Edit: I am updating this thread on October 18, 2015. I am hoping that if we make a concerted effort, we may be able to get Tesla to add some sort of traction pack pre-heating to version 7.1 or a later version, since they have added battery heating for performance reasons to version 7 with the "Max Battery Power" option.
My plan is to write them again, mentioning this letter, this thread, the fact that they now have an option to heat the pack anyway, and also directing them to this poll:
Would you use battery heating if it were available?
(If you haven't yet voted in the poll, please consider doing so.)
The letter below was written on February 7, 2015. This ends the October 18, 2015 edit.
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I just sent the following e-mail message to [email protected].
--
To whom this may concern at the [email protected] email address:
I’d appreciate it if you would please pass this along to the appropriate people in the engineering department. Thanks very much. –AW
I understand that while the new torque sleep efficiency improvements to the P85Ds function with range mode both on and off, that these improved efficiencies are significantly enhanced with range mode on. That being the case, I’d like to suggest an improvement that would help make it easier for many of us to leave range mode on all the time. This improvement would also have many other benefits.
I’d like to suggest that you add an option to the mobile applications to allow for battery pack pre-heating as a function independent of cabin pre-heating, and also not tied to whether or not the car is in range mode. This would allow us to pre-heat the battery while on shore power, so that we don’t lose regenerative braking at the start of our trips, and also don’t have to use battery power to warm the pack once the trip has started.
Right now, I am often pre-heating the cabin much longer than I need to, and to a much higher temperature than I want to, wasting electricity in the process, just to heat the battery pack, because the only way that I can heat the pack is to heat the cabin. Also, if I forget to toggle range mode off when I exit the vehicle I can’t preheat the battery pack at all, which has me starting my next trip with no regenerative braking.
If you do find a way to add the ability to pre-heat the battery pack via the app, it would be even better if this could be scheduled, such that we could set a time that we would like the pack heated by, and have the car ready to go by that time.
Since I’ve brought up scheduling anyway, I may as well put in a plug for being able to schedule the time for charging to end, instead of just the time for charging to start. (I know this has been suggested before.) I’ve given this a lot of thought, as I’m sure your software engineers have as well. I realize that there are many issues with this, including the fact that available current can change, the temperature of the pack can change, etc. I thought one way this could be implemented would be that the scheduling screen could have a disclaimer on it, indicating that the time for charging to end is an estimate, and that the estimate will be more accurate, based on the flexibility given in the parameters the user selects. The user would then select the approximate end time, along with the time at which charging may not start before. The user would also select the preferred charging amperage, along with the range of possible amperages at which to charge. So, as an example, I charge with an HPWC capable of 80 Amp charging. But I generally charge at 56 Amps, as I don’t need to stress any of the components of the system by charging at 80 amps most of the time. So I might select 6:30 AM as the approximate end time, 1:00 AM as the “do not start before” time, 56 amps as my preferred charging amperage, and 0-72 amps as the range of amperages to allow for charging. The software would then compute a start time based on those parameters. As long as the software is given a range of amperages to be able to charge at, and is not committing to an exact time to complete the charging, this should be workable, and extremely useful to Tesla owners. It has the added benefit of packs not sitting at high states of charge for hours unnecessarily.
This would also work really well in conjunction with the scheduling of the battery heating, because if someone was going to schedule the battery to be heated and ready at the same time they wanted the car charged and ready, these two systems would work together, and the battery likely would not need to be incrementally heated at all, since the charging would be completing at the correct time.
The energy savings and added convenience these features would bring to Tesla owners is significant. I realize that implementing these things would not be easy, but I trust that the Tesla software engineers are up to the task. I hope Tesla will decide to move forward on these suggestions. The sooner the better!
Thanks very much!
My plan is to write them again, mentioning this letter, this thread, the fact that they now have an option to heat the pack anyway, and also directing them to this poll:
Would you use battery heating if it were available?
(If you haven't yet voted in the poll, please consider doing so.)
The letter below was written on February 7, 2015. This ends the October 18, 2015 edit.
---
I just sent the following e-mail message to [email protected].
--
To whom this may concern at the [email protected] email address:
I’d appreciate it if you would please pass this along to the appropriate people in the engineering department. Thanks very much. –AW
I understand that while the new torque sleep efficiency improvements to the P85Ds function with range mode both on and off, that these improved efficiencies are significantly enhanced with range mode on. That being the case, I’d like to suggest an improvement that would help make it easier for many of us to leave range mode on all the time. This improvement would also have many other benefits.
I’d like to suggest that you add an option to the mobile applications to allow for battery pack pre-heating as a function independent of cabin pre-heating, and also not tied to whether or not the car is in range mode. This would allow us to pre-heat the battery while on shore power, so that we don’t lose regenerative braking at the start of our trips, and also don’t have to use battery power to warm the pack once the trip has started.
Right now, I am often pre-heating the cabin much longer than I need to, and to a much higher temperature than I want to, wasting electricity in the process, just to heat the battery pack, because the only way that I can heat the pack is to heat the cabin. Also, if I forget to toggle range mode off when I exit the vehicle I can’t preheat the battery pack at all, which has me starting my next trip with no regenerative braking.
If you do find a way to add the ability to pre-heat the battery pack via the app, it would be even better if this could be scheduled, such that we could set a time that we would like the pack heated by, and have the car ready to go by that time.
Since I’ve brought up scheduling anyway, I may as well put in a plug for being able to schedule the time for charging to end, instead of just the time for charging to start. (I know this has been suggested before.) I’ve given this a lot of thought, as I’m sure your software engineers have as well. I realize that there are many issues with this, including the fact that available current can change, the temperature of the pack can change, etc. I thought one way this could be implemented would be that the scheduling screen could have a disclaimer on it, indicating that the time for charging to end is an estimate, and that the estimate will be more accurate, based on the flexibility given in the parameters the user selects. The user would then select the approximate end time, along with the time at which charging may not start before. The user would also select the preferred charging amperage, along with the range of possible amperages at which to charge. So, as an example, I charge with an HPWC capable of 80 Amp charging. But I generally charge at 56 Amps, as I don’t need to stress any of the components of the system by charging at 80 amps most of the time. So I might select 6:30 AM as the approximate end time, 1:00 AM as the “do not start before” time, 56 amps as my preferred charging amperage, and 0-72 amps as the range of amperages to allow for charging. The software would then compute a start time based on those parameters. As long as the software is given a range of amperages to be able to charge at, and is not committing to an exact time to complete the charging, this should be workable, and extremely useful to Tesla owners. It has the added benefit of packs not sitting at high states of charge for hours unnecessarily.
This would also work really well in conjunction with the scheduling of the battery heating, because if someone was going to schedule the battery to be heated and ready at the same time they wanted the car charged and ready, these two systems would work together, and the battery likely would not need to be incrementally heated at all, since the charging would be completing at the correct time.
The energy savings and added convenience these features would bring to Tesla owners is significant. I realize that implementing these things would not be easy, but I trust that the Tesla software engineers are up to the task. I hope Tesla will decide to move forward on these suggestions. The sooner the better!
Thanks very much!
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