Andyw2100
Well-Known Member
They didn't. You misunderstood. Read what Cottonwood had written again. He said he had no regen LIMITS when he left his garage. (Not no regen, which must be how you understood it.)
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Winter Driving Experiences
- Thread starter kevincwelch
- Start date
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- Driving Dynamics Model S
They didn't. You misunderstood. Read what Cottonwood had written again. He said he had no regen LIMITS when he left his garage. (Not no regen, which must be how you understood it.)
Cottonwood
Roadster#433, Model S#S37
That is correct. I had full regen when I left the garage, then regen became limited as the belly of the beast slid through the cold, wet snow.
Drove with the stock winter tires in the ~2 feet of snow here. I had to drive to Milwaukee. and over Chicago. Didnt have any issues and the MS was in complete control. Saw tons of wrecks. Worst one was involving 4 + cars. The only disadvantage with the MS in this big of snow is that I had to get out of the car and shovel the driveway entrance as the snow plows built up a barriers. The SUV would have plowed through it but not chancing it with the MS. I took the car to a parking lot (which I do with every new car) to test to get a feel on how it would lose control and all. I could barely make it lose control doing a full on steering wheel stop turn. You can feel those front wheels pull you into the turn.
You drove in 2 feet of snow. Impressive.... You must have set it to very, very high suspension.
Mayhemm
Model S P85+ "Lola"
Yep. My bad.
On a related note, I think my car has decided it's had enough of this cold weather (several weeks of below -20C) as there seem to be way more glitches of late. The door handles frequently refuse to extend without use of the fob and a couple times I've gotten random, one-off error messages.
The most severe of these was one day after work when I was bombarded with errors saying the traction control, stability control, ABS, and Regen had all been disabled. This made for quite a tricky drive home since the roads were very slick from the previous day's snowfall.
I reported the issue to Tesla and they were going to have the Vancouver Service Center look at my logs and follow up with me (haven't heard anything yet).
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I did. Set it to high. the interstate was ok but the side roads were iffy on bottoming out. I did "slide" over some areas of snow esp. when I was testing the car out in a parking lot.
Duckjybe
Member
I have never had this happen. Today it was -20 C and my car sat at the GO train station all afternoon with only 30% charge. Came back to it in the evening and it had a snowflake and blue line on the charge indicator. This I have had before but not for a while but I don't usually leave my car in such a low state of charge in the cold for so long. Regen was disabled which is normal for such a cold soaked battery. The unnerving part was that I was limited to only 50kW power output which barely allowed me to accelerate on the highway. When I say barely it was probably accelerating more like a normal ICE car which I am not used but I would not wan't it any less than that!
Andyw2100
Well-Known Member
Were you heading home from the train station? Did you make it home with plenty of battery power to spare? Assuming the answer to those two questions is yes...
If the option had been available to you, would you have warmed your battery using battery power, knowing that it would cost you some range, but that it would have given you regen and more power output? If the answer to that is yes, then please consider voting in this poll and/or commenting in the thread: Would you use battery heating if it were available?
Wow. The 50kw surprises me. It's been in the -20 to -30 range up here in Sudbury all week, and park outside at the office all day. I've seen 120kw a bunch of times, but never less than that. At 50kw, I can imagine that the car would be a fair bit of a dog!
bsd
Member
mknox
Well-Known Member
Same here, only at work parked outside all day. No re-gen, severe power limit, but still no damned snowflake and blue segment on the power bar! I've never seen that snowflake. I wonder if the old A-packs don't support it?
Mayhemm
Model S P85+ "Lola"
Only time I've been that low was when I was low on charge and limping to the nearest EVSE, shortly after the car cut power to the HVAC. :redface:
I found you don't really need more than 50kW very often around town. You're not going to beat any yellow lights, but it's fine for cruising. Although, climbing a decent hill takes about 80kW in my experience
I had the snowflake a few times this week. So maybe the A packs don't support it. Any other A pack owners see the snowflake when it is freezing cold?
Peter_M
Member
I have the D pack and I've never seen the snowflake. I have left the car out unplugged in -20C or lower for several hours, but never overnight. At home it's in an unheated garage, so it usually doesn't get below -15C. It seems like the battery has to be really cold before the snowflake shows.
Duckjybe
Member
I am now getting a vehicle coolant low warning message but I checked it and it is just marginally low. Cause of extra cold battery possibly? I had snowflake this morning even while plugged in all night and 70% charge ( I am using this setting now and rather like it). It was the coldest night of the year.
mknox
Well-Known Member
It was -10 F / -23 C this morning on my commute to work. I did pre-heat the car on shore power before leaving, but drove "normally" with the cabin at a comfortable temperate and not in Range Mode. My commute is mostly freeway and totals about 42 miles each way. It was clear and dry. My efficiency was 498 Wh/mi compared to right around 300 in the summer. That means I would have to multiply my actual distance by about 2.25 to calculate how many Rated Miles I would burn. Yikes!
I made a ski trip over the previous weekend to Mont Tremblant from Brampton: Starting Friday afternoon with full charge at home, then Supercharging at Kingston (~300km), Cornwall and Montreal arriving later night to the ski resort. I have slow-charged from 110V plug in the underground parking lot of the Hotel for 2 days, then started the return trip at 80% SOC, -27 C temperature and made it back home in 9.5 hours total including the 3 supercharger stops. The lowest charge level was at about 10% both way when arriving to Kingston SC.
The trip-estimate graph usually started out roughly 10% higher for the final charge, i.e. it was overly optimistic for the cold temperature, but adjusted itself gradually during the first 30-40km, and the estimate was reliable and steady after that. I was driving about 110-120 km/h speed on the highways (pretty much going with the typical traffic speed), although I did slow down to ~100km/h a few times when the arrival estimate dropped below 10%. On the way home I also stopped by the Toronto SC for a short top-up, not so much because I needed it (I could have made it home with 8% charge left), but more so because the crew needed a restroom break.
Overall, I am very happy with the battery performance and SC placement for this pretty cold trip.
The trip-estimate graph usually started out roughly 10% higher for the final charge, i.e. it was overly optimistic for the cold temperature, but adjusted itself gradually during the first 30-40km, and the estimate was reliable and steady after that. I was driving about 110-120 km/h speed on the highways (pretty much going with the typical traffic speed), although I did slow down to ~100km/h a few times when the arrival estimate dropped below 10%. On the way home I also stopped by the Toronto SC for a short top-up, not so much because I needed it (I could have made it home with 8% charge left), but more so because the crew needed a restroom break.
Overall, I am very happy with the battery performance and SC placement for this pretty cold trip.
my guess would be that this is a percentage factor above the buffer he already leaves himself by default ...
Yes, I have my original battery (VIN 01536) and I've been seeing the snowflake/blue bar during this recent weather. I drive infrequently in this weather, and for short errands, so my pack has gotten warm enough to support regen since late January.
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?!? How can you check the vehicle coolant? The only fluid I'm aware that we can access is the wiper washer fluid.
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