Vampire battery drain test

[TidgesMum]

I left my model 3 long range unplugged for 5 days to see how much the battery drained.
I'm going on holiday soon and wanted an idea of how much it might lose while parked at the airport.
I have a 3 month old model 3 long range.
I turned off sentry mode, preconditioning etc. It just had the doors locked and was running it's basic functions.
It was about 10 degrees Celsius outside. The cabin temperature sat at 11' each time I checked.
I looked at the app every 24hrs and noted the number of miles range it had left...

Day 0 it had 260mi
Day 1 259mi
Day 2 259mi
Day 3 258mi
Day 4 256mi
Day 5 256mi

That reassures me I can leave it for a week and I won't come back to a flat battery.
I thought it might be useful info to share

 

[GtiMart]

The fact that you looked at the mobile app woke the car up each time. You have made your "drain" worse by doing that. IT would have been even better if you had not launched the app at all.

 

[bo3bdar]

You can also use something like TeslaFi to see the charge state over multiple days/weeks without having to wake the car.

They calculate a phantom battery drain number. For my Model 3 I lose 0.04 miles of range per hour. Or rougly 1 mile per day.

As long as it can go into normal sleep without SentryMode it's really good.

 

[Oldrocky]

Those numbers (number of miles lost per day when not in use) do not agree with mine. Not even close.
I found the number one cause of vampire drain was leaving the security system active. Stupid car uses
far more power to 'watch' the security system. My test was when the car was sitting in a garage and
there was no one at home for 2 weeks (friend's garage that we went on vacation with).
Yes, of course I can turn off the security system - but it's a pain to do (I find it hard to remember to
do it when I want to).
My point is that the amount of power the car uses - when it is not in use - is far more than any
other car I have ever owned.
BTW - I -always- turn off the climate control when I leave the car. Why do I have to do that?
Why isn't there a setting that allows the car to just know that it should turn off the climate
control when there aren't any fobs in it?
- Jim in the PNW

 

[Rocky_H]

Those numbers (number of miles lost per day when not in use) do not agree with mine. Not even close.

Because you weren't using the same settings. Why would you expect to set up your experiment entirely differently to someone else, with very different settings, but expect the same outcome?

I turned off sentry mode,

I found the number one cause of vampire drain was leaving the security system active.

Yes, we all know about that being the massive energy hog.

Stupid car uses
far more power to 'watch' the security system.

Yes, this originally WASN'T a feature built into the cars at all, so the systems are NOT built to do this effectively or efficiently. After the cars were out for a while, owners saw all of the cameras that were on the car and REQUESTED Tesla to create the software to use all of that as a sentry car security system. Tesla did that and added the feature, but of course it's never going to be energy efficient, because it's having to keep a very high powered computer system on all the time to run it.

BTW - I -always- turn off the climate control when I leave the car. Why do I have to do that?
Why isn't there a setting that allows the car to just know that it should turn off the climate
control when there aren't any fobs in it?

?? You don't have to. When you leave the car, it turns off the climate system on its own.

 

[Oldrocky]

Because you weren't using the same settings. Why would you expect to set up your experiment entirely differently to someone else, with very different settings, but expect the same outcome?


Yes, we all know about that being the massive energy hog.

Yes, this originally WASN'T a feature built into the cars at all, so the systems are NOT built to do this effectively or efficiently. After the cars were out for a while, owners saw all of the cameras that were on the car and REQUESTED Tesla to create the software to use all of that as a sentry car security system. Tesla did that and added the feature, but of course it's never going to be energy efficient, because it's having to keep a very high powered computer system on all the time to run it.

?? You don't have to. When you leave the car, it turns off the climate system on its own.

You mean Tesla wasn't smart enough to figure out a way to use less power. I have battery operated
lights in my home that are motion activated and they use very little power (two AA batteries last
several months) ... including ... whatever power they use for the lights when on. For example -
cycling the cams on and off in a sequence so one is always on ... say switching every 5 secs or so.
Then, when motion detected, turn them all on until "threat" is gone. Stuff like that.

I've talked about this before (in a different thread?) but my car interior runs 'hot' compared
to the outside temp. About 4 to 10 degrees hotter. I've checked this -many- times and it is
almost always true. Even with the windows open - in the garage in the summer when the
car hasn't been driven in several hours and the charging is complete.

And whenever I get near car when it is in the garage - I hear stuff "running" ... I'm guessing
it is a fan on the computer. Not continuous but it cycles on and off - a lot. Definitely the
sound of a small motor of some kind/for some purpose.

Question - wouldn't it be nice if we had more controls (settings) such as "how often the
car checks for security threats", what interior temp is "OK" for us. Etc. With an obvious
default value - for each - that the owner can set it to to be "Tesla advised".

 

[TW14 9LF]

I leave my car at the airport, unplugged, with Sentry mode turned off, cabin overheat on (no A/C), all the time, usually for 5 days or so. Typical battery loss is almost unnoticed, usually less than 1%. One time the car sat for three weeks, but that time, it was inside a garage. I lost less than 2% over the entire time.

The key is to turn Sentry Mode off.

Keith

 

[Rocky_H]

You mean Tesla wasn't smart enough to figure out a way to use less power.

"You mean Tesla wasn't smart enough to figure out a way to make ski boots work well as running shoes."

Why do you insist on not understanding this? You start from design parameters. You have a set of goals and a purpose for the thing you are going to design. You build it toward that. You can say we are going to design a product to function as a boat, and you design and build a boat, and then later, you whine and complain that they "weren't smart enough" to make it function as an airplane. If that had been the intended purpose for the product from the start, then yes, they could have been "smart enough" to do that if it had been the specified purpose, but because it was designed to do something entirely different, it probably won't function well as something very different. This is just common sense.

I have battery operated
lights in my home that are motion activated and they use very little power

...because that is a product that was INTENDED and DESIGNED from before it was created for that purpose. It was meant to do that function and not a bunch of other things and use little power. Those were the project parameters that were used to select the hardware it would use.

The central computer in the car is meant to be a machine learning, analysis, decision making, car-controlling, self driving system, with computing redundancy and failover. That is the system that the cameras are connected to. It was intended and built to do a LOT more functions than just save some video streams to a flash drive, and so it has a LOT more hardware operating. Being intended and built to do all of those other functions has a lot more computing overhead. It just does. That is the hardware that exists. You can't snap your fingers and complain that it's not as power efficient as an LED light. Well, I mean, you are welcome to do that (you are), but it makes no sense.

 

[KenC]

I left my model 3 long range unplugged for 5 days to see how much the battery drained.
I'm going on holiday soon and wanted an idea of how much it might lose while parked at the airport.
I have a 3 month old model 3 long range.
I turned off sentry mode, preconditioning etc. It just had the doors locked and was running it's basic functions.
It was about 10 degrees Celsius outside. The cabin temperature sat at 11' each time I checked.
I looked at the app every 24hrs and noted the number of miles range it had left...

Day 0 it had 260mi
Day 1 259mi
Day 2 259mi
Day 3 258mi
Day 4 256mi
Day 5 256mi

That reassures me I can leave it for a week and I won't come back to a flat battery.
I thought it might be useful info to share

I left for 8 days over Christmas, and had Sentry on only at night at the small airport near me. Left with 203 miles, and returned with 103 miles. So, 15hrs of Sentry a night, times 8 nights, is 120hrs of Sentry used up 100 miles of range, or 0.8miles/hr. Stats has a beta feature to run Sentry only at night. I figured, if and when the battery got to 20%, it would shut off Sentry. Oh, being in Maine, it was below freezing the whole time.

 

[Oldrocky]

So here's the thing I'm trying to get across - and not saying well so trying again with different words ...

I'm not new to this game (owning a car). I love how this car (2018 Model X) works ... when I'm actually
using it (driving). But then I park it somewhere - any where - and if I am at all concerned about safety
I want to turn on Sentry ... and it chews up the battery at a very high rate. That seems like a lot to 'pay'
for the added security of Sentry ... to me. Especially when I compare it to a different car - such as my
Sonata hybrid - that uses up very little power. KenC mentions above about setting up his Sentry to
only run at night (15 hours a day for 8 days) and it used up 100 miles of range. That's about "half a
tank" of charge. So if he drove 60 miles to the airport (my closest airport is about 70 miles) then
he'd be thinking ... probably ought to visit a SuperCharger ... just to get home with enough margin.
So he's been flying which means it was probably 4 hours of travel time ... add in the amount of time
to charge the car and the 'inconvenience' and 'user load' for using his Tesla to go to the airport
(instead of some gas guzzling hybrid) starts to tip the scales ... doesn't it? I don't know about where
you live but the SuperChargers here cost .33 per kwh. Let's not forget that you probably never are
going to be parking the car with a "full charge" ... *W*.

If Tesla can 'make the cameras work for FSD' then perhaps there is a way to also use them for
a -less- costly security system. For example, perhaps they can "time slice" the cameras on and off
to use less power ... and still get excellent security. Perhaps the security software can be smart
enough to not run all the cameras all the time - until there is an alert situation. I don't know the
answer ... I don't even want to specify how it should/could be done.

I do know this - if owners are having to make the decision about whether or not to use the
security system ... due to power loss ... then maybe they can figure out ways to "Sentry" and
use less power.

Please note - I'm more concerned about the loss of range than the cost of the energy to recharge.
I don't know about you ... but I tend to 'plan my use of the car' in ways that I do as much charging
at home. Not so much due to cost but more due to convenience/ease of use.
- Jim in the PNW

 

[KenC]

Ha, not going to get a gas-guzzling hybrid. Maybe a 3rd-party security cam makes sense, one that can be hard-wired into the battery.

 

[Rocky_H]

So here's the thing I'm trying to get across - and not saying well so trying again with different words ...

I know what you're saying, and you're saying it fine. It's just unrealistic expectations though.

But then I park it somewhere - any where - and if I am at all concerned about safety
I want to turn on Sentry ... and it chews up the battery at a very high rate.

...because it was not designed for that, so the hardware system is basically "wrong" for running that efficiently. It always will be.

Especially when I compare it to a different car - such as my
Sonata hybrid - that uses up very little power.

Two things: Does that actually have a camera security system? And was it designed for that originally? It is easy to do that if you design and build for it from the start. But if you are trying to kludge on a different function onto something that wasn't designed to do that, it won't work as well. It can't.

 

[FalconFour]

{line
breaks
manually
keyed
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My good dude, please rest assured that the car is much smarter than you give it credit for. These text boxes you type into are also pretty intelligent - they don't need manually entered line-breaks like a '40s typewriter - that breaks formatting for everyone else that has a different screen size.

The car turns off interior features (the screen, the heating/AC, the drive systems, etc) when you get out and close the door. If the center screen is off, you can consider the car "off". It then does some maintenance (like drying the evaporator - which leaves the inside fan running for around half an hour), then when it's satisfied much like laying down for bed, it goes to sleep - that's the "CLUNK" you may hear if you're hanging around the car an hour-or-so after exiting. That CLUNK is disconnecting the main battery, and the car turns off *everything* (that is, you can't accidentally leave dome lights or headlights on, and no accessories can affect it), and sleeps using the 12v battery. That's the only time the 12v battery actually gets used.

When you use Sentry, the car stays awake after you exit, like laying in bed with one eye open. It can't sleep. It stays awake watching everything. The image processing it does takes much more energy from 12v than anyone could reasonably expect that little battery to store. So, it stays awake. The coolant pump stays running. The PCS (DC/DC converter from high to low voltage) stays running as it does any time the car isn't asleep. It sips about 120-200 watts from the main battery constantly (if you're clever enough about Wh and kWh, you can calculate how much energy/range/capacity that uses per hour).

Sentry isn't just a "security system" - it's something much more than that. The basic "security system" is the simple alarm system that goes off if anyone opens a door while it's locked. It can handle that while totally asleep, just fine. Sentry, though, monitors the interior for loud sounds, and records video of things of interest around the car.

This thread, though, is about "vampire drain" - when the car's sitting there without Sentry active.

 

[Oldrocky]

RockyH and FalconFour ... I don't think I'm "ignoring the obvious" ... I'm asking for (you see it as
"complaining") a better way - i.e. asking isn't it possible for us Tesla owners to have both a
security system and less battery drain?

I'll try to explain this differently. Let's use the example of TW14 9LF as a "guide". He (she?) says
the car is frequently parked at his local, small airport for several days. And he sees the same
amount of drain as I see whenever I have the security system active. My point is that if I were to
park my car somewhere that I consider "less than safe" where I'd like to leave the security
active ... I don't want to -have- to make a trip to the SuperCharger immediately when I get
back to the car. You see what I'm getting at now?
I don't think I'm a worry wart - but there are times when the car will be parked in a
location that I'm unfamiliar with - or where the neighborhood is obviously questionable.
For example, if I go to dinner at a small, "local", place somewhere in Seattle or Portland.
Or even here closer to home.

Some background. I have a 2018 Model X - purchased used from Tesla in June. I drive it as
my primary car (sold the prior car, a Prius). I don't park it - all that often - where I'm concerned
about security. But when I do want the security to monitor the surroundings I would prefer it
not to drain my battery so heavily. I don't think that's an unreasonable desire/request.

These are Great Cars - I'd just like it to be "as good as it can be". Battery drain (range) is
one of the primary aspects of how good these cars are.
- Jim in the PNW

 

[Shmesla]

My car went from 280 miles to 240 in one night. . I am guessing I am gonna get to my car and see all sorts of "sentry events". The first night in the hotel it drained down about 30 miles and there was 84 sentry events, I think the rain kept setting it off since it was pouring.

 

[GtiMart]

Sentry should not consume significantly more power because of events. Lights turn on but really not for long.

Some of that energy might still be in the battery. When the battery cools down, some portion is temporarily unavailable. That happens even without showing the snowflake icon.

 

[nogasbiker]

BTW - I -always- turn off the climate control when I leave the car. Why do I have to do that?
Why isn't there a setting that allows the car to just know that it should turn off the climate
control when there aren't any fobs in it?
- Jim in the PNW

Or even the opposite of that- can the car run the hvac fan for a few minutes to dry out the vents?

This combats the well known problem of stinky A/C. In some (many?) climates, the a/c will get a bad case of musky damp smell if you don't dry out the evaporator by running air with a/c off. Making the driver do this is extremely inconvenient. Either you have to sit there at your destination and run the fan, or you do it for the last few miles of your trip.

There was a brief period of time where a software update did in fact run the air for you. But it was wiped out by another subsequent update and never came back

 

[FalconFour]

Or even the opposite of that- can the car run the hvac fan for a few minutes to dry out the vents?

This combats the well known problem of stinky A/C. In some (many?) climates, the a/c will get a bad case of musky damp smell if you don't dry out the evaporator by running air with a/c off. Making the driver do this is extremely inconvenient. Either you have to sit there at your destination and run the fan, or you do it for the last few miles of your trip.

There was a brief period of time where a software update did in fact run the air for you. But it was wiped out by another subsequent update and never came back

It does. Mine does it after almost every drive. Sits there for half an hour or so, hearing the interior fan running in my garage. Starts some minutes after you get out and close the door. It's pretty smart. Then, when it's done with that, a short while later, it goes to sleep (clunk).

Would be odd (but not un-Tesla-like) to hear some cars do it and some don't.

 

[GtiMart]

I don't see that behavior anymore, but I live where temperatures are under freezing. AC is rarely used in that situation. I presume that once temperatures warm again I'll see the behavior come back.

 

[Rocky_H]

isn't it possible for us Tesla owners to have both a
security system and less battery drain?

No.

My point is that if I were to
park my car somewhere that I consider "less than safe" where I'd like to leave the security
active ... I don't want to -have- to make a trip to the SuperCharger immediately when I get
back to the car. You see what I'm getting at now?

I have been able to see it the whole time. You are still asking for something impossible.

But when I do want the security to monitor the surroundings I would prefer it
not to drain my battery so heavily.

Right. You are asking for the impossible.

I don't think that's an unreasonable desire/request.

But it is.

These are Great Cars - I'd just like it to be "as good as it can be".

You are still asking for a boat to fly, as I described before. That is never going to be "good".

You keep thinking that you can make the impossible happen by asking nicely enough:
"All I'm asking..."
"I don't think that's unreasonable..."

This isn't about asking nicely enough or being polite enough for someone to kindly grant your request. It's simply about what hardware is there that has to run this, and it is not able to BOTH operate AND still be very low power. It's a very high power computer system in there, and that's that.