Winter range and battery conditioning.

[Darthbenji]

I will be parking my M3 outside in my driveway over the cold months. Is there a way to limit range loss by conditioning the car an hour or so before leaving in the morning while it’s plugged in? I read there is no batter heater on the 3. Leaving work it would be cold soaked though. If it can be prewarmed is that a timer available on the app one can set before bed for instance?

 

[Lon12]

The model 3 has the ability to heat it's battery. Charging also warms the battery. It is helpful to schedule your charging to end around your departure time.

 

[Whisky]

Yeah, you’ll get accustomed to scheduling the charge at 2am or 3am depending on how cold it is, and how much you drove the day before, and how much you need to drive the next day. The goal is to have the battery sufficiently charged, and still charging, when you first drfive in the morning. It works out just fine! Side note, in a MX, even with this strategy on particularly cold days it could take up to an hour for full regen. Winters are a little weird, but it’s part of the joy.

Other people subscribe to the “always have a car charged” theory in “just in case” you need it. Charge it to 80% as soon as you get home, and schedule a charge to 90% in the early morning. With the LR model, you could probably get away with just going up to 75 or 80% charge with ease. You’ll get the hang of it

 

[Darthbenji]

So if a cold battery is hard to charge and mine will be parked in my driveway with some really cold winter nights, how well will it charge if I schedule charging it to start at 2 or 3 am?

 

[Vawlkus]

It’ll start charging slowly, but it’ll heat up fairly quickly. In point of fact, if you leave it plugged in the battery heater will keep the pack warm enough to charge without much fuss.