I only charge at work and not at home. The parking lot I park in does not have a supercharger within proximity. Since I'll be going on a trip next week for 6 days, does anyone have any recommendations as to what I can do for my Model 3 to ensure that I don't have to resurrect my car from the dead? Is there a power saving mode I can put on to ensure that I at least have some charge? I typically charge to 85% so I should have at least 230 miles of charge before I leave for my trip. Any input is appreciated! Thanks
You should be fine depending on how much vampire drain you normally experience. I used to see up to 20 miles lost per day to vampire drain but now it's more like 1 or 2 miles for every 24 hours, so 6 days is not a concern.
I think if you check on it a lot while you are away, constantly waking it, you will add to vampire drain -- but for 6 days it's probably not a concern.
In the unlikely event the car does get down to 5%, the M3 will enter a low-power consumption mode where the Battery stops supporting the onboard electronics to slow the discharge rate to approximately 4% per month (although this can kill your 12V battery).
No concern leaving it for a week. Resist the temptation to be a helicopter parent to the car and check on it with the app. Enjoy your vacation.
Totally fine. I would charge it up to 90% before. The Model 3 is much better in terms of idle energy consumption than the S or X. But even with those 6 days is not a problem at all.
Thanks for all the info guys. I will take a screenshot of the charge status before I leave and when I return and make a separate post to share the results with everyone else as it would be an interesting datapoint.
Yes that would be great. I noticed a big difference in idle consumption when using a service like Teslalog or TeslaFi. They get data from the car every minute meaning the car can never 'go to sleep'. Although you can tell those services to stop polling data. Or you can just disable them while you are gone.
I'd try to make sure you have at least a minimum charge of 40% in case you see the 20 mile/day vampire losses that some people are reporting. But that's an outlier case. In any other electric car there'd be no worry. Too bad Tesla is an outlier in that regard. I don't think there is such a thing (yet).
Yeah, if this is a thing, please let us know! For sure, it would be great to have a "low power, high response time, I'm gonna park for a while" mode that allows the car to relax, and not sit at the front door waiting for your return like an eager puppy.
Keep in mind you can use extension cords if they are thick enough. You can even charge at 50 amps (actual draw is less, of course) on monstrosities like this https://www.amazon.com/Camco-Extension-PowerGrip-Convenient-Carrying/dp/B0024ECIP0
I don't have my 3 yet, but I could have sworn I read something about this, maybe it's only in the works. I'll dig around. Read the manual some, the Model 3 will enter a low power mode if it gets down to 5% as it stops powering electronics and keeping the 12v battery charged to protect the battery pack. You can't select this and I doubt you'd want to. Probably the best advice to not keep checking it with apps and "waking it up" is the best. It would be nice if Tesla would give some long term storage guidelines, though. Probably a good question for a service center.
The point about disabling data services like Teslalog and TeslaFi, and using your app to check on the car can't be stressed enough. If you follow guidance on those two points, you don't even need to put the car into energy saving mode and you'll still have a lot of battery left when you return. If I had to guess? Leave at 80%, follow the above guidance, and you'll come back to 68%.
I agree about disabling data services.... still, wouldn't it be great to have a single "long term parking" toggle switch to throw in these situations? It would be nice to not "disable" much of anything, but to force the car to do power-hungry things infrequently. You still get full functionality, but without the snappy response time that you would only appreciate when the car is driven regularly. Heck, my fridge has this "vacation" feature that reduces the compressor runtime and the defrost cycle.
Tesla does give long term storage guidelines. Plug it in and set charge level to 50%. Irrelevant to the current discussion however as going away on vacation for a week is NOT long term storage.
I stand by my guess and my right to make it. It's my experience that energy saving mode doesn't make a big difference but letting any Tesla go into deep sleep and leaving it alone does make a big difference. Let's see. I'm eager to see what the OP's experience ends up being.
It annoys me a little that this is still actually a concern. Like a smartphone, why doesn't this thing just have a g*damn power switch!