Vampire Drain is (almost) dead

[mgemmell]

Just spoke to a friend with an 8 year old Aston. He said the car came with a charger to keep the battery alive if it was parked for a long time (I guess more than a few days). Clearly Tesla is not the only car around that uses the battery while parked. I don't read too much about this issue with Astons though.

Maybe we are being a little too strict here?

A cool upgrade to the car software would be to set an expected departure time and have the car start charging an appropriate time beforehand in order to be at 100% right before departure.

 

[CalDreamin]

Owing to some extensive work done on my property, my Model S 85 was stranded in my garage for over a month. I took the opportunity to do a long-term vampire drain test using Firmware 5.8. I unplugged the car, and mostly ignored it for the next several weeks. I woke the car up twice using the iPhone app, otherwise it was sleeping the whole time. Here's what happened (stats from VisibleTesla):

Start 12/29/2013 3:07 pm
rated miles: 193.2
ideal miles: 219.2
SOC: 80%
inside temperature: 54 degrees F
outside temperature: 52 degrees F

End 2/1/2014 4:04 pm
rated miles: 91.2
ideal miles: 103.5
SOC: 44%
inside temperature: 54 degrees F
outside temperature: 54 degrees F

Duration: 34.04 days
SOC loss: 36%
SOC loss: 1.06%/day
rated miles loss: 102
rated miles loss: 3.0/day
ideal miles loss: 116
ideal miles loss: 3.4/day

Temperatures have been mild here during this test, generally ranging 40-65 degrees F.

I checked the car at 9 days into the test with the iPhone app, and the rate of vampire loss at that time predicted what I observed at 3 weeks and at the end of the test. So the vampire loss wasn't changing significantly over the test.

The car charged back to 80% SOC at midnight 2/2/2014, consuming 32 kWh according to PG&E usage tracking. That's a 0.93 kWh/day vampire loss including charging losses to restore the starting SOC.

 

[chickensevil]

Do you think there is a "super" sleep mode that the car might hit when you drop below the "0" rated miles? Further reducing the vampire drain? I only ask this because Tesla was supposed to have warranted the batteries now against all risk of a complete depletion of the battery.

 

[CalDreamin]

Do you think there is a "super" sleep mode that the car might hit when you drop below the "0" rated miles? Further reducing the vampire drain? I only ask this because Tesla was supposed to have warranted the batteries now against all risk of a complete depletion of the battery.

My understanding is if the state of charge reaches a sufficiently low level, the car switches into a HV battery preservation mode that stops all vampire drain. Only the self-discharge rate of Li-ion cells would remain, which is extremely slow. I suspect the car might need servicing to restart it after it got into that mode, but I'm just guessing.

 

[ThosEM]

I haven't seen anyone mention that the Model S is continuously on the internet as a device that can always be interrogated, using a built in 3G cellular link, wherever it goes. That allows either the owner or Tesla to query and control the car via the internet. 45 W may be a little high for that functionality, but it is totally peanuts compared with the 300 kW power capability of the car itself, or the 10's of kW required just to move it or any other car down the road in a normal manner.

 

[Tech26]

Do you think there is a "super" sleep mode that the car might hit when you drop below the "0" rated miles? Further reducing the vampire drain? I only ask this because Tesla was supposed to have warranted the batteries now against all risk of a complete depletion of the battery.

Yes there is. Try to avoid it if you can. Might have to call Tesla Service to come wake it up if it does happen.

 

[DITB]

Did anyone try garlic, crucifixes and wooden spears?

Or maybe set up a light at night in the garage, I heard vampires don't stand bright light.

 

[gpetti]

Since having my car its been in a garage being wrapped but I've looked at the app a couple of times a day just to see what was happening to the range. I was initially worried that I seemed to be losing about 8 km per day - when the car wasn't being turned on or woken up other than when I looked at it. I visited the car and turned on the energy saving mode and then the loss changed to about 4 Km per day. Presumably if I left it for a couple of days without waking it up with the app, I would see something a bit better; however, as far as I know this is about normal so I'm pleased.

 

[Rodolfo Paiz]

I recently had the chance to leave my car unplugged for just over four days to test the vampire drain. I have an early-ish P85 (March 2013) with 7500 miles on it. In both tests, the car was left with about 180 miles of rated range in a climate-controlled garage (~74F).

My vampire drain was exactly 3.3 rated miles per day in both cases. Hope the data point helps.

 

[Iz]

My vampire drain was exactly 3.3 rated miles per day in both cases. Hope the data point helps.

I have a 60 kWh and the drain is about the same when left unplugged for several days. However, at times, there is a larger drain after the vehicle has been driven. Usually during my lunch time drive from and back to work. After work when returning to the vehicle several hours later, there is a 2-6 mile loss. There is no consistency because other times the loss is at or near zero.

 

[Lloyd]

my car has been sitting for 5 days, left with 153 miles. Checked today and found 151 miles.

 

[AlexT]

I have a 60 kWh and the drain is about the same when left unplugged for several days. However, at times, there is a larger drain after the vehicle has been driven. Usually during my lunch time drive from and back to work. After work when returning to the vehicle several hours later, there is a 2-6 mile loss. There is no consistency because other times the loss is at or near zero.

Could you elaborate on the conditions? Temperature? Drive style before you left the car? Driver duration? Was the battery almost empty or near full?
I'm speculating part of the energy may have been used to control the temperature of the battery.

 

[apacheguy]

my car has been sitting for 5 days, left with 153 miles. Checked today and found 151 miles.

Wow, that's very good. My best case scenario is 3-4 miles per day with sleep mode. Still a lot better than the 8-10 miles I was seeing before the advent of sleep.

 

[Iz]

Could you elaborate on the conditions? Temperature? Drive style before you left the car? Driver duration? Was the battery almost empty or near full?
I'm speculating part of the energy may have been used to control the temperature of the battery.

Recent daytime temperatures have been upper 60s to mid-70s (F). Drive during noon is a 5 miles round trip. Drive to destination is 8 minutes. Vehicle is at the place an hour or less before I return to work. Range can be from 100-140 miles (this is a 60 kWh). Range loss is much better than several months ago when the drain was 9 miles or more. I suspect the reduced drain is due to warmer temperatures. Will have to see how this changes during winter.

- - - Updated - - -

Wow, that's very good. My best case scenario is 3-4 miles per day with sleep mode. Still a lot better than the 8-10 miles I was seeing before the advent of sleep.

Based on various threads posted throughout TMC and the TM site, it appears 85 kWh have less of a drain than the 60s.

 

[LazMan]

I think I may have vampire issues again. I have the 5.9 latest software version. I usually charge at night, starting at 11:00pm at 40 amps. This means the car is sitting for a 6 or 7 hours until I use it. Lately (I think after the last software update) I have noticed that it often is not in sleep mode when I go to the car in the morning and it has lost about 8-10km overnight. The charge status bar has shifted away from the little charge limit tick. In other words, if I charge to 80%, by the morning I'm back down to 78%. During the day, it seems to go to sleep mode just fine.

Maybe there is an issue of it not sleeping after charging? Anyone have any suggestions? I have tried turning sleep mode on and off as well as rebooting both screens.

Any suggestions?

 

[Mayhemm]

With sleep mode enabled, I lose about 1% per day. 4-5% without it.

Does anyone know what is necessary for it to engage? Several times I've checked on my car with VisibleTesla after not driving it for a day or more and it's not asleep.

It would be nice if there was a "sleep after x minutes" setting in the software. And a way to set the conditions for "deep sleep" such as "always deep sleep" or "deep sleep after x minutes of sleep"

 

[jerry33]

With sleep mode enabled, I lose about 1% per day. 4-5% without it.

Does anyone know what is necessary for it to engage? Several times I've checked on my car with VisibleTesla after not driving it for a day or more and it's not asleep.

It would be nice if there was a "sleep after x minutes" setting in the software. And a way to set the conditions for "deep sleep" such as "always deep sleep" or "deep sleep after x minutes of sleep"

It's known that the system wakes up to check the SOC of the 12V battery on occasion. It also wakes up if something tries to connect to it over 3G or WiFi. There are likely other reasons as well.

 

[Zapped]

NSA checking logs.

 

[apacheguy]

It's known that the system wakes up to check the SOC of the 12V battery on occasion. It also wakes up if something tries to connect to it over 3G or WiFi. There are likely other reasons as well.

It actually wakes up fairly regularly. Twice a day on my car when it's parked at the airport. And it not only checks, but always charges the 12 V. This is evidenced by a slow, gradual decrease in rated miles which usually goes on for about 2-3 hours and then it returns to sleep.

 

[larryep]

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.

same here