navguy12
Active Member
Great write up!Since there are probably a lot of people heading into their first winter with a Model 3 I thought I'd start a tip thread.
I have a LR RWD which I got July '18. I've driven it through one Minnesota winter. Here's a few things from my experience.
- Preheat. In cold weather it helps to turn on climate control while you are getting ready in the morning. This allows the car to use wall power rather than battery power to heat up the interior. It also warms the battery pack some.
- Reduced Regen. When the car has sat overnight in any temps below about 60F you'll notice some regen limitation. This is shown by the dots in the upper left on the power bar. The colder it is the more dots you will have and less regenerative braking. As the battery warms up you'll get back some or all of the dots. In sub zero weather you'll probably not be able to get all of them back. Be prepared as it is sometime a bit of a shock when you let up on the pedal and the car does not slow down as expected.
- Winter Tires. You'll find many threads on winter tires and which are good. In short, winter tires are no more or less necessary then on any other car. If you don't usually need winter tires then you may not on the Model 3. If you do get them, you'll have much better stopping and turning ability in cold/icy conditions. AWD will help you get going, but only the tires will help with stopping and turning. Last winter I used the stock 18" aero tires and had no more or less problems then previous cars. I can say the car is very smart about recovering from any slips. This year I plan on getting winter tires for the added safety.
- Chill mode and low regen. Tesla recommends you put the car in chill mode and low regen for slippery conditions. I did try that last year and quickly went back to normal settings. For one, in cold weather you already have reduced regen so setting it to low did nothing much. As for chill mode, I find I can easily modulate my acceleration for the conditions and don't really need the car restricting me. If you are having trouble, you may want to give those a try for yourself.
- Handling. The car is very good at handling wheel slip. It will accelerate without spinning the wheels. (there is a mode to allow slip if you need it to get unstuck) It is also quite good at recovering from back end slide outs. I found the RWD has a tendency to slide out a bit when starting an acceleration on ice. The first time it does it you think you are going to spin out, but it pulls itself back to straight almost before you can react. I have not driven the an AWD so I'll let someone else post how that handles.
- Reduced Range. Depending on the temperature you will have some range reduction. I would say most of the winter it was in the order of 20-30%. We had a couple days around -30F and range reduction was closer to 50% at that extreme cold. One of the biggest hits to your range is the cabin heat. If possible preheat while you are still plugged in. If you really need the range, use the seat heaters rather than the cabin heat. They require less power. The other factors are cold batteries and reduced regen. Some people have found that timing your nightly charging so that it finishes right before you leave in the morning will allow you to start with a warmer battery pack and give you more of your normal range back. People tend to dwell on reduced winter range as a drawback to BEV, but ICE cars also have reduced range in the winter.
- Defrost. The front window defrost has two settings. On the first press the icon turn blue and it directs cabin temperature air to the front window. On the second press the icon turns red and it directs full heat to the front window. I wish there was something in between. During snow storms the first setting is not enough to keep the window clean and the second setting is like having a hair dryer pointed at your face. Turning up the cabin temp does help the first setting.
- Instant heat. One of the very nice things about electric heat is that you don't have to wait for an engine to warm up before you get nice warm air coming from the vents.
- Sticking Charger Plug. In damp freezing conditions it is possible for the charging plug to get stuck and not release from the car. Tesla did put out an update last winter to help with that. If it does happen to you there is a release pull inside the trunk directly behind the charging port.
- Frozen door handles. I only had this happen once. I washed the car on a warmer day and did not dry the handles well enough. It took some determined pushing to get them to open. If you do have a situation where the handles are wet and you know you'll have freezing temp overnight, make sure you dry the handles off.
If you have any more tips, please add them to the thread.
I used a different technique for winter HVAC than leaving the system in auto and then having to play with the full cold/full hot defrost setting (eastern Ontario is home base).
Besides seat heat, I keep the HVAC set to 17c (cloudy, with 20c when sunny because sun load sensor goes way overboard IMO), fan speed set to 2, ac off, fresh air only (no recirc), air flow on feet, windscreen and mains with mains all aimed at side windows.
I have a remote digital temperature probe mounted in the drivers footwell air vent outlet to monitor actual temperatures exiting the HVAC system.
That technique worked successfully all last winter (YMMV).
As for range losses, my only measurable and repeatable results are a routine 257 km trip. In the summer, that requires 52% battery. In the winter, 67%.