my winter driving at this rate.

 

[Tony_YYZ]

Keep in mind, even with workplace charging you don't really get all your regen back. There is no dedicated pack heater on the 3. When I leave work my regen is still weak and I'm plugged in all day. I set my charging to start in the afternoon so it finishes about 30 mins or so before I leave for the day.

 

[pcons]

Keep in mind, even with workplace charging you don't really get all your regen back. There is no dedicated pack heater on the 3. When I leave work my regen is still weak and I'm plugged in all day. I set my charging to start in the afternoon so it finishes about 30 mins or so before I leave for the day.

Hmmm, didn't realize even when plugged it it wouldn't stay somewhat warm. I was hoping we would get chargers in the coming year.

 

[Tony_YYZ]

Hmmm, didn't realize even when plugged it it wouldn't stay somewhat warm. I was hoping we would get chargers in the coming year.

Yeah unfortunately that's just how it is with the 3. Future models will likely adopt the same pack heating method as well.

 

[bijan]

Hi pcons. You say your wife's bolt can regen to 60kw all winter. Can it charge at CCs fast charger at full rate all winter too (55kw) before warming up? Teslas can't supercharge at full rate from cold start either. So it indicates something about the battery and not just regen specific.

Edit: quick online search seems to indicate CCS charge rate on bolt limited to about 25 kW when cold. So would assume similar thing with regen. Of course Tesla limited more than that. To the point where even normal charging is limited at first.

 

[css28]

Hi pcons. You say your wife's bolt can regen to 60kw all winter. Can it charge at CCs fast charger at full rate all winter too (55kw) before warming up? Teslas can't supercharge at full rate from cold start either. So it indicates something about the battery and not just regen specific.

Edit: quick online search seems to indicate CCS charge rate on bolt limited to about 25 kW when cold. So would assume similar thing with regen. Of course Tesla limited more than that. To the point where even normal charging is limited at first.

His wife's Bolt has actual battery temperature management (a heater) when plugged in. He's losing regen on the 3 because its battery is cold.

 

[bijan]

His wife's Bolt has actual battery temperature management (a heater) when plugged in. He's losing regen on the 3 because its battery is cold.

He said it's fine when it's parked for 3 days but I assumed not plugged in. Obviously if plugged in that makes sense.

Edit: I'm assuming the bolt doesn't do battery heating when not plugged in since pcons said the bolt doesn't have any vampire drain.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

#bringbackthevolt =P?

 

[pcons]

Hi pcons. You say your wife's bolt can regen to 60kw all winter. Can it charge at CCs fast charger at full rate all winter too (55kw) before warming up? Teslas can't supercharge at full rate from cold start either. So it indicates something about the battery and not just regen specific.

Edit: quick online search seems to indicate CCS charge rate on bolt limited to about 25 kW when cold. So would assume similar thing with regen. Of course Tesla limited more than that. To the point where even normal charging is limited at first.

That's a good question. We do have a CCS charger at Ikea near where we live, but we dont use it all that often. I do recall the last time we were there it was only pulling around 350V/70A, and I thought it odd since I remember drawing > 100A in the summer. So the 25 kW limit could explain that. I had assumed it was lower just because those stations were going down often and that the owner had limited the station current to improve reliability.

As far as the regen rate. I dont think it will be governed by the same limits as charging, since you cant sustain a 60 kW regen for more than about 5-10 seconds and you have to be slowing down from > 100 km/h for that. Charging will be at that rate for an hour or more, so I dont think it will be the same issue and it makes sense to me why charging rates would be limited on a cold battery. Even regen reduction to some degree makes sense, but I've never completely lost regen when either of my volts or the bolt was parked outside unplugged for ~ 8 hours at -5C. There was always a noticeable amount of regen. In the model 3 yesterday it was 100% gone and the car felt like it could coast forever when I took my foot off the accelerator.

To be frank; I haven't explicitly observed the regen behavior on the Bolt, but I do know that there is no 'noticable' reduction in regen on the Bolt due to temperature that we have observed. The only time I've noticed regen being reduced is when the battery is fully charged to 100% (the volt was the same). Under this condition, the regen is limited to around 20 kW I believe. I took a picture of it a while back; the line I'm pointing to with the arrow is where regen is limited to in the bolt when at 100% charge, but that slowly goes away once you get to around 90-95% battery and you get full regen again (similar to model 3 in that sense).

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

What's the battery chemistry on the Bolt/Volt? Tesla's BMS is what sets it apart from the competitors. It even limited my power output last night with 70km range left and a cold soaked battery - I saw dots on the right side of the screen; first time that's happened.

The BMS is doing everything to keep the cells from being damaged by temperature and performance demands. Regen limitation is there for a reason.

 

[ZooSean]

Out of all the many many things I love about my model 3, the choices made on Regen in cold weather still confuse me relative to all the other EVs I've owned.

Aside from the tire related Regen reduction which is well documented: my car basically always has over half the Regen bar full of dots because I don't have workplace charging and because I don't plug in every night. This makes it more convenient to summon the car out if the garage in the morning, and with such a large battery I only charge every 3-4 days when I get down to 100km of range or so.

But here's what prompted this post:

Today it was -8C, and when I got into the car there was literally zero Regen at all speeds because it was all dots on the Regen bar. It was like that for over 1/2 of my commute. I've never lost Regen so dramatically on my other EVs due to temperatures and it's really one thing I wish tesla would address. But it does seem like this is the way they have always been.

Maybe it's because their batteries can't take it, but I find that hard to believe since my wife's bolt can still Regen up to 60 kW in the dead of winter after sitting parked for 3 days.

Also, even though Regen was so limited, the full battery was available. Yesterday it was warmer, I didn't lose full Regen, and yet when I got into the car I had the blue snowflake icon which didn't go away until the end of my drive. Today it was colder, lost all Regen, but no battery snowflake.

Tesla does so many things better than others, butbthis Regen behaviour is really annoying. I'll basically be using brakes for over 1/2 of my winter driving at this rate.

I have found with the charge cable plugged , warm the car for about 15mintus will warm the battery as well. I totally lost the regen on the other day which is not that cold as today. Today my morning commute was okay.

 

[Blu-Ion]

-18C in Ottawa this morning,

Range is cut by 50%, barely 200km on a 445km 90% range according to energy monitor in real world driving, yikes!! Glad I got the LR model!

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

-18C in Ottawa this morning,

Range is cut by 50%, barely 200km on a 445km 90% range according to energy monitor in real world driving, yikes!! Glad I got the LR model!

Yah, similar here at -12°C (-22°C with wind chill). Cabin heating takes a chunk.

 

[pcons]

What's the battery chemistry on the Bolt/Volt? Tesla's BMS is what sets it apart from the competitors. It even limited my power output last night with 70km range left and a cold soaked battery - I saw dots on the right side of the screen; first time that's happened.

The BMS is doing everything to keep the cells from being damaged by temperature and performance demands. Regen limitation is there for a reason.

View attachment 368049

Agreed. I think there is likely something the tesla engineers know about their battery performance and there are likely valid reasons why they made these design choices. It's just very different from what I am 'used to' and tesla is far ahead in so many other aspects relative to other EVs, this one just kind of stands out to me.

 

[pcons]

Yah, similar here at -12°C (-22°C with wind chill). Cabin heating takes a chunk.

Same here. Physics sucks, takes a lot of energy to heat up the interior space by ~ 20-30C.

Because my wife mainly drives to the go train and commutes downtown her range loss is insane, because she basically heats the car for a 10 min commute, then all that energy that went into heating is lost while it sits all day. Then it repeats at night when she returns. ITs something we are used to, but it is a little crazy when her bolt, which gets ~ 410km to a charge in the summer, is now getting about 180/charge in the winter

I do wish tesla would show a breakdown of what % went into cabin heating vs propulsion like on the volt/bolt. It really trained me to be a bit more frugal with the heat. Just like how driving 100 km/h vs 120 km/h makes a big difference; setting the interior heat to 19-20C vs 22-23C also matters a lot.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

Same here. Physics sucks, takes a lot of energy to heat up the interior space by ~ 20-30C.

Because my wife mainly drives to the go train and commutes downtown her range loss is insane, because she basically heats the car for a 10 min commute, then all that energy that went into heating is lost while it sits all day. Then it repeats at night when she returns. ITs something we are used to, but it is a little crazy when her bolt, which gets ~ 410km to a charge in the summer, is now getting about 180/charge in the winter

I do wish tesla would show a breakdown of what % went into cabin heating vs propulsion like on the volt/bolt. It really trained me to be a bit more frugal with the heat. Just like how driving 100 km/h vs 120 km/h makes a big difference; setting the interior heat to 19-20C vs 22-23C also matters a lot.

I can tell you that right now. Roughly add ~100Wh/km, my average went from 125Wh/km (Up to OCT) to ~200 to 225 to stay comfortable for the commute since sub 5°C temperatures.
.

 

[noicepls]

-18C in Ottawa this morning,

Range is cut by 50%, barely 200km on a 445km 90% range according to energy monitor in real world driving, yikes!! Glad I got the LR model!

The good news is that Range Loss will bottom out at 57% loss at -20C - as determined by independent testing. So, I expect our LR RWD Model 3 at 500 km will be reduced to a concise 215 km at -20C and colder.

 

[M3BlueGeorgia]

The good news is that Range Loss will bottom out at 57% loss at -20C - as determined by independent testing. So, I expect our LR RWD Model 3 at 500 km will be reduced to a concise 215 km at -20C and colder.

Question: If you precondition the battery by charging it just before you leave in the morning, how much of a benefit do you see from that (leaving with a warm battery instead of a cold one).

 

[pcons]

The good news is that Range Loss will bottom out at 57% loss at -20C - as determined by independent testing. So, I expect our LR RWD Model 3 at 500 km will be reduced to a concise 215 km at -20C and colder.

Sounds about right for 'normal' winter driving. I would typically get ~ 95km to a full charge on my volt in the warmer months, and down to around 50-55km in the winter months, which is 53-58%.

 

[Funkmobile]

Question: If you precondition the battery by charging it just before you leave in the morning, how much of a benefit do you see from that (leaving with a warm battery instead of a cold one).

Depends on where you are driving (i.e. highway traffic, city traffic). If it's stop and go traffic, the difference is dramatic as regen levels make a huge difference. If you are driving highway mostly, then it's still significant but not as dramatic. Also if you preheat your cabin while plugged in, this makes a huge difference as well on shorter trips.