Vampire Drain/Loss Tracking

[AlanSubie4Life]

Correct, but with TOU plan, when it comes out of the outlet makes a difference. There appears to be some draw on the shore power though aside from HV charging, perhaps for the wifi and bluetooth radios as well as various pumps, circuit boards for BMS, etc. But at least the 12v charging is coming from the HV battery.

If you set your car to charge at a certain time, it will (for the most part) only charge at that time at that location. For TOU that is what you probably should do.

The UMC draws 4 watts all the time (when not plugged into car as well) which is insane too, but don’t get me started. At least that may be to prevent fires and for safety features in the UMC. I assume Wall Connector is the same deal.

To keep efficiency of the penthouse charger high, it waits for a few % discharge below the target and then tops off the HV at max current from shore power. I assume this is the entire reason they don’t draw vampire directly from the wall when plugged in - it would make the problem far worse due to reduced charger efficiency at low current.

What exactly changes/happens in cold weather, with car outside, I do not know. I would think it still would not draw from the UMC/Wall connector, since I don’t think the car really cares whether the battery is cold. (It doesn’t spend energy keeping the battery constantly warm, I don’t think. Since that would be really wasteful and it is not needed to keep the battery safe. Someone can correct me if I am wrong.) I don’t know whether the cold battery derated % triggers the charging threshold as well, or whether the car “knows” the battery is just cold, not too low (it certainly knows the battery is cold, just not sure how it is programmed to react), and thus does not charge if the battery is quite far below your set charge target. Unimportant details...

 

[Magnets!]

The car is definitely drawing from shore power outside of specified charging period. I believe that basically all operations of the parked car are run from shore power irregardless of what time period is set for charging. Except as BestHand noted, the 12v charging comes from the HV battery and not shore power.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

The car is definitely drawing from shore power outside of specified charging period. I believe that basically all operations of the parked car are run from shore power irregardless of what time period is set for charging. Except as BestHand noted, the 12v charging comes from the HV battery and not shore power.

I don't think all operations are run from shore power, but there is an exception. You can check the behavior by looking at the charging screen.

If the climate control is on and the car is plugged in, that power is drawn from the shore power (eventually - there will be several seconds of delay for the relays to click on - you can hear these coming from the UMC and you'll see the voltage detected by the car go from 2V to 240V-ish). That's the major exception that I am aware of that would result in significant draw outside of your TOU time period. For a brief period of time after turning off climate, you will see the car drawing 2A (this is supplying the screen and all the other things that are on when the car is just sitting there connected to shore power - which is apparently nearly 500W (so probably about 400-450W "real" load due to charger inefficiency)). Then the UMC will click off and the amps & volts will go to 0. Screen will stay on & music will continue to play - the car is no longer drawing from shore power.

If you see any other exceptions let us know!

 

[Magnets!]

Just noticed that page 123 of the 12/20 dated owner's manual addresses this question.

"Note: Whenever model 3 is plugged in but not actively charging, it draws energy from the wall outlet instead of using energy stored in the battery"

A cursory analysis of my electric consumption leads me to believe that this consumption is at least equal to 'vampire drain' from the battery. Not that big of a deal, but for those of us on a TOU plan, we want to avoid any additional electric use during on-peak periods. My temporary solution is to be sure car is not plugged in during 4pm-9pm daily. Hoping that Tesla will eventually offer a software option to handle this.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Just noticed that page 123 of the 12/20 dated owner's manual addresses this question.

"Note: Whenever Model 3 is plugged in but not actively charging, it draws energy from the wall outlet instead of using energy stored in the battery"

"For example, if you are sitting in Model 3 and using the touchscreen while parked and plugged in, Model 3 draws energy from the wall outlet instead of the Battery"

While it may say this, I haven't found it to be the case. I sit in the car and use the touchscreen and as long as the climate control is off, it turns off the UMC. What it does when I'm away from the car, I do not know as I have no separate metering on the UMC (that's what we need to determine this). So I'm not sure what to make of it. Agreed that for TOU it's best to not be doing this, and it definitely should be possible to completely prevent UMC use during peak times, if that is what the user desires (rather than just leaving the car unplugged, which is undesirable).

 

[BestHand]

Just noticed that page 123 of the 12/20 dated owner's manual addresses this question.

"Note: Whenever model 3 is plugged in but not actively charging, it draws energy from the wall outlet instead of using energy stored in the battery"

A cursory analysis of my electric consumption leads me to believe that this consumption is at least equal to 'vampire drain' from the battery. Not that big of a deal, but for those of us on a TOU plan, we want to avoid any additional electric use during on-peak periods. My temporary solution is to be sure car is not plugged in during 4pm-9pm daily. Hoping that Tesla will eventually offer a software option to handle this.

I don't think it takes energy from outlet to cover vampire drain when plugged in. My car stays in garage often more than 3-4 days with no driving and I noticed that it only charges every other day to cover vampire drain (2.5-3kWH), but does not consume any other time than that.

 

[Fasternfaster]

I have been using Tesla Stats app for androiA and have been charging my car to 81%. It's been sitting pkuggpl in for the last 5 days and I haven't even touched the car. What is alarming is that the alert log from the app were showing that my battery was draining from 81% to 77% about every 12-14 hours. And then the charger would kick in for about 15 minutes and charge up. I thought this was unacceptable to loose 8% charge per 24hrs!

I deleted my account with the app and changed my Tesla account password. In the last 24hrs with nothing else changed my car has lost only 1% charge as expected per the owners manual. It has not kicked in the charger and I wouldn't expect it to do that until it gets to 77 or 76%.

TLDR; Don't use 3rd party apps to monitor and track your car! Constantly waking up the car creates a large drain.

 

[TexasEV]

TLDR; Don't use 3rd party apps to monitor and track your car! Constantly waking up the car creates a large drain.

You will find that advice posted here many times in many threads ever since the Model 3 came out. Too bad new owners don’t read here before installing them. As I’ve said previously, I don’t understand how people let 3rd party crap communicate with their car and then complain when the car doesn’t perform as expected.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I have been using Tesla Stats app for androiA and have been charging my car to 81%. It's been sitting pkuggpl in for the last 5 days and I haven't even touched the car. What is alarming is that the alert log from the app were showing that my battery was draining from 81% to 77% about every 12-14 hours. And then the charger would kick in for about 15 minutes and charge up. I thought this was unacceptable to loose 8% charge per 24hrs!

I deleted my account with the app and changed my Tesla account password. In the last 24hrs with nothing else changed my car has lost only 1% charge as expected per the owners manual. It has not kicked in the charger and I wouldn't expect it to do that until it gets to 77 or 76%.

TLDR; Don't use 3rd party apps to monitor and track your car! Constantly waking up the car creates a large drain.

Sorry to hear you had problems. I think that is painting with a bit of a broad brush, as the apps do provide some useful features (it tells me if I leave the car open by mistake, for example - which can lead to a very large amount of battery drain). Sounds like you encountered a bug of some form. There are certainly bad modes they can get into and 3rd party apps are the first thing you should look at for drain issues. If you choose to use apps, changing the Tesla account password is certainly the first thing to do if you're having problems with excessive phantom drain...

I would contact @rawmean, the app developer; he may be able to help you understand why this happened. Personally I have not had any problems with the Stats app. My drain is not significantly worse than prior to installing it. It's "just" the 1% per day. On days that I wash/clean the car it's much higher of course. Having the car doors open is a real power hog. Makes sense.

 

[jombolo]

Sorry to hear you had problems. I think that is painting with a bit of a broad brush, as the apps do provide some useful features (it tells me if I leave the car open by mistake, for example - which can lead to a very large amount of battery drain). Sounds like you encountered a bug of some form. There are certainly bad modes they can get into and 3rd party apps are the first thing you should look at for drain issues. If you choose to use apps, changing the Tesla account password is certainly the first thing to do if you're having problems with excessive phantom drain...

I would contact @rawmean, the app developer; he may be able to help you understand why this happened. Personally I have not had any problems with the Stats app. My drain is not significantly worse than prior to installing it. It's "just" the 1% per day. On days that I wash/clean the car it's much higher of course. Having the car doors open is a real power hog. Makes sense.

And to reinforce this, TeslaFi, if sleep modes are setup properly, you will not experience any "out of the ordinary" vamp drain. See post #8 from there teslafi vs teslaspy

 

[jombolo]

The UMC draws 4 watts all the time (when not plugged into car as well) which is insane too, but don’t get me started. At least that may be to prevent fires and for safety features in the UMC. I assume Wall Connector is the same deal.

This is interesting and did not know this. though it makes sense because i believe the Tesla logo is always backlit. Though 4w is practically imperceptible

Just noticed that page 123 of the 12/20 dated owner's manual addresses this question.

"Note: Whenever model 3 is plugged in but not actively charging, it draws energy from the wall outlet instead of using energy stored in the battery"

A cursory analysis of my electric consumption leads me to believe that this consumption is at least equal to 'vampire drain' from the battery. Not that big of a deal, but for those of us on a TOU plan, we want to avoid any additional electric use during on-peak periods. My temporary solution is to be sure car is not plugged in during 4pm-9pm daily. Hoping that Tesla will eventually offer a software option to handle this.

Because I have solar panels, i've got power monitoring integrated as well. it's not going to as granular as a Sense, etc. But honestly, i cannot see any power spikes or elevated base power consumption when M3 is plugged in overnight. The consumption is super minimal. I can't see TOU users really seing any significant impact on their bills - I've been wrong before, but only once.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

This is interesting and did not know this. though it makes sense because i believe the Tesla logo is always backlit.

LEDs take no (EDIT: no significant) power when implemented properly, so that is probably not it. I imagine it has to do with the temperature sensing in the plug which may be operating all the time (which may be the safest option). Or it is just crap design. In my line of work, 4W would result in immediate firing; you can do fantastically complicated things with less than 4W (e.g., your phone!). It's definitely not a lot, but seems unnecessary.

- I've been wrong before, but only once.

Me too. It occurred in this very thread.

 

[f8K37Sq31]

I have been using Tesla Stats app for androiA and have been charging my car to 81%. It's been sitting pkuggpl in for the last 5 days and I haven't even touched the car. What is alarming is that the alert log from the app were showing that my battery was draining from 81% to 77% about every 12-14 hours. And then the charger would kick in for about 15 minutes and charge up. I thought this was unacceptable to loose 8% charge per 24hrs!

I deleted my account with the app and changed my Tesla account password. In the last 24hrs with nothing else changed my car has lost only 1% charge as expected per the owners manual. It has not kicked in the charger and I wouldn't expect it to do that until it gets to 77 or 76%.

TLDR; Don't use 3rd party apps to monitor and track your car! Constantly waking up the car creates a large drain.

The "Stats for Tesla" app is iOS-only and does not run on Android devices. so, you might be referring to another app.
I and a lot of my test users have extensively tested the app to ensure that it does not increase phantom drain.
You can see the distribution of phantom drain across users of the app in the app (also attached). The most frequent value (mode of the distribution) is ~0.2 lost miles per hour. Mean is ~0.23 mph.

 

[Fasternfaster]

I apologise, let me edit my post. I used Tesla Assistant / Tesla Cockpit / TC

 

[Fasternfaster]

I wrongly called out Tesla Stats. Sorry about that. I used Tesla Assistant / Tesla Cockpit and it caused the drain.

I have been using Tesla Stats app for androiA and have been charging my car to 81%. It's been sitting pkuggpl in for the last 5 days and I haven't even touched the car. What is alarming is that the alert log from the app were showing that my battery was draining from 81% to 77% about every 12-14 hours. And then the charger would kick in for about 15 minutes and charge up. I thought this was unacceptable to loose 8% charge per 24hrs!

I deleted my account with the app and changed my Tesla account password. In the last 24hrs with nothing else changed my car has lost only 1% charge as expected per the owners manual. It has not kicked in the charger and I wouldn't expect it to do that until it gets to 77 or 76%.

TLDR; Don't use 3rd party apps to monitor and track your car! Constantly waking up the car creates a large drain.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

This is interesting and did not know this.

I think it was more like 3.6W, but I rounded up. I assume it's true for the UMC as well.

There's a thread here:

Charging cable question-Energy usage when not charging`

Right now, it's 750kW (!!!) constant drain due to unplugged (from the car) wall connectors/UMCs for the current Model 3 base, assuming they all get a UMC or Wall connector. (In addition to the 6MW vampire drain.) Good for stimulating the economy; 6-7MW is 1-10 wind turbines, depending on their size. Or, burn more coal & gas!

I guess on the upside, this incentivizes those natural gas flares to be recaptured, and the gas gets sent to the power plants. Maybe???

I think of the total as about 1/2 a wasted autocross lap per day for me.

Strange how this doesn't all fall under the 1W initiative but presumably it's all about legal definitions.

One Watt Initiative - Wikipedia

 

[f8K37Sq31]

I wrongly called out Tesla Stats. Sorry about that. I used Tesla Assistant / Tesla Cockpit and it caused the drain.

Thank you for clarifying this. I'm a bit OCD about the phantom drain and have done everything possible to make sure that the Stats app does not affect phantom drain. This has made the design a bit difficult (I didn't;t want to just set up a server and ping the car every minute), but I think it's important to "do no harm" first. Getting statistics from the car should be secondary.

 

[Fasternfaster]

You should make an Android version! That's a great philosophy!

Thank you for clarifying this. I'm a bit OCD about the phantom drain and have done everything possible to make sure that the Stats app does not affect phantom drain. This has made the design a bit difficult (I didn't;t want to just set up a server and ping the car every minute), but I think it's important to "do no harm" first. Getting statistics from the car should be secondary.

 

[f8K37Sq31]

You should make an Android version! That's a great philosophy!

The problem is that there are too many versions of Android out there and to make an app that work for most devices, a developer needs to avoid using features that are made available in the more recent versions of Android. Also, development tools are nowhere near as good as iOS.
All this makes Android development not fun. I probably would have developed an Android version of Stats app if this was my day job.

Even if you are an Android user and have an iPad, Stats works natively on iPad.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Well, 1% a day...(3-4 miles).

AFAIK, most of that loss is the pack temperature moving around. A warmer pack will show a higher SOC than a cooler pack. Some of it is standby losses, but those should be < 1 mile/day, excluding cabin overheat protection.