Winter Battery

[Bootneckshuffl]

Hi all

Anyone seeing their battery draining quicker due to the temps dropping?

Just over the past week or 2, I’ve seen usual daily usage increase from 15-20% to 30-40%

Yeh I understand the using heaters more and stuff like that but is it normal to see a lot more drain around this time of year?

 

[Mr H]

Perfectly normal, ICE cars use more fuel in winter too. Cold air is more dense so needs more energy to push through it

 

[spooksman]

Short answer - yes!

This is what I have seen over 18 months

 

[MrBadger]

Its widely documented on here, however here are our current stats. Majority of drives in the 5 - 20 mile range so better sample size for those. Under 270 miles recorded at top two temperature ranges (20 miles in 30-35 sample) so not really as representative as the cooler drives.

Note that the longer drives are overall more efficient as the car warms up which offset the higher proportion of 'departure costs' at start of every trip.

These are for a non heat pump car, however, we don't run a hot car and use the seat heaters often with minimal (low manual fan speeds) or even occasionally no cabin heating even at coldest temperatures, so the benefit of a heat pump in providing cabin warmth would probably not be significant in our case.

 

[Jason71]

Even on long journeys in my pre-heat pump I would say there is maybe a 20% increase in energy usage in winter. but on short journeys it is much much higher.
But then MPG on short journeys in the winter in my old diesel were also pretty horrendous. On longer journeys not so much since colder higher density air is good for engine efficiency and the cabin heat is essentially free but anything less than 10 miles was pretty poor. Difference was I didn't care that much

 

[browellm]

Yes! Today was the first day I had to schedule a quick splash and dash at Keele SuC for my regular 240 mile round trip to Liverpool. Although it wasn't that quick, I didn't get over 52kW despite driving an hour to the supercharger with battery preconditioning and arriving with 21%.

Average consumption was around 300Wh/m, normally I'm just under 250.

 

[Bootneckshuffl]

Thanks everyone

 

[Burley]

Remember that your car will be heating the battery each journey too when its cold to make it more efficient, but that uses a fair amount of extra energy to begin with. I used about 3% with my LR this morning defrosting before departure.

 

[Bootneckshuffl]

Yeh I’ve noticed 3-4% heating pre departure too

 

[Jason71]

Yeh I’ve noticed 3-4% heating pre departure too

But on the plus side you CAN heat before departure. Totally worth it. Best thing about owning an EV. No De-icing and no getting into a freezing car and having to drive for 5 minutes before getting any heat and 15 before being actually warm.

 

[DrJFoster]

It's worth noting the LFP batteries in the MIC SR+ suffer a little worse than the batteries in the other models, it's one of the slight weaknesses of that technology, I think they're happier when they're warmer so Tesla heat them a little more. Bjorn did a video and they're much better than last year after some software updates but he still thought they lost about 30% of their range in the wet and cold.

 

[kelvin 660]

My LFP battery is getting145 miles @ 75 mph @ 2C verses 202 miles @ 75 mph @ 15C, so yeah around 30% loss when cold.

Also regen is not so strong as my old NCA SR+ when it's cold (below 10C) so have to use the brakes sometimes. Not a bad thing in the winter as it keeps the disk brakes from seizing up and makes it more controllable on slippery roads...

 

[-monky-]

Anyone noticed the mile capacity on the app drop like a stone recently since it’s been cold?

My LR always says 100% charge would be up around ~300 but plugged it in today and it’s saying 244. I don’t ever recall the capacity on the app being dynamic like that according to the temperature. Is that new?

Or am I the only one?!

 

[Alan J]

Anyone noticed the mile capacity on the app drop like a stone recently since it’s been cold?

My LR always says 100% charge would be up around ~300 but plugged it in today and it’s saying 244. I don’t ever recall the capacity on the app being dynamic like that according to the temperature. Is that new?

Or am I the only one?!

No it's normal in Winter.