AC - Does the S have "Max Air"?

Do you have range mode set? That reduces the power of the AC and I think the fans as well.

When it gets hot, I set it to AC + recirculate. The fans are definitely stronger that way.

Runs Kwh said:

I had to put my hands up to the vents to feel the air coming out on higher fan speeds. On lower fan speeds it is almost non-existent.

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The car is delivered with the dash and backseat vents closed. You have to open them. It took me a bit to figure this out too.

Runs Kwh said:

Nope, range mode is not set (Service Delivery guy said really don't need to use day by day).

On the recirculate, that's not efficient, that'll cause a build up of moisture in the car typically, right?

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What firmware are you on? My A/C used to be Ice cold, now it's cold sometimes, warm other times. It's most likely a firmware issue.

Runs Kwh said:

Nope, range mode is not set (Service Delivery guy said really don't need to use day by day).

On the recirculate, that's not efficient, that'll cause a build up of moisture in the car typically, right?

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If the AC removes the much of the moisture. If it hot outside, recirculate is more efficient once the cabin is cooled, otherwise you are cooling the hot outside air constantly.

I did notice the vents did not blow very hard early on and almost took it in for service, but never got around to it, and just got used to them I guess.

I've had mine in Range mode since I got it 6 months ago, but I live in San Diego, so I usually do not need much heat or AC.

Runs Kwh said:

I've had my S85 for two days (and just had a full Photosync wrap yesterday). I'm driving to work this morning (5am, dark/cloudy) with outside ambient air temperature of 66 degrees. I have the car set at 68 degrees. However, it is certainly warmer than than (not by much, but at least low 70s). The air is feeling a little warm and there's not much circulation going on. I jack up the fan to the top level and I'm just somewhat surprised on the lack of blast to keep the car cool.

I'm used to cars (almost all?) where you have high-power air going on and even have max air. I'm a little concerned that the temperature outside is only upper 60s and it is cloudy and dark and I can't seem to get my air to 1) have the fans blast and 2) have them go moderate where you can feel the air flow.

I had to put my hands up to the vents to feel the air coming out on higher fan speeds. On lower fan speeds it is almost non-existent.

Is this right?

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Keep your AC set to AUTO and lower the temperature until it shows LO. That gives you maximum power.

Runs Kwh said:

I'm used to cars (almost all?) where you have high-power air going on and even have max air.

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On every car I've ever had with a Max A/C button, it was simply a shortcut to maximum fan speed + recirculate. Obviously the Model S can do both of those things, but there's no shortuct to them. You have to enable them both individually.

I'm not a fan of how "AUTO" mode handles vent/recirculate. When I have it in "AUTO" mode, it's almost always venting from the outside. I typically only notice it when I'm stuck behind a particularly bad tailpipe at a stoplight, but it's annoying. I think "AUTO" should begin on vent, and change to recirculate after a couple minutes of cooling.

I've been changing to a custom setting by manually putting it in recirculate as my default. Anyone else notice this?

Fan=11 and Recirc On is the equivalent of "MAX" in other cars.

I noted last night that the fan speed maximum on 1.59.56 is now 10, not 11... at least I couldn't get it to go to 11.

Compared to other cars the actual airflow (CFM) from the vents at high fan speeds is far less than optimal. Tesla has played with the "Auto" setting many times during the various firmware updates over the past year and a half and, although much better than it was, still is not as good most other automatic climate control systems in other comparable class cars. Chalk it up to getting to market as quickly as possible and not having the engineering background or resources that other auto manufacturers have. Hopefully they will fix this in Model S 2.0.

FlasherZ said:

I noted last night that the fan speed maximum on 1.59.56 is now 10, not 11... at least I couldn't get it to go to 11.

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That's not cool! not cool at all! I mean, if you are sitting at 10 and you need that extra push to cool down the car, where can you go from there? Where? Nowhere, exactly!



...If you don't get the reference .. Spinal Tap - - YouTube

Runs Kwh said:

Nope, range mode is not set (Service Delivery guy said really don't need to use day by day).

On the recirculate, that's not efficient, that'll cause a build up of moisture in the car typically, right?

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I would try the recirculate setting, the a/c will keep the air dry.

I think if you put it in neutral and rev the engine it will cool down quicker

I always keep it in Auto. It works pretty awesome for me. If I get in and the car is really hot it will ramp up the AC really high without having to do anything on my end. If it's not enough I just adjust the temperature down a little and it always did it's job well. Even in 108 in Arizona. The most common mistake is that people just won't let the climate control do it's job. They think they have to manually crank things up in the beginning and then adjust. That's exactly what Auto does without the driver having to do anything.

The one thing the 'Auto' setting doesn't know is how hot you are. It can only measure the cabin and outside temperature and how intense the sunshine is on the car. But it doesn't know how the driver feels. You could be coming out of a nicely ACed restaurant or you could be coming from a workout. That's when people blame the climate control to 'not work'.

David99 said:

I always keep it in Auto. It works pretty awesome for me. If I get in and the car is really hot it will ramp up the AC really high without having to do anything on my end. If it's not enough I just adjust the temperature down a little and it always did it's job well. Even in 108 in Arizona. The most common mistake is that people just won't let the climate control do it's job. They think they have to manually crank things up in the beginning and then adjust. That's exactly what Auto does without the driver having to do anything.

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This is what I've found too. However, because it howls like a banshee at high compressor speeds, I start with the temperature setting higher than normal (how high depends on the outside temperature) and then slowly lower the setting as the car cools. This keeps the fan at "two blades" which gives a nice air flow even in the hottest Texas weather.

It's been noted in other threads that the climate control needs to be set to a lower temperature in Model S compared to other cars, to achieve the same 'apparent temperature'. Instead of the 71°-72° I was accustomed to using as the set point in my previous cars, I find 67°-68° is better in the S.

I have always used the temperature setting on my cars in "auto" mode to adjust the fan speed. Like jerry33 said above, start out with temp at, let's say 75 on a hot day and as the fan starts to slow, you can lower the temperature a little at a time until it evens-out.

I noticed the same thing as stevezzzz regarding the temperature compared to other cars. In my other cars, 72 to 75 degrees was good for the AC. In this car, I need to set at 68 or so to get the same cooling affect. Glad to hear that I'm not the only one. I've only had the car for a couple of weeks and I was contemplating bringing it in for service to check it. Maybe they purposely calibrated it that way to help preserve range? I don't think it's an efficiency problem with the system.

I live in Florida - Been in the 90's for the last few weeks. I keep the car in range mode, and set the AC to either 68 or 70 and the AC has been fine.

FlasherZ said:

I noted last night that the fan speed maximum on 1.59.56 is now 10, not 11... at least I couldn't get it to go to 11.

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I bet v6.0 will bring back 11, thus giving us 10% more fan speed!