Winter Charging (Philadelphia)

[rkg114]

Hi all, anyone else on East coast seeing major KWH usage increases especially here in winter since buying the tesla?

Last year, for the period 11/15-12/15 my KWH usage was 776kwh for the house for electric

This winter, same period, now that I have a tesla (the only difference and variable), my KWH was 1,668Kwh, which is insane.

Based on our rates, i'm at $110/month to charge the car in this period. I drive about 45mi a day commuting

This seems excessive, is there something i'm doing wrong? is the car pulling electricity even when it's fully charged? i'm charging every day and to about an 80% level as recommended.

Do i need to change something in my settings? do scheduled charges etc because this can't be right, something must be wrong for the car to suddenly more than double the KWH used over the prior year

 

[joelliot]

Hi all, anyone else on East coast seeing major KWH usage increases especially here in winter since buying the tesla?

Last year, for the period 11/15-12/15 my KWH usage was 776kwh for the house for electric

This winter, same period, now that I have a tesla (the only difference and variable), my KWH was 1,668Kwh, which is insane.

Based on our rates, i'm at $110/month to charge the car in this period. I drive about 45mi a day commuting

This seems excessive, is there something i'm doing wrong? is the car pulling electricity even when it's fully charged? i'm charging every day and to about an 80% level as recommended.

Do i need to change something in my settings? do scheduled charges etc because this can't be right, something must be wrong for the car to suddenly more than double the KWH used over the prior year

I ended up disabling both standby summon and sentry mode. With these on, the car would never sleep and would charge a couple of times per day. The problem when cold is that each charge required a couple minutes of 7 kW battery heating. For me it was probably close to 5 kWh a day, which does add up. With everything off, the car will sleep for more than a day with no usage at all.

 

[TydalForce]

I literally just saw this in a neighboring thread:

keep it charging?

The "leave it plugged in and let the car handle it" is great advice... until it gets cold.

I've noticed the car will top off when it's 1% down from your charge level, but in my case the car will spend >1kWh warming the batteries before dumping the <1kWh of actual energy the battery requires for top up. Not that this is any significant cost or anything.. I just hate the idea of wasting so much energy. I wish the car was smart enough to lower the charge rate so it wouldn't require battery heating for these minor top ups. It's not even that cold here yet..

And/or, check if your HVAC is running more -- I haven't looked at the weather in comparison (was this a colder December?), there might be a fault, some insulation might have been lost, etc. but that'd be another thing to check just to be sure.

 

[rkg114]

I ended up disabling both standby summon and sentry mode. With these on, the car would never sleep and would charge a couple of times per day. The problem when cold is that each charge required a couple minutes of 7 kW battery heating. For me it was probably close to 5 kWh a day, which does add up. With everything off, the car will sleep for more than a day with no usage at all.

hmm..i have sentry off at home and work but i think the damn useless smart summon is turned to stand by. I will disable that going forward.

On the other comment of difference in temp/insulation etc...none, in the winter that runs on gas so that's a separate bill. the electricity should be way way lower in the winter, the only variable is i now have a tesla

 

[SSedan]

The pack needs heating to charge and the cabin uses battery power to heat these add up to significant amounts of power.

What are you charging from 5-15 14-50?

 

[rkg114]

NEMA 14-50

 

[SSedan]

And you are letting it pull 32amps?
Was asking because a slow charge rate prolonging charging in cold could have caused excessive time spent heating the pack.

Tesla and the koolaid drinkers are very bad about admitting cold weather power consumption. Short trips especially swill energy for cabin heating.

 

[rkg114]

yeah it charges at 31-32 at home.....

the car is costing about as much as an ICE car that runs at about 35mpg at this point. definitely not something fanboys ever disclose when speaking about the car w/ other people...i'll be sure to do so to give an accurate picture of pros/cons.

i just didn't expect to get this big of a spike, i think some of this may have to do w/ the standby on smart summon which i will now disable, its a useless feature anyway

 

[SoManyM3s]

yeah it charges at 31-32 at home.....

the car is costing about as much as an ICE car that runs at about 35mpg at this point. definitely not something fanboys ever disclose when speaking about the car w/ other people...i'll be sure to do so to give an accurate picture of pros/cons.

i just didn't expect to get this big of a spike, i think some of this may have to do w/ the standby on smart summon which i will now disable, its a useless feature anyway

I’ve had that realization this winter as well. There is a lot of wastage in vampire/sentry losses as well as losses related to driving fast which is not usually a big deal in ice cars. Definitely not cheaper than ice in both short and long term

 

[SSedan]

I don't track the numbers but gut feeling is it is a wash vs ICE in winter, but might save a buck the other three seasons.

That is of course just fuel, not counting insurance.........
My 2014 S is NOT cheaper maintenance and repairs wise than my wife's 2014 Impala which has about 12k more on it. Hope the 3s are.

I drive a Tesla because I enjoy the car, not deluding myself with ideas of savings.

 

[DrtyJrze]

I think it’s the smart summon that’s killing you. The car is “On” 24/7 when you keep it at the ready.

 

[ewoodrick]

Hi all, anyone else on East coast seeing major KWH usage increases especially here in winter since buying the tesla?

Last year, for the period 11/15-12/15 my KWH usage was 776kwh for the house for electric

This winter, same period, now that I have a tesla (the only difference and variable), my KWH was 1,668Kwh, which is insane.

Based on our rates, i'm at $110/month to charge the car in this period. I drive about 45mi a day commuting

This seems excessive, is there something i'm doing wrong? is the car pulling electricity even when it's fully charged? i'm charging every day and to about an 80% level as recommended.

Do i need to change something in my settings? do scheduled charges etc because this can't be right, something must be wrong for the car to suddenly more than double the KWH used over the prior year

Are you suggesting that the weather and the temperature were exactly the same as last year? Or maybe there is a lot of variable in pricing from one year to the next, the car being just one of them.

BTW, had much did you pay in gas during the same period last year?

 

[hugh_jassol]

Last year, for the period 11/15-12/15 my KWH usage was 776kwh for the house for electric

This winter, same period, now that I have a tesla (the only difference and variable), my KWH was 1,668Kwh, which is insane.

Based on our rates, i'm at $110/month to charge the car in this period. I drive about 45mi a day commuting

Which car do you have? And what is you batt % at the end of the typical day?

 

[KetchupKilla]

Which car do you have? And what is you batt % at the end of the typical day?

I've disabled smart summon standby and sentry at home. I mostly just use my car on the weekends since I drive a company van for work during the week. Generally on Sunday night my car has 70 percent and I just drop the charge percent to 60. I usually only end up with around 67% by the weekend even in this cold weather. If you are using Teslafi make sure you enable sleep mode and stop it from polling the data constantly