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Winter charging issues, frozen charge ports, road trips
- Thread starter glhs272
- Start date
Seems like that would be an incredible waste of energy with no benefit.
I know you posted this awhile back, but this is exactly the type of real world winter efficiency data I am looking for. I live in similar climate in Massachusetts. In general what is your efficiency in the winter? I haven't bough a M3 yet and considering a few other cars still.
Hoping this is the appropriate thread to post this: electrician coming tomorrow to install a 14-50 outlet. There wasn’t really any flexibility in the filled-up little breaker box in my garage, but I did note that there was a 50 amp breaker in the box dedicated to the air conditioner, which I haven’t used for about 15 years. So the electrician will be wiring into that breaker to obtain the voltage needed for the 14-50 outlet, on a shared basis with the unused air conditioner. The electrician is a reputable guy who has been working in my neighborhood for almost 50 years, so I’m assuming he wouldn’t set up anything that was potentially dangerous or that might cause future electrical problems, but I thought I might lay out this scenario on this thread to see if anybody here sees any big problem with this strategy…
Tam
Well-Known Member
I would use a safety switch that only powers either the A/C or the Tesla but not both at the same time:
Note: moderator placed my post in this thread after it was originally placed in the thread “Definitive 14-50 NEMA Outlet Guide”. Not sure why it would be moved to the “Winter charging issues, frozen charge ports, road trips” thread… I probably should be pleased that it wasn’t simply deleted.
Wait, this is 12/24, officially winter. And this is a charging issue, a winter charging issue. So the wire receptacles for the 50 amp breaker were too small and the electrician didn’t want to deal with them, so we agreed that he would place the air conditioner wires safely aside and use just the 14-50 plug wires on that breaker. So now the 50-amp breaker is the 14-50 plug breaker rather than the air conditioner breaker, and the car can be fully charged in a single evening and most of the time will only need to be charged once a week or so.
Birdman325
Member
I recently completed a short winter road trip from Toronto to Deerhurst for some skiing. I have a 2018 Model 3 LR and had 18" Winter tires with aero covers on. I have aboutt 43,000 km and about 7-8% battery degradation.
Just to give a sense of some real world numbers and the impact of cold wintery weather.
I left home with a warm battery and 97% SOC and drove 214 km. Outside temp was about -9 C and my average speed was about 100 km/h but I spent the bulk of the trip on the highway at about 123 km/hr. The car Nav said I would arrive with about 36% SOC and boy was it off. My efficiency was 58.9% - 261 wh/km and I arrived with 17%. (The same trip in the summer I would arrive with about 50% compared to 17%!) I was running the heat at 18.5 - 19 degrees C inside the car and we were 3 in the car plus some bags.
I charged at the Huntsville SC as soon as I arrived because I was concerned about leaving the car overnight with such a low SOC and it is always better to charge when you arrive, and the battery is warm, rather than waiting until the next day. Overnight the temp dropped to about -22 C so I had a very cold soaked battery. (Deerhurst really needs some additional on site charging rather than just 2 destination chargers at the main building, one of which was out of service).
The next day, after dropping my kid at the hill, I zipped back over to the Huntsville SC to charge up. I arrived at 56% and while the battery was cold, it took me about 35 minutes to add 23%. Supercharger speeds were abysmal (cold battery and -22 C outside).
I didn't want to have to stop on the way home, so I was able to leave the car for a couple of hours at the destination charger before leaving, went back inside to do some work while my son was skiing and was able to get close to 100% for the trip home.
On the way home, the temp was -6%, and again the Car navigation said I would arrive home with about 36%. Instead I arrived home with 21% SOC - 226 km of driving was 240 wh/km (64.1% efficiency).
I have done a number of winter road trips, but when it is very cold, (i) be very conservative with the in car navigation estimate to make sure you have enough to get you to the next SC stop; (ii) your consumption will be very high; and (iii) depending on the outside temp, the older V2 superchargers may be operating at very slow speeds (making your charging stops that much longer - and when you need a higher SOC to make it to the next stop, this can all contribute to a much longer trip than you may have initially anticipated).
Just to give a sense of some real world numbers and the impact of cold wintery weather.
I left home with a warm battery and 97% SOC and drove 214 km. Outside temp was about -9 C and my average speed was about 100 km/h but I spent the bulk of the trip on the highway at about 123 km/hr. The car Nav said I would arrive with about 36% SOC and boy was it off. My efficiency was 58.9% - 261 wh/km and I arrived with 17%. (The same trip in the summer I would arrive with about 50% compared to 17%!) I was running the heat at 18.5 - 19 degrees C inside the car and we were 3 in the car plus some bags.
I charged at the Huntsville SC as soon as I arrived because I was concerned about leaving the car overnight with such a low SOC and it is always better to charge when you arrive, and the battery is warm, rather than waiting until the next day. Overnight the temp dropped to about -22 C so I had a very cold soaked battery. (Deerhurst really needs some additional on site charging rather than just 2 destination chargers at the main building, one of which was out of service).
The next day, after dropping my kid at the hill, I zipped back over to the Huntsville SC to charge up. I arrived at 56% and while the battery was cold, it took me about 35 minutes to add 23%. Supercharger speeds were abysmal (cold battery and -22 C outside).
I didn't want to have to stop on the way home, so I was able to leave the car for a couple of hours at the destination charger before leaving, went back inside to do some work while my son was skiing and was able to get close to 100% for the trip home.
On the way home, the temp was -6%, and again the Car navigation said I would arrive home with about 36%. Instead I arrived home with 21% SOC - 226 km of driving was 240 wh/km (64.1% efficiency).
I have done a number of winter road trips, but when it is very cold, (i) be very conservative with the in car navigation estimate to make sure you have enough to get you to the next SC stop; (ii) your consumption will be very high; and (iii) depending on the outside temp, the older V2 superchargers may be operating at very slow speeds (making your charging stops that much longer - and when you need a higher SOC to make it to the next stop, this can all contribute to a much longer trip than you may have initially anticipated).
I was just driving around Brooklyn today on the streets, maybe put about 10-12 miles on the car but my range miles went from 96 down to 73 so about 23 range miles. It was 16F when I started and about 24F later. Heat was at 70 and my wife was with me in the car. We also had music on. In warm weather 10 real miles would be about 13-14 range miles when driving in the city. I know this is to be expected, just surprised to see how much range it took. I didn't check the kwh numbers in the car to see what usage really looked like. This is as cold as I've ever driven the car.
In the meantime I have solar installed but not yet turned on in my house. Once that is on I'm going to install a Tesla charger since they put a new panel in to do the solar install and left me a bunch of slots that I didn't have before. And once that is in I'll keep the car charged all the time since it won't cost any additional. It won't be completely free for another 4-5 years.
This is all to say the range and usage is only an issue if I ever decide to drive up to Buffalo in the winter, and that just isn't going to happen!
In the meantime I have solar installed but not yet turned on in my house. Once that is on I'm going to install a Tesla charger since they put a new panel in to do the solar install and left me a bunch of slots that I didn't have before. And once that is in I'll keep the car charged all the time since it won't cost any additional. It won't be completely free for another 4-5 years.
This is all to say the range and usage is only an issue if I ever decide to drive up to Buffalo in the winter, and that just isn't going to happen!
I drove in the morning when it was 11F today and I checked the usage specs and they were atrocious. kwh was about 40% higher. But then later in the day it warmed up to a balmy 28 and usage was more in line with normal. It took a very long time for regenerative braking to come back and it is kind of unnerving. I'm so used to 1 pedal driving in this car and found I couldn't finesse the speed the way I'm used to. You take your foot off and it just keeps going. Unlike a gas car it doesn't even slow down. But as regen came back I just naturally went back with it. When I drive a gas car it is still just second nature to use the brake even though this is my regular car now.
Hmm.. we have more than one moderator for the model 3 subforum, but I dont remember moving your post from the 14-50 thread. I havent looked at that thread for a while actually. I could move it back but its been answered here already.
Not a big deal, outlet all installed already, working well and nothing from the breaker to the plug into the car seems to even get very warm, after 6 hours of charging…
Well, keep in mind that these are two very different kinds of scenarios that will have different levels of energy usage. First drive of the day, when the car is cold, for a short distance, like 10 or 20 miles is going to have some insane, atrocious energy consumption figures, and yes, that doesn't surprise me it's going to show about 2X the rated miles consumed versus distance miles. But for long traveling trip drives, this consumption rate will drop off quite a lot, since the car finally gets up to a warmer temperature, both in the cabin and the battery/motor, and it can slow down to cycling the heating on and off some, instead of going full blast for a 10 mile drive. So the long trips won't be so dire for range concerns.
Like I said in the first post, it wasn't unexpected that it was so bad. I took it to the SC today because I can't charge it overnight at home for the moment, and you should see the numbers that the battery conditioning/warming produced on the way there. I can't charge overnight because the outlet I was using got a little crispy and that got me nervous. I switched outlets but the cord has to go out an open window, and the temps have been too damn cold for that. I have the inspectors coming in 2 days for my solar install and then I'll be good.
But after the charge I was driving around Brooklyn on the streets and everything was normal. Temps had risen to about 40 degrees and the car didn't mind that at all. I was getting usage below average just puttering around.
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Birdman325
Member
This is part of my theory (indirectly) about why they moved away from the "cards" which continually displayed your consumption and made it slightly more difficult to see your car's consumption. They are trying to move people away from constantly obsessing over / focussing on their energy usage. Of course, this makes no sense to me, as especially in the winter, or when on a long trip, being mindful of that info is critical. But just a thought.
But only slightly more difficult. I've added the consumption graph as one of my customizable icons. I watch it now more than ever.
And the building inspector came today for my solar and it failed the inspection
. When the electrician from the company came first I could tell he was concerned. It wasn't a big fail, just enough little things that they will come to reinspect rather than allow remediation and photos.Similar threads
