Cold weather supercharging

1101011 · Feb 16, 2015

Temperature of 5F at Hagerstown SC. Spent the night last night a mile or two away and have to head west this morning, so thought I'd top off from 200 miles and warm the battery pack beforehand.
after plug in the readouts say we're charging, there are volts. But 0 mi/hr and 0/1 A. Changed pedestals. Same thing.

Is is there a time that the pack has to warm up before accepting a charge?

Other thoughts?

i have enough to get to Somerset PA. Should I have just gotten in and driven?

kota23 · Feb 16, 2015

Yea the car will only accept a charge after the pack has warmed. It will closely match what your regen is limited to. Had this happen yesterday, regen was limited to about 20kwh. I plugged into a supercharger and it only accepted a charge rate of 20kwh for the first 10 mins or so.

arijaycomet · Feb 16, 2015

kota answered your thread-- but just saying hello! I'm in Beachwood here, so another Cleveland, OH area owner. Keep your eyes peeled there is going to be a meet-and-greet on the 22nd of this month hopefully at the new Lyndhurst store. PM me your email if you want to make sure you're kept in the loop for future owners meetings we hope to have!

David99 · Feb 16, 2015

I have had the charge rate reduced quite a bit when my car was cold, but never so cold that it would not start charging at all. Looks like it was heating the battery but the power used for that isn't shown in the readout. Did it say it was heating the battery?

tiblot · Feb 16, 2015

David99 said:
I have had the charge rate reduced quite a bit when my car was cold, but never so cold that it would not start charging at all. Looks like it was heating the battery but the power used for that isn't shown in the readout. Did it say it was heating the battery?

It shouldn't be any different than charging off a normal 240v plug. If the pack is cold, it needs to heat the pack first - thats why you saw 0 mi/hr.
As it warms, you'll see both mi/hr and amps increase until it hits the max.

At 5F & a cold soaked battery it will take nearly 30 minutes for the pack to reach optimal charging temps.

cpa · Feb 16, 2015

I am glad that I read this thread! Since I have spent my whole life in California, our winters just are not as cold as many other parts of these United States. That said, we do have the mountain areas like Truckee and Mt. Shasta City, plus the high desert areas east of the Sierra Nevada that can get downright cold in the winter. It is good to know that when we take a winter trip and decide to charge in the extreme cold, that there could be long delays before charging kicks in due to the warming of the battery first. This would seem to be perfectly normal.

I do not ever recall Tesla mentioning this phenomenon in its materials (but I have not read the owner's manual lately, so perhaps it is there.) As the Model X takes off to be followed by the Model 3, Tesla needs to have some sort of up front information that is readily accessible to advise us of the peculiarities in driving the best EV there is. This is especially the case for situations that are intermittent, seasonal or rare as we will tend to forget this information from one year to the next.

jkirkebo · Feb 16, 2015

cpa said:
I am glad that I read this thread! Since I have spent my whole life in California, our winters just are not as cold as many other parts of these United States. That said, we do have the mountain areas like Truckee and Mt. Shasta City, plus the high desert areas east of the Sierra Nevada that can get downright cold in the winter. It is good to know that when we take a winter trip and decide to charge in the extreme cold, that there could be long delays before charging kicks in due to the warming of the battery first. This would seem to be perfectly normal.

Rule for cold weather charging: Charge when you arrive in the evening, not in the morning when the battery has gotten cold soaked. So don't park a nearly empty car in the evening close to a SC. Go charge it up first, and leave right away in the morning.

tiblot · Feb 16, 2015

cpa said:
I am glad that I read this thread! Since I have spent my whole life in California, our winters just are not as cold as many other parts of these United States. That said, we do have the mountain areas like Truckee and Mt. Shasta City, plus the high desert areas east of the Sierra Nevada that can get downright cold in the winter. It is good to know that when we take a winter trip and decide to charge in the extreme cold, that there could be long delays before charging kicks in due to the warming of the battery first. This would seem to be perfectly normal.

I do not ever recall Tesla mentioning this phenomenon in its materials (but I have not read the owner's manual lately, so perhaps it is there.) As the Model X takes off to be followed by the Model 3, Tesla needs to have some sort of up front information that is readily accessible to advise us of the peculiarities in driving the best EV there is. This is especially the case for situations that are intermittent, seasonal or rare as we will tend to forget this information from one year to the next.

Well, usually you arrive at a SC station after a decent drive and the pack is somewhat warm. The worst case is definitely if you go straight to a SC station as your immediate first stop without driving much. That scenario should be somewhat less frequent.

RiverBrick · Feb 16, 2015

jkirkebo said:
Rule for cold weather charging: Charge when you arrive in the evening, not in the morning when the battery has gotten cold soaked. So don't park a nearly empty car in the evening close to a SC. Go charge it up first, and leave right away in the morning.

I wish they had level two chargers at Supercharger sites that are near hotels. Then you could slow charge overnight and wake up with a battery that is both full and warm.

TexasEV · Feb 16, 2015

RiverBrick said:
I wish they had level two chargers at Supercharger sites that are near hotels. Then you could slow charge overnight and wake up with a battery that is both full and warm.

If you're doing level 2 charging overnight at a hotel and wake up with a battery that is both full and warm, why do you need superchargers there?

Dbitter1 · Feb 18, 2015

For the sake of survey, when the battery is warm, supercharging is still possible. I just did it yesterday at 8F from a ~30% battery (no regen limits, the car was warm) and got 250A/380V charge (Pleasant Prarie, WI).

The cable on the supercharger was stiff as hell to muscle into position, and not markedly easier after charging either.

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Cold weather supercharging

1101011

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kota23

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arijaycomet

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David99

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tiblot

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cpa

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jkirkebo

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