What to do with the car when on vacation

[angelman]

I am going away on vacation for 2 weeks. I had planned to drive to the airport (JFK) and leave the car in long term parking lot. I just realised that this might not be possible due to battery loss (especially in the cold). I don't have charging at home. Any suggestions?
Thoughts thus far are to entrust the car to a trusted friends (not many friends in my new home and none trusted)
Leave at work and beg them to let me stay plugged in (maybe to 110V) over the 2 weeks
Risk it draining down and call Tesla if it's dead
Find an outlet in long term parking.

This seems like a pretty common situation, if Tesla hasn't addressed it.. they need to!

 

[brkaus]

It should be fine for two weeks. Just have a charging plan for when you pick it up.

Do not check the status via the app while you are gone. It wakes the car up.

Did you check plugshare for lots at the airport with charging?

Do you have a garage at home?

 

[tomas]

how far is airport from you? Agree it will be fine for 2 weeks, but that info helpful to advising about charging plan to get you to and fro.

 

[brkaus]

Looks like jfk has a supercharger. Charge to 80 or 90 before parking.

You can charge again when you leave if you need to.

 

[angelman]

Thanks for the tips/ressurance. I think there are quite a few superchargers including at the airport so as you say, as long as I leave plenty of time.. I should be ok

 

[tomas]

Regardless, you should not worry. All Teslas have “anti bricking” protection where they go into deep hibernation when they reach a low state of charge. There are salvage model S batteries that have sat for months and still accepted a charge.

You don’t need to worry about sitting 2 weeks... more about charging requirements to get to/fro airport.

 

[eprosenx]

A lot of airports are now providing charging options. Sea-Tac has whole bank of parking spots where each one has a L5-20 (regular 120v 20a receptacle). It makes ALL the sense in the world. Super cheap for the airport to install (no EVSE's to buy - and cheap wire - and don't need to add lots of feeder or transformation capacity).

By definition, you are going to be leaving your car at the airport for MANY hours (if not days/weeks) and so slow-boat charging is totally fine.

The folks charging all have to bring their own EVSE so that makes the cost economics WAY better for the airport.

Out of a 20a 120v receptacle you can't pull much power so they can't lose money as they charge you highway robbery rates for parking. Once the car fills up then it just will top itself off as needed which is really not much power.

Note: I just looked up JFK and it looks like they only have five J1772 chargers and that is it. Lame.

 

[Richt]

We left our car for three weeks (accidentally) unplugged and drain wasn’t more than 1-2% per day. Make sure to leave those polling apps off if you have them

Oh and look into taking a ride share. Expensive to park at those lots for is it’s a week tradeoff

 

[justaute]

I have a similar concern in that I park my car at the airport, or off site, quite frequently— about 5 days at a time. Given the winter here in Salt Lake City, I’m curious how quickly M3’s battery will drain.

 

[jamnmon66]

As mentioned above, you'll only loose about 1-2% per day so 2 weeks should be no problem especially with the nearby supercharger.

 

[Bigjohn892]

I charged my M3 to 275 miles before leaving on a three week vacation and even with checking the charge daily I still had 170 miles left when we returned. This was in 50 degree weather so not sure what below freezing weather would do.

 

[jjrandorin]

Thanks for the tips/ressurance. I think there are quite a few superchargers including at the airport so as you say, as long as I leave plenty of time.. I should be ok

Depending on how far you are from home, it might be easier to just take an uber / lyft to the airport as well. Even if work is paying for parking, depending on how long you are going to be gone it might actually be cheaper to uber there and back rather than pay for parking there.

Thats ICE or EV advice though, not specific to EVs.. ICEs can have a dead battery too when left at the airport... people just dont have a way to check it, and dont think about it as much.

 

[angelman]

I think I will probably leave the car at home and charge when I get back. I think taking a shuttle bus will be best option

 

[Dana1]

I am going away on vacation for 2 weeks. I had planned to drive to the airport (JFK) and leave the car in long term parking lot. I just realised that this might not be possible due to battery loss (especially in the cold). I don't have charging at home. Any suggestions?
Thoughts thus far are to entrust the car to a trusted friends (not many friends in my new home and none trusted)
Leave at work and beg them to let me stay plugged in (maybe to 110V) over the 2 weeks
Risk it draining down and call Tesla if it's dead
Find an outlet in long term parking.

This seems like a pretty common situation, if Tesla hasn't addressed it.. they need to!

Supercharge at closest location to airport?

 

[Alanant]

I just got back from the third visit to the local Tesla service center regarding phantom drain. They told me yet again that a mile an hour of loss of range is within limits. They said that engineering will refuse to look at the logs until I've reached at least a 5000 miles and performed a few drains of the battery down to 10% before charging back up to 90%. They said it all down to the battery needing to calibrated itself.

In between the second and third service center visit, I spoke with a mobile ranger [took 12 days to get a return call] who said that he can't help but the loss of range is not normal and that I needed to go to a service center.

It's pretty frustrating. I just returned from an eight-day trip where the car was garaged here in Southern California and I lost 110 miles of range while parked in a SoCal garage. I've got a 21-day trip coming up and I have no confidence that the battery will not be flat when I return. I've seen a loss as high as 1 mile per hour in the past so there was a slight improvement during the last trip where it was about 13 miles of loss a day.

One last thing, the mobile Ranger said that opening the app does not impact the battery in any measurable way. The consensus though it seems that it does. I'd love to have the official word from Tesla.

M3P+

 

[jjrandorin]

I just got back from the third visit to the local Tesla service center regarding phantom drain. They told me yet again that a mile an hour of loss of range is within limits. They said that engineering will refuse to look at the logs until I've reached at least a 5000 miles and performed a few drains of the battery down to 10% before charging back up to 90%. They said it all down to the battery needing to calibrated itself.

In between the second and third service center visit, I spoke with a mobile ranger [took 12 days to get a return call] who said that he can't help but the loss of range is not normal and that I needed to go to a service center.

It's pretty frustrating. I just returned from an eight-day trip where the car was garaged here in Southern California and I lost 110 miles of range while parked in a SoCal garage. I've got a 21-day trip coming up and I have no confidence that the battery will not be flat when I return. I've seen a loss as high as 1 mile per hour in the past so there was a slight improvement during the last trip where it was about 13 miles of loss a day.

One last thing, the mobile Ranger said that opening the app does not impact the battery in any measurable way. The consensus though it seems that it does. I'd love to have the official word from Tesla.

M3P+

Do you have ANY other apps that track your drive statistics? ANYTHING other than the tesla app? If unsure, change your password on your tesla app (to invalidate the token) and only log back into the tesla app, no other tracking app. In the short time I have read here, it appears that some of those apps drain the battery more than others.

Others need specific settings to ensure the car goes to deep sleep. If your car is draining that much, its likely its not going to deep sleep (again by reading here.... I just got my model 3 performance today.

 

[MaryAnning3]

Looks like jfk has a supercharger. Charge to 80 or 90 before parking.

Why charge so high? Would it not be better for the battery to charge to about 60% and then park? What is the optimum protocol for leaving a Tesla for two weeks?

 

[brkaus]

Why charge so high? Would it not be better for the battery to charge to about 60% and then park? What is the optimum protocol for leaving a Tesla for two weeks?

I based it on sitting unplugged out in the cold. A few weeks at 90 vs 50 can’t make a huge difference imho (totally unscientific) and it will be declining as it sits.

Figure it’s better to not hit the far bottom range.

 

[TexasEV]

Why charge so high? Would it not be better for the battery to charge to about 60% and then park? What is the optimum protocol for leaving a Tesla for two weeks?

How is he going to get home if his vampire drain starts from 60% charge and it’s cold and the airport is far away? The advice for LONG TERM storage is to PLUG IT IN and set slider 50%. His situation is not long term (meaning months, not weeks), and not plugged in. Having a charge of 80 or 90% when parking at an airport for two weeks is perfectly fine. Don’t worry about the battery so much.

 

[MaryAnning3]

How is he going to get home if his vampire drain starts from 60% charge and it’s cold and the airport is far away?

Haha. Well, I think it would be at about 50% when he got back and he could just stop at the supercharger at the airport and charge it up a bit if he needs more range than that. Although I am in California and the drain rate while parked is pretty modest here. (About 2 miles per day.) What is the per day drain rate in a New York winter? Anyone?