So, in cold weather the car uses energy to heat battery to mitigate the loss of the regenerative braking capacity while the battery is cold. So the car's heating algorithm has to weigh the cost of heating the battery to a certain temperature in a certain time vs. the likelihood that we'll be driving long enough to recoup and exceed the cost, etc.
I'm sure Tesla has thought about this *way* more than any of us but - Given that regen capacity is limited because the battery is too cold to accept the charge rate, it feels like there should be an opportunity to use excess generation capacity to heat the battery... Now, I am guessing that it's not easy. I mean, you probably can't just dump 60kW into a point heat source intermittently... So it would have to be distributed across the full battery pack somehow... and maybe that adds too much complexity or extra weight... Still, I wonder if this could be integrated into the cells in the future. Has anyone ever heard them talk about this topic? It must drive the engineers crazy to not harness that power
As for the software, I also wonder how much it would help if the car had a hint about where we are going... traffic / speed and approximate length of time to destination.
thanks,
Pat
I'm sure Tesla has thought about this *way* more than any of us but - Given that regen capacity is limited because the battery is too cold to accept the charge rate, it feels like there should be an opportunity to use excess generation capacity to heat the battery... Now, I am guessing that it's not easy. I mean, you probably can't just dump 60kW into a point heat source intermittently... So it would have to be distributed across the full battery pack somehow... and maybe that adds too much complexity or extra weight... Still, I wonder if this could be integrated into the cells in the future. Has anyone ever heard them talk about this topic? It must drive the engineers crazy to not harness that power
As for the software, I also wonder how much it would help if the car had a hint about where we are going... traffic / speed and approximate length of time to destination.
thanks,
Pat