Storage recommendations and battery charging while away

SnakeEyes · Mar 18, 2014

Are there any best practices for non-use of your Model S, particularly around the battery?

For example, if I'm away on business and will not be using my Model S for a long period of time, what would you recommend if I'm:

1) Away for 7-10 days? (Leave the car plugged in the whole time in my garage?)
2) Away for 11-20 days?
3) Away for 1 month? (Have a friend take it for a drive while I'm away?)
4) Away for 2 months?

Thanks for any tips.

mknox · Mar 18, 2014

Tesla recommends always leaving it plugged in. I usually will set my charge percentage to 50 or 60% and leave my charge timer to come on after the lowest TOU price tier. The car will wake up and top off every couple of days or so. The longest I've left my car is about 2 weeks.

jerry33 · Mar 18, 2014

Leave it plugged in. Set the slider at 50%. Don't worry.

Doug_G · Mar 18, 2014

jerry33 said:
Leave it plugged in. Set the slider at 50%. Don't worry.

What he said.

Chipper · Mar 19, 2014

Repeat this adage: A plugged in Tesla is a happy Tesla.

mknox · Mar 19, 2014

jerry33 said:
Leave it plugged in. Set the slider at 50%. Don't worry.

And do yourself a favor if you're on Time-of-Use rates and set the charge timer in an off-peak period. When the car wakes up to top off, it will respect the timer settings and only charge on or after the scheduled time.

kWh · Mar 19, 2014

Tesla recommends not leaving the Model S unplugged for more than two weeks. Long periods of unplugged storage can, reportedly, destroy the battery and it will not be covered by the Tesla warranty. I would never plan to do this, but it is not so farfetched to imagine situations where the car "becomes unplugged". The most likely example that I can imagine is that a house sitter, maid, home handyman, etc. unplugs the car while moving materials, carrying out the trash, etc. and forgets to plug the cord back into the receptacle. Is there any on-board system that could, at least, warn the owner, like an SOS email?

TexasEV · Mar 19, 2014

kWh said:
Tesla recommends not leaving the Model S unplugged for more than two weeks. Long periods of unplugged storage can, reportedly, destroy the battery and it will not be covered by the Tesla warranty. I would never plan to do this, but it is not so farfetched to imagine situations where the car "becomes unplugged". The most likely example that I can imagine is that a house sitter, maid, home handyman, etc. unplugs the car while moving materials, carrying out the trash, etc. and forgets to plug the cord back into the receptacle. Is there any on-board system that could, at least, warn the owner, like an SOS email?

You could check on it with your iPhone app periodically.

dsm363 · Mar 19, 2014

kWh said:
Tesla recommends not leaving the Model S unplugged for more than two weeks. Long periods of unplugged storage can, reportedly, destroy the battery and it will not be covered by the Tesla warranty. I would never plan to do this, but it is not so farfetched to imagine situations where the car "becomes unplugged". The most likely example that I can imagine is that a house sitter, maid, home handyman, etc. unplugs the car while moving materials, carrying out the trash, etc. and forgets to plug the cord back into the receptacle. Is there any on-board system that could, at least, warn the owner, like an SOS email?

Welcome! Check out this blog from 2012
Plug It In | Blog | Tesla Motors

The software has greatly changed since then but I'm sure they mean with sleep mode enabled and a standard charge you're looking at a year according to Tesla. You're at least looking at well over the 2 weeks you quoted even if you ran to empty.

djp · Mar 19, 2014

kWh said:
Tesla recommends not leaving the Model S unplugged for more than two weeks. Long periods of unplugged storage can, reportedly, destroy the battery and it will not be covered by the Tesla warranty. I would never plan to do this, but it is not so farfetched to imagine situations where the car "becomes unplugged".

Yes, the battery can be destroyed (bricked) by dropping down to zero charge, but it takes months (not weeks) to get there, and bricking is covered by warranty.

Tesla reserves a buffer below zero miles to reduce the risk of harming the battery, and the car will protect itself by shutting down all systems if the charge gets too low. It can stay like that for months (although the 12V battery will die).

Definitely keep the car plugged in when possible, but a couple of weeks at an airport isn't going to hurt it.

djp · Mar 19, 2014

Also see:

Creating the Worldâ€™s Best Service and Warranty Program | Blog | Tesla Motors

Battery Warranty

The battery pack in your car is obviously very important and expensive to replace. In developing the Model S, we took great care to ensure that the battery would protect itself, always retaining a few percent of energy. If something goes wrong, it is therefore our fault, not yours.

Except in the cases of a collision, opening of the battery pack by non-Tesla personnel or intentional abuse (lighting the pack on fire with a blowtorch is not covered!), all damage is covered by warranty, including improper maintenance or unintentionally leaving the pack at a low state of charge for years on end. The battery will be replaced at no cost by a factory reconditioned unit with an energy capacity equal to or better than the original pack before the failure occurred.

The intent is to provide complete peace of mind about owning your Model S even if you never read or followed the instructions in the manual.

Elon

Bill D · Mar 19, 2014

jerry33 said:
Leave it plugged in. Set the slider at 50%. Don't worry.

While being away for extended periods with your MS plugged into an HPWC and the slider set to 50%, I wonder if there's any advantage or disadvantage to leaving the max current set at 80A?

Might setting the max current lower be better? Perhaps 10A or less.

djp · Mar 19, 2014

Bill D said:
I wonder if there's any advantage or disadvantage to leaving the max current set at 80A?

Might setting the max current lower be better? Perhaps 10A or less.

It won't make much of a difference. If the SOC is above 50% it'll slowly bleed down without charging. Once the vampire drain brings it to 50% the BMS will do short charge cycles every 1-2 days to top up. The charge cycle will be too short for current to matter.

Chris Naps · Mar 20, 2014

Hello! I would definitely recommend looking at this video:

This gentleman left his Model S 85 KW battery for 27 days in winter time - in Norway. That means... less than 32 degree weather for 27 days.

He left it at 90% before he left.

Lloyd · Mar 20, 2014

This video was made way before the current updates of software improving the vampire drain.

I was recently gone for two weeks. I left with 168 miles, set the slider on 50% plugged in. It did not charge while I was away. When I returned it had 152 miles. My garage likely averaged 55 degrees F.

taraquin · Mar 21, 2014

I really can`t see at problem if you leave your car unplugged in 10-25C for 2 weeks unplugged at 50-60% charge (I have to do this every summer). Except from topping of the battery every now and then and the temperatures isn`t rising to high, what damage can it do to the car? The battery will always be in the shadows so the temperature would have to be above 30C before it`s starting to feel uncomfortable. I can see that this is a problem i Arizona and Texas, and also in the winter in Canada and Norway where temperatures could go as low as -30 C.

djp · Mar 21, 2014

taraquin said:
The battery will always be in the shadows so the temperature would have to be above 30C before it`s starting to feel uncomfortable.

Actually the temperature needs to be above 60C before the BMS starts to actively cool the pack. Not likely to happen in storage.

mknox · Mar 21, 2014

Lloyd said:
This video was made way before the current updates of software improving the vampire drain.

How so? He says he didn't use the mobile app so the car should have been "sleeping" the whole time, and you can see the dash start to boot up when he opens the door. There were updates when he arrived back, but he would have been on a release that does have sleep mode.

jerry33 · Mar 21, 2014

mknox said:
How so? He says he didn't use the mobile app so the car should have been "sleeping" the whole time, and you can see the dash start to boot up when he opens the door. There were updates when he arrived back, but he would have been on a release that does have sleep mode.

Wouldn't it wake up occasionally to charge the 12V battery (at a minimum).

Lloyd · Mar 21, 2014

mknox said:
How so? He says he didn't use the mobile app so the car should have been "sleeping" the whole time, and you can see the dash start to boot up when he opens the door. There were updates when he arrived back, but he would have been on a release that does have sleep mode.

Date on the video was January and he was gone for a month. Guessing that he was running 5.0 to 5.2 firmware vintage 11/13. That was when everyone was complaining about vampire drain the loudest. We have come a long way since then.

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