This vampire drain really sucks. So there is absolutely NO WAY to get LESS THAN about 3 miles per day in drain? Even if you literally turn off and delete every app/feature, etc.?
You can't really delete apps from the Tesla itself. The apps people refer to as causing vampire drain are apps that run on your phone, or services that run on third-party servers and that report their results to you via an app or Web site. Thus, avoiding their drain is a question of
not installing every third-party app you happen to run across. You don't really need any of them, but they do provide extra features or access to data you might find useful. One I use, for instance
(TeslaFi) provides copious data on the car's energy use, charging, speed, elevation, etc. This is appealing if you're into tracking such data and understanding your car, but most people don't
need it. Some people report that TeslaFi increases vampire drain significantly, but others say the increase is modest to non-existent. Installing multiple third-party Tesla apps is most likely to cause problems, since they might try to ping the car at irregular intervals, making it difficult for the car to sleep.
Note that Tesla provides an app that's not technically required to use the car, but that's very useful. At a minimum, you need it to set up the phone-as-key feature, but I don't know offhand if you can still use the phone as a key if you delete the app after setting it up. Tesla's app can cause excessive vampire drain
if you keep opening it to check on the car; but if you leave it closed, Tesla's app won't cause more drain. Thus, the trick here is to simply exercise self-restraint and don't check your car's status very frequently, if at all.
I don't have a model 3 yet. Delivery expected next week. Losing 3 miles per day to sit there is very disappointing. And this takes effort and attention to detail, otherwise 6 miles per day???
In moderate temperatures,
if you don't use Tesla's app or any third-party apps, a Tesla Model 3 will probably lose 1-4 miles of range per day. (3 miles per day seems to be typical.) Several things can increase that value:
- Sentry Mode -- This feature really sucks power; when active, the range will drop by about 20-25 miles per day. This is because it prevents the car from sleeping (entering a low-power-consumption state).
- Extreme temperatures -- If the temperature rises too high or drops too low, the Tesla's BMS will try to cool or heat the battery. I've only had my Model 3 for a bit over a month, so I have yet to experience this first-hand and I'm not sure how much range loss to expect, or what temperature limits will trigger increased range loss.
- Frequent app use -- As noted above, frequent use of Tesla's app, or of some third-party apps, can cause increased vampire drain. If you were to check your car every minute or two, I'd expect the drain to be comparable to that of Sentry Mode, since it would prevent the car from sleeping.
- Cabin temperature settings -- In some environments, cabin temperature controls, like the cabin overheat protection feature, will consume power. Dog Mode would be especially bad for this if used for an extended period.
I agree that Teslas consume too much power when idling. That consumption is not reflected in the EPA's fuel economy tests, but it should be. Whether a kWh is consumed propelling a car down a highway or running computers while the car is parked doesn't really matter; that's still a kWh that must come from some power source and that carries a cost. Note that all EVs have
some vampire drain, so this problem isn't entirely unique to Teslas. It seems to be worse in Teslas than in most EVs, though, judging by posts I've seen in various fora. (FWIW, I had a Chevy Volt before my Model 3, and I never noticed any range loss in the Volt, even when it was unplugged for several days.)
Losing 50-70 miles while parked at a trailhead for 10-15 days while 80 miles from a supercharger will not work.
That could indeed be a tight squeeze if you were doing it in a Model 3 SR with 220 miles of range. Removing 2x80 (160) miles between the Supercharger and the parking spot gives only a 60-mile buffer, and at 4 miles/day for 15 days, that'd completely consume the buffer. It would be even worse if you were doing that when it was too cold or hot out, thus triggering battery conditioning.
OTOH, I'd expect few problems in an LR Model 3. With 310-325 miles of range, you'd have an extra ~100 miles of buffer, so you'd be fine unless you kept checking the car's status or ran into one of the other problem triggers noted above.
Either way, if you had access to an L2 EVSE closer than the Supercharger, you could use it to help out a bit. It'd be slow, but it could be very helpful.
