Vampire Drain is (almost) dead

[WhatTimeIsIt]

Tesla Model S Battery Drain Issue Fixed - Slashdot

From the article:

Recently, a tweet to Elon Musk with an article saying so sparked the Tesla CEO's attention. He tweeted that it wasn't right and that he'd look into the situation. Then a few hours later, he tweeted that the issue had to do with a bad 12-volt battery. Turns out Tesla had already called the owner of the affected car and sent a service tech to his house to replace that battery — and also install a newer build of the car's software. Now it appears the 'Vampire Draw' has been slain. The car went from using 4.5 kWh per day while turned off to a mere 1.1 kWh.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Tesla Model S Battery Drain Issue Fixed - Slashdot

From the article:

Recently, a tweet to Elon Musk with an article saying so sparked the Tesla CEO's attention. He tweeted that it wasn't right and that he'd look into the situation. Then a few hours later, he tweeted that the issue had to do with a bad 12-volt battery. Turns out Tesla had already called the owner of the affected car and sent a service tech to his house to replace that battery — and also install a newer build of the car's software. Now it appears the 'Vampire Draw' has been slain. The car went from using 4.5 kWh per day while turned off to a mere 1.1 kWh.

Well, that's still a very high amount of drain so I hope Tesla's still working on reducing it.

 

[RobStark]

A 40" Plasma TV uses 3.8 KWh per day while a Playstation uses 0.63 KWh per day.

While lower is always better, 1.1 KWh is not bad for a BEV.

 

[liuping]

A 40" Plasma TV uses 3.8 KWh per day while a Playstation uses 0.63 KWh per day.

While lower is always better, 1.1 KWh is not bad for a BEV.

Plasma TVs are usually held up as one of the worse Vampire draw sources around, so being better than that is a small consolation.

Also, the original Playstation 3 used approximately 1.5W in standby or 36Wh per day, not 630Wh per day. The newer "slim" model is only around 12Wh per day in standby.

 

[Dave EV]

While lower is always better, 1.1 KWh is not bad for a BEV.

At 1 kWh/day, it still has the highest vampire drain of any BEV on the market as far as I can tell.

 

[WhatTimeIsIt]

Quick math puts 1.1kWh/day as a 45 watt continuous load. So: I think of it as a dim incandescent bulb - or, a laptop computer being used.

 

[100thMonkey]

At 1 kWh/day, it still has the highest vampire drain of any BEV on the market as far as I can tell.

Our Leaf has essentially zero, we can leave it parked unplugged for a long time if we want... helps for trips to the airport where the range is just enough for the round trip and wouldn't be enough if it was draining daily. That said, I am really happy Tesla reduced the load by roughly 75%, it went from horrible to livable. The only thing I've noticed that takes longer is starting up the iphone app, it has to wait for the car to wake up... a small price to pay for much greater efficiency.

 

[Owner]

I am running my own 5.8 experiment to compare to my earlier 4.5 experiment.

My first data point has come in (need to wait another 6 days driving an ICE). My data point is 1.16 kWh per day.

But I compare this to miles driven. 1.16*365 = 429 kWh, or 5 tankfuls, or about 1,125 miles! So every year the energy wasted in miles. Was 2,700 in 4.5

Our Leaf has essentially zero, we can leave it parked unplugged for a long time if we want... helps for trips to the airport where the range is just enough for the round trip and wouldn't be enough if it was draining daily. That said, I am really happy Tesla reduced the load by roughly 75%, it went from horrible to livable. The only thing I've noticed that takes longer is starting up the iphone app, it has to wait for the car to wake up... a small price to pay for much greater efficiency.

 

[RobStark]

Plasma TVs are usually held up as one of the worse Vampire draw sources around, so being better than that is a small consolation.

Also, the original Playstation 3 used approximately 1.5W in standby or 36Wh per day, not 630Wh per day. The newer "slim" model is only around 12Wh per day in standby.

According to this link video game consoles can waste up to 230 kwh per year. Maybe playstation is one of the better ones just chose one at random .

http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/top-5-energy-sucking-vampire-appliances

Better than a TV I think is pretty good.

Here is a link on discussion on climate control and EVSE vampires on the LEAF.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2229

It may be lower but it is not nothing.

 

[Dave EV]

According to this link video game consoles can waste up to 230 kwh per year.

"Video game consoles can suck down the vampire juice, so it's OK that my car does, too!"

Here is a link on discussion on climate control and EVSE vampires on the LEAF.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2229

It may be lower but it is not nothing.

Now you're comparing apples and oranges. Yes, your typical EVSE has a 5-10W vampire draw. But I'd bet that your Tesla HPC or portable cord has the same vampire draw - on top of the car's itself.

The difference between the LEAF and the Model S is that the LEAF will sit unplugged for a couple months at least without any noticeable vampire draw. The HV battery doesn't even get used except to top off the 12V battery every 5-7 days. You can probably only safely pull 10-20 Ah from the LEAFs battery without killing it - in other words the LEAFs vampire draw is probably around 5W.

Now, don't get me wrong - the Model S at 1.1 kWh/day is a LOT better than before. But a 45W vampire draw is still quite a bit, especially when you multiply that by the thousands of cars that Tesla is putting on the road. It's also enough energy to drive the Model S about 1000 miles / year.

They should be able to cut this in half again at least. I suspect they'll get there eventually - but perhaps only on the latest cars as I'm sure much of it could only be fixed with hardware revisions.

 

[liuping]

According to this link video game consoles can waste up to 230 kwh per year. Maybe playstation is one of the better ones just chose one at random .

http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/top-5-energy-sucking-vampire-appliances

Better than a TV I think is pretty good.

That article is not very helpful, since it avoids specifics. Here's one with actual measurements (similar to what I found myself with a Kill-a-Watt meter): PS3's standby and off modes, (virtually) separated at birth | Crave - CNET. The 360 and Wii are higher, but in any case you can make their vampire usage 0.0 by just cutting the power to them when not in use (which I do). That is not really an option on the Model S.

Also, the Model S is not better than most TVs, it's better than the worst TV ever, which was called out due to it's crazy high vampire usage. A modern 75" LCD TV (Specs - LED TV UN75F8000AF | Samsung TVs) takes about 1/2 a watt in standby, so 12Wh a day. In other words, at 1.1kWh, the Model S in standby uses 91 times the power of a 75" LCD TV in standby.5

5.8 is much better and we're moving in the right direction for sure. I just hope they can get it down even further...

 

[richkae]

According to this link video game consoles can waste up to 230 kwh per year. Maybe playstation is one of the better ones just chose one at random .

http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/top-5-energy-sucking-vampire-appliances

They likely have a loose definition of "waste". If you use a 210W appliance for 3 hours per day, then you use 230kWh per year. If you use it for 1 hour per day, but then leave it on ( burning 210W ) for 2 hours every day - then you have used 77kW and wasted 153 kW.
If you think video games are a waste or you just a blogger with sloppy logic - then you waste 210kW regardless of how it was used.
( Not saying it uses 210W, just making a point. )

 

[Electroman]

Folks that buy $100k cars complaining about a cost of 10c per day or about $36 per year !

The real issue was how much range one lost by just sitting overnight impacting your ability to drive the needed distance next day which is now around 3 miles of lost range - nothing much to worry about.

 

[richkae]

Folks that buy $100k cars complaining about a cost of 10c per day or about $36 per year !

The real issue was how much range one lost by just sitting overnight impacting your ability to drive the needed distance next day which is now around 3 miles of lost range - nothing much to worry about.

It matters a lot if you leave your car at the airport for 2 weeks with no way to plug in.

 

[liuping]

Folks that buy $100k cars complaining about a cost of 10c per day or about $36 per year !

The real issue was how much range one lost by just sitting overnight impacting your ability to drive the needed distance next day which is now around 3 miles of lost range - nothing much to worry about.

Even super off peak rates in San Diego are now $0.16 perKWh, so it's more like $64 a year .

It's not really about the dollar amount, it's the waste and the potential bad press. Throwing away more than a 400 kWh of electricity a year (enough to power my whole house for about 20 days) is not very green and just adds fodder for the anti EV crowd.

 

[Merrill]

On 5.8 I still lose 4 miles every 12 hours and the temp in the garage is 55 to 60 this week. So wonder how someone only loses 1 mile in 12 hours at 28 degrees. Taking my car in for service in a few weeks and will ask them about that.

 

[Dave EV]

It's not really about the dollar amount, it's the waste and the potential bad press. Throwing away more than a 400 kWh of electricity a year (enough to power my whole house for about 20 days) is not very green and just adds fodder for the anti EV crowd.

+1 Exactly!

 

[markb1]

It's not really about the dollar amount, it's the waste and the potential bad press. Throwing away more than a 400 kWh of electricity a year (enough to power my whole house for about 20 days) is not very green and just adds fodder for the anti EV crowd.

Agree 100%. It's just sloppy engineering for any electronic device to consume so much power while it is doing so little.

 

[Zapped]

We've got sleep mode. How about comatose mode.
Instead waking up in 2 minutes with the TELSA app it might take 15 minutes. (if one can live with that)
I've switched to LED bulbs in my home to offset by more than 10x + the 45W power my TESLA might use.

 

[liuping]

We've got sleep mode. How about comatose mode.
Instead waking up in 2 minutes with the TELSA app it might take 15 minutes. (if one can live with that)
I've switched to LED bulbs in my home to offset by more than 10x + the 45W power my TESLA might use.

I don't think we can have such a mode, since it still needs to monitor temperatures, etc. to protect the battery.

But most modern desktop computers have reasonable low power and sleep modes. A Mac Mini, for example, uses 11W when on, but not doing much (idle) and 1.25W when in sleep mode.

I think there is still enough room to get the Model S much lower than it is now.