Camping: how to keep HVAC on over 30min?

andrewket said:

4/ I haven't tried putting dead weight onto the driver's seat yet. Has anyone used this technique?

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I believe that this works. I've been in the seat for over an hour before and it has not shut off. That said, it wasn't while charging, but I doubt that would make a difference.

If you go into the settings and put the car in neutral then set the emergency brake (same button) the car will stay on indefinitely even without anyone in the driver's seat.

efusco said:

If you go into the settings and put the car in neutral then set the emergency brake (same button) the car will stay on indefinitely even without anyone in the driver's seat.

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I don't believe you can unlock the charge port when you do that, though... he needs to be able to charge while doing it, and I do believe charging requires the car be in park.

FlasherZ said:

I believe that this works. I've been in the seat for over an hour before and it has not shut off. That said, it wasn't while charging, but I doubt that would make a difference.

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This worked for over 3 hours with an older firmware.

Anyone definitively get the dead weight thing to work? I camped in my Tesla last week for 4 nights in a row, the first night I was plugged in and couldn't do the "neutral -> emergency brake" dance because it was plugged in. I put my suit case (probably 20 lbs) on the driver's seat, but the car still shut off after 30 minutes. I'd wake up every hour or so hot with the inside of the car steamed up despite cracking the windows and leaving one of the doors ajar. I'd have to close then reopen a door to get the HVAC to come back on for another 30 minutes.

The rest of the nights I just didn't plug in, did the "neutral->ebrake" dance and was able to keep the car on all night, though the dash also stayed lit so it was a bit brighter than I'd have liked. Lost about 15-20 miles of range during an 8 hour sleep.

Is the weight I was using on the driver's seat not enough? Who's actually made this work while plugged in?

In one of https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland/featuredBjørn Nyland videos, he sleeps in the car in the drivers seat with the car in park and has to wake up every 30 mins to tap the break to turn the car back on. I suspect the dead-weight trick does not actually work. I plan on camping in the car quite a bit, unfortunately there does not appear to be a way to continually keep the car on while charging.

If you are not charging, the car can be kept on indefinitely by placing the car in neutral and setting the emergency brake.

Perhaps there should be a "Camping Mode" to go along with "Tow Mode" and "Jack Mode"?

mmh said:

In one of Bjørn Nyland videos, he sleeps in the car in the drivers seat with the car in park and has to wake up every 30 mins to tap the break to turn the car back on. I suspect the dead-weight trick does not actually work. I plan on camping in the car quite a bit, unfortunately there does not appear to be a way to continually keep the car on while charging.

If you are not charging, the car can be kept on indefinitely by placing the car in neutral and setting the emergency brake.

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Supposing you mean the brake, not a break, there must be some workaround for this. Some of the accessory traders could make some kind of gadget which could press the brake pedal every 20 minutes or so - until Tesla makes a fix for it. Maybe even a hack into some of the electronics to trick the car into not falling asleep. Combine it with special covers to darken the screens, and you have a complete "camping kit", optionally adding the air mattress, with a small compressor to go with it!

Whether camping or not, there could be reasons you would want the A/C on for prolonged times, while plugged in. And if you do have a charger connected, what's the problem (apart from using up energy)? If you stayed overnight in a hotel room, that would also use A/C, and probably a lot more energy. You could have perishable food in your car overnight for instance, or after shopping and then going to a movie - you might not want to fry your groceries in the sun.

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andrewket said:

15-20 miles rated for 8 hours of a/c isn't too bad.

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I talked to a TM employee who said they did an official test to a car in a showroom. Kept it unplugged, overnight for 12 hours with A/C on maximum intensity, and the next morning it lost 24 miles range. Ties up nicely with 15-20 miles after 8 hours.

He said it wasn't a scientific test in any way, just a practical trial with one car. That was something that helped convince me change my order to include the pano roof, as I had thought the A/C used a lot more power.

Put the car in 'N' and engage the parking brake on the touch screen.

A "camping mode" to run the HVAC and dim the screens while charging would be awesome. Maybe in 6.0?

In the meantime, would putting the car in Park and leaving a door cracked, with only the first latch locked, keep the HVAC on?

GSP

has anyone tried setting up a program to automatically call the car's REST API every so often to keep the climate controls set?

Andrew,

Have you contacted ownership about this? If they know some way to do it, you'll find out the trick. If not, maybe at least they'll register the request for a future update.

(Although I highly doubt there's a method that ownership knows that nobody on this board would have found by now).

andrewket said:

I haven't, but it's a good idea and discussed before. I wonder if visible tesla's scheduling system could be made to do this. I'll go look.

Update: Yes, the scheduler can be used to turn on the HVAC. It's not ideal though, you would have to create an entry every 30 minutes to send the "ON" command. There is a limit of 16 entries, so you could get 8 hours this way. Enough for overnight. I'm going to go try this.

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If it is limited to 16 entries you could hit every 45+/- minutes or so and get 12+/- hours. The 15 minutes where HVAC is asleep shouldn't change the temp too much, unless it is extremely hot/cold out.

I don't know if I would call this camping maybe glancing. 8)

andrewket said:

Correct. The charge port won't unlock if the car isn't in park. Conversely, the car won't go out of park if the charging cable is inserted.

I will try the dead weight option tonight or tomorrow.

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Andrewket: Did you try this and if so, what were your findings?

I just called Tesla support and they thought that a 50 lb weight on the drivers seat would work. I'll give it a try.

Guy