I've been using an app to start heating my cabin for years now...before Tesla, that's nothing new. What I'm talking about is a button to FULLY prepare the battery for your adventure. Preheating from the APP will only allow the battery to prewarm to 10C, which will still leave you will half of the yellow lines (regen). Engineers need to allow customers to choose to fully pre-warm the battery, period.
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Winter Shock : 800kWh?
- Thread starter Gsxr150
- Start date
As noted, we have some options now, but yes, I’d like to see a firmware update with settings to hold the battery above regen limiting temps when plugged in or at all times available for folks who care more about comfort and drive experience/consistency than total energy consumption.
YES, but your statement should read like this since comfort and drive experience has zero to do with this suggestion to Tesla:
"I'd like to see a firmware update with settings to hold the battery above regen limiting temps when plugged in or at all times available for folks who are taking a long road trip in extremely cold temperatures, so the battery is fully prepared to utilize max capacity towards propulsion, rather than having the battery continue to cannibalize itself to work towards a fully-warmed state in the early part of the vehicle's journey."
In simple terms, I want the option to use the grid to fully warm the battery so when I depart I don't have to use the Tesla battery (in the first part of my drive). This will increase and maximize my total range capability for longer trips, or when max range capability is a requirement.
Well, I chose my wording deliberately. I don't really worry about it on long road trips - I know I'll get the regen back in the first hour, and it'll stay warm after that - and away from traffic jams it doesn't matter much on the freeway anyway. You just have to make sure that on nights you don't have a destination charger you do your Supercharging on arrival before bed, instead of on departure, and by the time you get to the next stop it's warm again.
Where this would make a big difference for me is my daily commutes, where I never spend long enough going either way for the pack to fully warm - and it's running the heater the whole time I'm driving, crashing my economy for no visible gain while I feel like I'm going to run things over and have to keep hitting the brake pedal.
I'd have to see how much energy it eats parked during the day before I decide if I'd want to keep it warm all day, but certainly I want it while plugged in (and probably during the day too.) Seems like a pretty easy option to add compared to some things they've done recently.
trekkie
Member
trekkie
Member
You make this sound so matter of fact, but it's not obvious how to do this. The new scheduled charging doesn't seem to do this. I mean my expectation was it'd be at 90%, warm and toasty at 7:30am like I asked, instead of near as I can tell it did that at 6:00am, and stopped when it got to temp. So instead, my car is in the 50s, 87%, and regen is limited the entire trip to work.
Short trips are the worst in terms of energy consumption, especially if you have range mode turned off. The car has to expend energy to heat both the interior of the vehicle and the high voltage battery. On a long trip, the energy used for this initial heating will be amortized across many miles. On a short trip, the energy for initial heating ends up being a significant portion of your total consumption, resulting in high Wh/mile figures like you're seeing.
If you are just short tripping around town, consider turning on range mode. This will limit the battery heating, which will extend your range. Note that range mode will also limit cabin heating to 50% of maximum, so you might find yourself being a little chillier than you're used to. Supplementing with heated seats and steering will make a big difference in your comfort while consuming very little additional energy.
Welcome to winter!
PS: turn range mode off before you plan on charging. A cold battery can't charge.
I really, really want to join the Tesla club and more than likely will begin with replacing my wife's X5 which is way past its prime. What I am becoming concerned about is the complexity of the Tesla cars. I understand its not an ICE car and is vastly different in pretty much every aspect but if this thing requires so much thought to use based on weather, trips, using heat in winter, warming a battery, turning modes on and off all of this technology may spoil the experience for us. How it needs to be like an ICE car is you get it in and go. Use the heat in winter, blast the AC in summer and not to be obsessed with what feature is on when it's parked, setting a timer to "precondition" the car before leaving etc.
I'm feeling more intimidated by the technology and daily use of Tesla rather than feeling more informed as i spend time on this forum.
I'm feeling more intimidated by the technology and daily use of Tesla rather than feeling more informed as i spend time on this forum.
There is a tendency to over-complicate the process on these forums. Use as much climate control as you want around town - just be aware that you'll have to charge more often and your electric bill will increase accordingly. You can do the same on long trips as long as you're in an area with good Supercharger coverage - just keep an eye on the trip planner and expect to spend some additional time at the charging stations and make more frequent stops than you would in the summer.
I leave the HVAC in auto and keep it set at a comfortable temperature, even on long winter road trips. I charge as often as necessary and don't worry about about it. If I run into some surprise weather, I'll adjust my driving - otherwise, it's hammer down.
Tips: set the battery display to % instead of miles ... having it on miles in the winter will give you a false sense of how far you can go. Winter range is typically 2/3 of what's displayed on the battery meter. Play around with the energy graph and the trip planner and get to know how speed and weather conditions affect energy consumption. It'll take a little time to get used to but will quickly become second nature.
sllvgl
Member
I recently became a Tesla owner, I second the previous comment on how these forums make things more complicated than they can be. There are a lot of tinkerers around here, folks who are trying to get the most out of their car and/or explain all its behaviors and request constant improvements. I see this as a very passionate community, stimulated by the incredible improvements that come with over their air updates. I'm not a car person and I found myself on the forum several times a day, that's the engineer in me bringing me here. If you want just a car, a Tesla is fine for that as well.
Unless your drives are all very short, less than a few miles that is very high. I do see about 500-600 w/m at about 15 degrees F. Consumption is very temperature dependant. I average about 330 year around, northern Ohio. Teslafi gives great data, see my attached temperature chart.
trekkie
Member
All I can say is 'try not too' and ignore most of us if not all of us. all this talk about preconditioning is just a lot of being lazy. Preconditioning is a fancy term for warming it up. I've had to go out side in the cold, start a car, come back in side and wait 15m while the thing 'warmed up' and melted the ice off of it, Now you can push a button and not go out in the cold or the hot and wait a bit. It's just fancier and more fun to do it from an app.
There's no reason you can't walk out, start car, and drive off other than it'll be cold for a bit just like any other car. the difference is with an EV it draws more electricity vs takes 30m to get warm. Honestly, after the first shock of seeing the dash change you really don't notice it. I drive a 60 mile commute and the cold has never not let me make it home. The numbers have swung wildly on the dash, but if you switch it to % instead of 'estimated range' the angst goes away and you use maybe a few more % points from full.
There is a lot of early panic because this behavior is all new. I've been driving an EV now since January 2018. I stared at that battery status in my Bolt every day there and back. it never got below 50% at worst if I forgot to charge one night. yet I obsessed over it. it took a long time for me to realize that I was doing it, and then the ridiculousness of it. It reminded me of when I was a kid and broke and not wanting to run out of gas.
The Tesla's are a great car. The Model X is its flagship model right now. It's a looker and its a bit weird being the center of attention. you pop those falcon doors and the parking lot stops. Funniest moment was picking up my kids at the elementary school. The chorus of kids and the ooooooooooh that comes out is great.
frank-datank
Member
Couldn't agree more, especially with the % vs mi/km. So many threads on here with people are saying, "my 90% is only __ mi...should I be concerned?".
frank-datank
Member
Below are my figures too for context. I think seeing a bunch people's data might help to get an idea of what to expect. I'm in Indy and took delivery Dec '18, so no subzero drives of more than 5 miles. That being said, I've had the 22's on since delivery, so there's an extra range hit too. Winter 20's going on this week, will be interesting to see the difference.
Echoing what others have said/asked, what is your sample size? Wheels? If more than 10-mile drives or so, I think its worth a service center visit.
Echoing what others have said/asked, what is your sample size? Wheels? If more than 10-mile drives or so, I think its worth a service center visit.
frank-datank
Member
The problem with the scheduled departure option, is that it will avoid peak rate charging times, which it defines as 6am. If you don't have time of use rates, then this is annoying because it will begin charging much earlier to avoid the more expensive charge times. I hope there will be an option in a future update to either use/don't time of use rates.
The only workaround for now to hit your charge just when ready to leave is to use the scheduled (time to begin) charge option, through the car, teslafi, or whatever.
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