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What the hell is the car doing?

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Our M3 is a busy car. It’s doing “stuff” while just sitting in the garage, not even plugged in. I’ll confess, I don’t know the details of how the Tesla works other than how to operate it safely. I’m an ICE guy, and pistons and petrol is my game. But at least I know what’s happening with my 124 Spider Abarth, most of the time. I haven’t seen anything about this, have you? I get preconditioning, that’s about it.
Thanks!
 
OK. There's certain things that will run after one parks the car. Some HVAC wind-down. When the A/C is running condensate (i.e., warm, humid air hits cold coils and one gets water droplets all over) drops out of the coil and drains onto the floor. So far, so good: But if one just turns off all the fans when the car gets parked, the coils are full of water. And random dirt that gets through the filters. Resulting in the famous, "Stinky feet" smell.

The preemptive strike that Tesla does these days is to turn off the refrigerant and blow air through the coil until it's (a) warm and (b) dry.

The other solution, as those of us who've had the cars since before the change, is to take off a fair amount of plastic on the right side of the front passenger's footwell, remove the air filters, and spray with an auto part store concoction that'll clean out the coil. That works, but it's not fun to do.

Second: The car has Sentry Mode which, I presume, you've enabled. That's fine for when one is parked on the street; but it you've got the car in a garage where, presumably, $RANDOM_PEOPLE can't get at it, you can set up Sentry to turn off in certain locations. Like, for example, the garage.

There's at least one other thing. Under the charging menu, there's a "scheduled departure" setting which, if set up correctly, will either get the A/C or the heating running (depending upon the time of the year, natch) before one is set to leave for work. Or come back from work. (It can be set up for location dependency). It's possible to set it up for random times, in which case the HVAC may start turning on at unexpected times. Check it?

Other than that, can't think of anything off-hand. What, specifically, are you seeing, beyond, "What is the car doing?"
 
Our M3 is a busy car. It’s doing “stuff” while just sitting in the garage, not even plugged in.

Sure, every modern car (anything at least 10 years old and newer) has connected TCUs that do "stuff" for a while after you turn ignition off. On EVs and ICE cars.
Tesla is no different.

I’ll confess, I don’t know the details of how the Tesla works other than how to operate it safely. I’m an ICE guy, and pistons and petrol is my game. But at least I know what’s happening with my 124 Spider Abarth, most of the time. I haven’t seen anything about this, have you? I get preconditioning, that’s about it.

OK, so what's your question?

a
 
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Yes, Teslas click and whir every so often, every day, and every night. There's post-drive cooling, deep-freeze heating, cabin dehumidifcation, Sentry mode, Tesla data mining apps you may be running on your phone, and of course it needs to power up every so many hours to recharge the little 12V battery that keeps all the basic electronics running so it can detect your key, open the door, respond to internet queries, etc.

And Elon is watching you.
 
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Our M3 is a busy car. It’s doing “stuff” while just sitting in the garage, not even plugged in. I’ll confess, I don’t know the details of how the Tesla works other than how to operate it safely. I’m an ICE guy, and pistons and petrol is my game. But at least I know what’s happening with my 124 Spider Abarth, most of the time. I haven’t seen anything about this, have you? I get preconditioning, that’s about it.

One of the main things it does when left on its own is to move heat around, often between the battery pack and the cabin. Here are some posts from a thread that discusses this.
They even go as far as running the HVAC to move the heat from the cabin into the battery after you park, so it doesn't just get lost to the air. Then when you start heating again it pulls the heat out of the battery and puts it back in the cabin. (This works really well with multiple short drives like if you are hitting a number of stores.)

also I now know why regen gets limited even in fairly mild temperatures (like 50 degrees F or 10 C). They might be harvesting heat from that pack to heat the cabin, and then eventually the pack warms itself up and the motors generate heat too. Talk about not leaving anything on the table.

In order to be practical, EVs have to be extremely efficient. A Model 3 with a 75 kWh battery holds the energy equivalent of 2.2 gallons of gasoline! It can get by with this because it gets the equivalent of about 130 mpg or more.

The Canadian company EVinsulate sells products that further improve the efficiency of 3s and Ys by providing extra insulation for the battery pack and for the roof in the cabin. Simply adding insulation can have a dramatic impact on an EV's range. Wild!

It's surprising that the car is saving energy by turning on motors and pumps when it's not being used. But heat management is crucial for efficiency and although it's not silent, moving heat around is often an overall energy win.

I added some sound insulation to the hood of the frunk of my Model Y and this seemed to decrease the volume of the HVAC noises. Part of it may be that I just got used to the noises and they don't alarm me anymore.

If you want more details, here is a good video that discusses the heat pump system in a Tesla:

You can also find videos that explain all the different modes of the octovalve. One thing these videos make clear is that a tremendous amount of engineering effort went into heat management.
 
Our M3 is a busy car. It’s doing “stuff” while just sitting in the garage, not even plugged in. I’ll confess, I don’t know the details of how the Tesla works other than how to operate it safely. I’m an ICE guy, and pistons and petrol is my game. But at least I know what’s happening with my 124 Spider Abarth, most of the time. I haven’t seen anything about this, have you? I get preconditioning, that’s about it.
Thanks!
You have a Fiat 124 Spyder? Between changing the timing belt and head gasket every 24K miles not to mention frequent front caliper service how do you find time to enjoy it?

Ask me how I know this.
 
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You have a Fiat 124 Spyder? Between changing the timing belt and head gasket every 24K miles not to mention frequent front caliper service how do you find time to enjoy it?

Ask me how I know this.
My 124 is a 2017. I am very familiar with the sad story of the previous generation of 124 Spider since my roommate had one. I spent a lot of time driving him around in my Datsun 2000 collecting parts! It was a terrible car!
This newer one is mostly a ND Miata, even built in Hiroshima, with the NC MT6 and the “MultiAir” engine. It looks a lot prettier than the present MX5 and I have had no issues in 24k miles. It’s a real hoot to drive, I have the Abarth version and it carves the corners.
The M3 is a game changer. I enjoy driving it, but the dynamics are entirely different. Stellantis will probably do a Fiat Exit of North America in the near future before they fail completely and maybe I’ll be driving a MX5 again!
 
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OK. There's certain things that will run after one parks the car. Some HVAC wind-down. When the A/C is running condensate (i.e., warm, humid air hits cold coils and one gets water droplets all over) drops out of the coil and drains onto the floor. So far, so good: But if one just turns off all the fans when the car gets parked, the coils are full of water. And random dirt that gets through the filters. Resulting in the famous, "Stinky feet" smell.

The preemptive strike that Tesla does these days is to turn off the refrigerant and blow air through the coil until it's (a) warm and (b) dry.

The other solution, as those of us who've had the cars since before the change, is to take off a fair amount of plastic on the right side of the front passenger's footwell, remove the air filters, and spray with an auto part store concoction that'll clean out the coil. That works, but it's not fun to do.

Second: The car has Sentry Mode which, I presume, you've enabled. That's fine for when one is parked on the street; but it you've got the car in a garage where, presumably, $RANDOM_PEOPLE can't get at it, you can set up Sentry to turn off in certain locations. Like, for example, the garage.

There's at least one other thing. Under the charging menu, there's a "scheduled departure" setting which, if set up correctly, will either get the A/C or the heating running (depending upon the time of the year, natch) before one is set to leave for work. Or come back from work. (It can be set up for location dependency). It's possible to set it up for random times, in which case the HVAC may start turning on at unexpected times. Check it?

Other than that, can't think of anything off-hand. What, specifically, are you seeing, beyond, "What is the car doing?"
Thanks for taking the time to explain that. I recently changed the filters and fumigated the intake to deal with the sweatsock stink and am glad to hear about the OS update to remedy the problem. The car is in our garage so we have sentry mode off. At times the car sounds a bit like an idling jet aircraft, unrelated to the preconditioning that happens around 8AM. This would be in the evening after the car has been in the garage for some hours. There is nothing on the display, the car charges during the night hours. Pumps and fans is how Id describe the sound. I think it’s interesting!
 
Loved my FIAT X19! Super fun to drive but horrible reliability. In the shop for one reason or another constantly. My mechanic's name was actually Tony and he was always fixing it again! 😆
Yes, I helped do a head swap on one that snapped the cam drive belt. What a shitshow! Access was difficult, lots of minor injuries and within six months it was a water pump. I was busy that time and couldn’t help. It was an elegant design though.
 
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One of the main things it does when left on its own is to move heat around, often between the battery pack and the cabin. Here are some posts from a thread that discusses this.




In order to be practical, EVs have to be extremely efficient. A Model 3 with a 75 kWh battery holds the energy equivalent of 2.2 gallons of gasoline! It can get by with this because it gets the equivalent of about 130 mpg or more.

The Canadian company EVinsulate sells products that further improve the efficiency of 3s and Ys by providing extra insulation for the battery pack and for the roof in the cabin. Simply adding insulation can have a dramatic impact on an EV's range. Wild!

It's surprising that the car is saving energy by turning on motors and pumps when it's not being used. But heat management is crucial for efficiency and although it's not silent, moving heat around is often an overall energy win.

I added some sound insulation to the hood of the frunk of my Model Y and this seemed to decrease the volume of the HVAC noises. Part of it may be that I just got used to the noises and they don't alarm me anymore.

If you want more details, here is a good video that discusses the heat pump system in a Tesla:

You can also find videos that explain all the different modes of the octovalve. One thing these videos make clear is that a tremendous amount of engineering effort went into heat management.
Thanks this is very helpful!