Why isn't heated steering wheel setting persistent like heated seats?

[travwill]

Little misinformation in thread, but I use preheating a lot in Chicago.

1. If you had the seat heaters one (front driver and passenger only), then when you turn on the preheat for heater/AC, the seats also turn back on to whatever setting they were previously at. This is nice. They get hot, but mainly hotter when you sit in them due to compression.

2. We are hoping that the "major app update" stated by Elon in December anytime now, will add some of this cold weather package control to the app. Let's wait and see - but its one of the top 1-2 requested features. Seats, wheel, and heated wipers, and defroster - will actually make package worth it.

 

[AWDtsla]

Little misinformation in thread, but I use preheating a lot in Chicago.

1. If you had the seat heaters one (front driver and passenger only), then when you turn on the preheat for heater/AC, the seats also turn back on to whatever setting they were previously at. This is nice. They get hot, but mainly hotter when you sit in them due to compression.

They have never ever turned on in my car. And I've left pre-heat on for 30+ minutes while plugged into free charging (turn it on multiple times). Ice cold seats.

 

[WannabeOwner]

What we need is a button "get the car ready to drive in 10 (slider) minutes".

Excellent post, and spot on.

pre-cooling the cabin is nice, but pre-heating it is pretty dumb. Massive consumption, and you lose most of that heat when you are entering the car, especially if you have a passengers opening multiple doors at the same time

So why pre-cool then? you lose most of that cool air when you are entering the car ...

Heating is exactly the same, what actually happens is that the temperature of the internal fabric of the vehicle is adjusted - i.e. the heat-sink. Our winters are not like the Arctic North, but the inside of the car is typically very close to the outside temperature, which near-to-freezing on many winter mornings. Just heating the seats would mean that I had to drive in a thick coat and woolly hat, and then stop a mile later to take them off when the cabin had warmed up

I don't know how good the thermal insulation on an MS is, strikes me that for best wH/mi there is justification to do a good job there, but perhaps the act of moving through the air at 70 MPH is going to make insulation far harder than a stationary object on a flat calm day and thus make such efforts fruitless? I note from Bjorns videos that he has had to insulate all the incidental glass areas to make his cabin comfortable.

Turning on heated seats from APP would be nice, presumably ventilated seats would help on A/C days too? Strikes me as dumb that the current mode is for heated seats to come back on with the same settings as when the car was parked. If I last had a passenger they both come on, at "1", and I have to turn passenger-side off and the driver side up to "3" for a bit. I would like APP Preheat to turn on all seats to "3" and then when any seat is occupied reduce it to "1" and when DRIVE is selected turn OFF for any unoccupied seat.

The whole Infotainment / Comfort package software overhaul has been overdue for far too long . I don't see a ".1" release addressing that, unless the features just missed the cut for the ".0" rollout. its just some software and I cannot fathom the delay and lack of appetite to tackle it - it would make a huge difference in attracting more discerning punters from the top-end MB / BMW marques and give Tesla a far better chance of maintaining the MS as their prestigious, high-price, model when the M3 arrives ... it is making Wifee and I far less enthusiastic when we discuss Tesla with friends and family; I gave everyone joy-rides months ago, now they are get the real-truth ...

 

[AWDtsla]

So why pre-cool then? you lose most of that cool air when you are entering the car ...

Heating is exactly the same, what actually happens is that the temperature of the internal fabric of the vehicle is adjusted - i.e. the heat-sink. Our winters are not like the Arctic North, but the inside of the car is typically very close to the outside temperature, which near-to-freezing on many winter mornings. Just heating the seats would mean that I had to drive in a thick coat and woolly hat, and then stop a mile later to take them off when the cabin had warmed up

No it is not the same, it is very different.

In the summer your car is usually much hotter than ambient, and the materials inside are MUCH MUCH hotter than ambient.

In the winter your car is also not cooler than ambient, it is usually already warmer from solar effects, same as in summer. Also with the vampire-drain waste power being delivered to the cabin, as well as charger waste heat (due to the chargers being uninsulated in-cabin, not due to active heat management). If you watch your car temps remotely, you will often see that your interior temp is warmer than exterior.

 

[WannabeOwner]

In the winter your car is also not cooler than ambient, it is usually already warmer from solar effects,

At Midday maybe, but certainly not first thing in the morning when I drive to work. Same (in reverse) for a hot climate, the car is not roasting at dawn, its midday when the solar effect is unbearable. On a cold night here the cabin is close to 0C in the morning. I don't see why you would think that "pre-heating it is pretty dumb"

 

[scottm]

1. If you had the seat heaters one (front driver and passenger only), then when you turn on the preheat for heater/AC, the seats also turn back on to whatever setting they were previously at. This is nice. They get hot, but mainly hotter when you sit in them due to compression.

I thought I might have noticed this as a fairly recent change. You could be confirming what I've seen...

I'm going to pay more attention to seat heaters when I exit the car ... and how they appear later when I come back to the car. I'll test two case 1) doing a pre-heat from the App while away, and 2) not doing a pre-heat from the App.

I'm going to see if the seats remember any "on" setting, all at. When no App is used. Just by leaving and coming back to the car. I'll do this for cases where climate is "off" when exiting, and also when climate is turned "on" along with seat "on" (see if it all restores to how I last left it).

Then, I'm going to do it again but use the App to preheat while away, and see if this changes the behavior of what is on when getting into the car while pre-heating is still going on from the App.

This should flush out the relationship of seat heating with climate button and the App controls.

I'll update my findings and software version number, and others can compare if their car is different.

 

[travwill]

I thought I might have noticed this as a fairly recent change. You could be confirming what I've seen...

I'm going to pay more attention to seat heaters when I exit the car ... and how they appear later when I come back to the car. I'll test two case 1) doing a pre-heat from the App while away, and 2) not doing a pre-heat from the App.

I'm going to see if the seats remember any "on" setting, all at. When no App is used. Just by leaving and coming back to the car. I'll do this for cases where climate is "off" when exiting, and also when climate is turned "on" along with seat "on" (see if it all restores to how I last left it).

Then, I'm going to do it again but use the App to preheat while away, and see if this changes the behavior of what is on when getting into the car while pre-heating is still going on from the App.

This should flush out the relationship of seat heating with climate button and the App controls.

I'll update my findings and software version number, and others can compare if their car is different.

Front driver/passenger seat heaters always remember their last setting. Whether just getting in the car or by preheating with app. Whenever the car has climate system on, they come back on. I always just leave mine on #1 setting all Winter now.

 

[AWDtsla]

At Midday maybe, but certainly not first thing in the morning when I drive to work. Same (in reverse) for a hot climate, the car is not roasting at dawn, its midday when the solar effect is unbearable. On a cold night here the cabin is close to 0C in the morning. I don't see why you would think that "pre-heating it is pretty dumb"

Because preheating the seats and steering wheel would be 80% of the comfort of cabin pre-heating for 1% of the cost.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Sorry, but preheating the seats and wheel certainly doesn't feel like 80% of the comfort to me; I would have to drive in a winter coat!

If shore-power is available I also want to make use of that before setting off (to reduce battery consumption during the journey)

 

[AWDtsla]

Sorry, but preheating the seats and wheel certainly doesn't feel like 80% of the comfort to me; I would have to drive in a winter coat!

If shore-power is available I also want to make use of that before setting off (to reduce battery consumption during the journey)

That's because they don't pre-heat.