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Vampire drain a considerable cost on the long run

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Not sure what you're saying here. Gas savings, for me, in the US where gas is cheap, is more than US$5,000 per year. I'd say that's a different order of magnitude than 912€ for FIVE YEARS.

It's Europe. We drive less, our electricity is expensive and the car we would get if not a Tesla, would have been more economical. 10k km in a car that does 25km for 1L means 800 EUR/year gas costs. Same distance in a Tesla would be 2000kWh or 400 EUR in electricity costs.
 
It seems quite low. If you are plugged into shore with a charged pack, you can enable the climate control and it will enable the pilot and begin drawing from the EVSE to provide power. It definitely can get below 1A. (according to Tesla's screen)

I've measured the Gen 1 DC-DC (made by TDI power) on the bench, and it's quite efficient. The Gen 2 is made by Delta, I haven't measured it yet, but I doubt it's going to be too much worse than the TDI.

Yes, ideally Tesla fixes the root cause instead of a band-aid.

That's good to hear. Now that I think of it, it is logical for Tesla to have optimised the DC-DC converter since it runs anytime the car is operating on battery power, but it's good that they also tried to minimise the no load draw of the charger (even though it should not spend any time being connected and not charging. Pre-heating an already hot car must be the only time it would happen !)

If you ever get some numbers, I'd be happy to see them. ;-)
 
I think it's funny how we tolerate vampire drain, yet if our gas tanks leaked by the same amount, we would all be up in arms.
It does seem odd. I think people would be quite upset if their ICE car leaked a gallon of gas every week (4 miles a day is about the same as 28MPG car losing a gallon a week)

I guess that is a side effect of having a full tank every morning, it's just not as noticeable.

Also, since my electricity comes from Solar, the vampire loss does not actually cost me anything (the panels are already paid for and my annual electric bill is essentially $0). I still hate wasting electricity though.
 
That's actually not true. Every car has the exact same amount of 'vampire drain'. It's the computer system and battery management that uses power. But it needs that amount of power weather you are driving or not. When you don't drive, you can see and measure the losses. When you drive, it;s mixed into the other usage and thus hidden, but the energy is use no matter what.

I was going to reply similarly.

While the vampire drain may be large as a percentage of the overall power used if one doesn't drive much, the actual vampire power used (and hence cost) should be the same regardless of how much the car is driven.

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I'm going to have to actually test this when I fly out for my next trip, because on my last trip the vampire drain came out to less than 300Wh/day (cars locked, no fobs around, no mobile access while away).

Power saving settings? Specifically is "Always Connected" checked?
 
While the vampire drain may be large as a percentage of the overall power used if one doesn't drive much, the actual vampire power used (and hence cost) should be the same regardless of how much the car is driven.

Well, when the car is being driven, I would call this overhead not "Vampire". Vampire is actually the wrong word in both cases, it is usually attributed to the inefficiency of a system that is powered off or otherwise doing no useful work, but continues to have some power consumption. An example is a laptop with an external "brick" power supply, and when the laptop power cord is disconnected from the laptop, but still plugged into the wall it consumes "vampire" load.

In Tesla's case the overhead when driving is definitely acceptable. The overhead when not driving is extremely high for what the system is doing, and what benefits it provides. It's clear that there is massive room for improvement, so this is why it keeps coming up. If you add up all the idle overhead on all Tesla's cars produced so far, it's a substantial amount, and it's definitely not very green to let it continue into the future if it can be fixed.

My 2011 LEAF that the Model S replaced was slightly worse than most ICE cars on idle draw, but it did include an always-on cellular modem, an always on BMS, keyless entry and remote access features very similar to Tesla's. It draws over an order of magnitude less idle overhead! It's 12v battery is similar to Tesla's and it's still working fine with no replacements needed in 4 years. In addition, I had zero quality issues with my LEAF, wheres on my Model S I had a few within hours of pickup. Nissan's answer to the idle draw was to include a small solar panel on the rear hatch to offset some of this load.

Tesla still has a lot of improvement to make, but I support them and I'm confident they'll come around. If they don't, realistically, they will likely not survive. (which would stink!)
 
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I think it's funny how we tolerate vampire drain, yet if our gas tanks leaked by the same amount, we would all be up in arms.

Tesla can obviously improve the sleep mode but cost for having the car protect its battery pack and to listen out for mobile phone commands means some level of energy will always be used. That will never go to zero.
 
Well, when the car is being driven, I would call this overhead not "Vampire". Vampire is actually the wrong word in both cases, it is usually attributed to the inefficiency of a system that is powered off or otherwise doing no useful work, but continues to have some power consumption. An example is a laptop with an external "brick" power supply, and when the laptop power cord is disconnected from the laptop, but still plugged into the wall it consumes "vampire" load.

In Tesla's case the overhead when driving is definitely acceptable. The overhead when not driving is extremely high for what the system is doing, and what benefits it provides. It's clear that there is massive room for improvement, so this is why it keeps coming up. If you add up all the idle overhead on all Tesla's cars produced so far, it's a substantial amount, and it's definitely not very green to let it continue into the future if it can be fixed.

My 2011 LEAF that the Model S replaced was slightly worse than most ICE cars on idle draw, but it did include an always-on cellular modem, an always on BMS, keyless entry and remote access features very similar to Tesla's. It draws over an order of magnitude less idle overhead! It's 12v battery is similar to Tesla's and it's still working fine with no replacements needed in 4 years. In addition, I had zero quality issues with my LEAF, wheres on my Model S I had a few within hours of pickup. Nissan's answer to the idle draw was to include a small solar panel on the rear hatch to offset some of this load.

Tesla still has a lot of improvement to make, but I support them and I'm confident they'll come around. If they don't, realistically, they will likely not survive. (which would stink!)

I don't disagree that the term isn't necessarily applicable in the case of driving. "Overhead" might be better.

But my point was that I was agreeing with others who ultimately were responding to the assertion of jbcarioca that:

jbcarioca said:
... my vampire cost is higher because my car sits unused for weeks at a time...

My point is that the overhead that the systems use, and thus the cost, is the same regardless of how much the car is driven.

Assuming the "1KWh per day" estimate is correct (mine seems higher than that) then every month the car is going to use at least 30KWh of energy, and that will cost you $xx. If you drive it, it wall also use additional power, which will cost you more than that at the end of the month.

Thus the overhead to run those systems is there regardless. Now, typically if you drive alot, the amount of additional power (and hence cost) attributed to locomotion is a far greater percentage than the overhead draw... so it tends to get lost int he noise. Nonetheless, it doesn't cost you any more if you leave it parked 99% of the time...


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Nope, "always connected" eats up range and didn't seem any more effective than just having energy saving off.

Ah, that probably explains how you are only seeing ~1KWh/day vampire loss.

I find "always connected" makes a significant difference in the responsiveness of the mobile apps.
 
The constant cycling of the 12V battery means that it must be replaced every year or two, call that 1.5 years. Those batteries are about $150 including installation, or about $100 per year in 12V battery replacement costs.

Same with my Mercedes. Nothing to see here. Modern cars are constantly running computers. My MB dealer charged me $300 for a battery and my car had an extended warranty, that did not cover "wear and tear" of the battery (or tires or ...). Dealer service advisor said I was "doing well to get 3 years out of the battery before replacement".

Perhaps a new battery chemistry is in order for these 12V?

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It's Europe. We drive less, our electricity is expensive

Get solar if the electricity is 1/2 the price of gas...or buy a Smart ED like I did, has no vampire drain, and is very efficient.

We bought our Tesla and charge it on 100% renewable electricity, and recharge during overnight periods when there is excess electricity on the grid. I pay extra for the cleaner electricity, and frankly, fuel cost isn't really a factor in my Tesla purchase...
 
...
Perhaps a new battery chemistry is in order for these 12V?
Someone says voltage makes no difference but it does. Other things remaining equal the higher the voltage the lowerm the required amperage. Higher voltage is more efficient than is lower voltage too so high capacity lines are always higher voltage. For that reason in aircraft systems the most energy intensive ones use up to 400 volts and general aviation lighter aircraft such as business turboprops and light jets typically have 24 v systems. To my knowledge several higher end car manufacturers have wanted to go to 24 v systems. They have not done so only because they do not have enough volume to justify unique systems in 24 v versions. Now that even cheaper cars are frequently loaded with electrical systems that will probably change. It will take a few large manufacturers jointly making such a decision for suppliers to begin supporting such systems. in the meantime higher end cars all have heavily overloaded 12v systems and often have shortened battery life.

At least one poster says that is not true. Don't take my word for it. Automotive News and various other industry bring up the same issue every few months. Twenty years ago I was working with a manufacturer that was launching a new line of luxury cars. They actually put out RFP's for 24v supplies of all the equipment but had no acceptable offers for a fair number of items and very high prices for others. They ended out with 12v like everyone else.
 
Anybody here owns a Roadster? My company does and it has Open Vehicles Monitoring System, OVMS in it.

I can see were it is, control the charge, etc and it uses almost nothing. The Roadster has almost no vampire drain.

I don't see a reason why Model S should. Staying connected and sending some bytes to a app doesn't use 2,5kWh a day.

A iPhone could do the same inside Model S and only use 30Wh/day.

No, something inside Model S is not very efficient.
 
The Auto industry has been wanting to move to 42v for about 20 years now, and still hasn't managed. The main reason is higher power applications, such as EPS, start-stop, Electric A/C, etc are more efficient and use about 3 times smaller wiring thickness to get the same power levels, so this saves weight and cost. The main reason for holding back is all the digital systems and the proliferation of modules. Most of them internally run off 5v, 3.3v or lower, so even 12v is relatively high, but still generally allows the use of low-cost and simple linear regulators. Going to 42v pretty much dictates switching buck converters or similar, otherwise efficiency plummets and there is a lot of waste heat. 24v is relatively easy, and most trucks and military vehicles do indeed use 24v, but if you are going to go there, why not 42v?

Well, we're a bit OT. I think if it was a priority for Tesla, they could easily fix the power issues without needing to change much other than software, and not really lose any functionality, such as logging or telematics. The clear message is that it's simply not a priority, they have their attention elsewhere.
 
One of the things that the car does, and may be contributing to all this 12v cycling, is that it seems to power everything up every time you open a door. Most ICE's will just turn the interior lights on, but the Model S seems to do the equivalent of turning a key to "ON" or "ACCESSORY". I can hear the contactors work, and even the HVAC comes on. I kinda wish it wouldn't do that. In fact, I dislike the going on and off with door opening so much that if I have to open another door, for example to get something out of the back, I'll leave my driver's door ajar so that the car doesn't do a shutdown and a re-start 10 seconds later. I figure the fewer contactor cycles and systems cycles (i.e. the screens) the better.

In my view, it would be better if the car "came to life" only after you tap the brake... maybe one tap to put it in "ON" mode and a second tap to put it in "RUN" mode. I don't need the car coming to life if all I'm doing is opening a door to get something.

EDIT: Or maybe just come to life with the driver's door. If any other door is opened, just turn on the interior lights. You're not going to be driving the car from the back seat, after all.

Great suggestion. I hope Tesla does this.

GSP