Ran an experiment today with results that may help others through this cold spell.
Check out the new stay-on heat after parking feature that got released recently. After putting the car in Park, press the climate controls pop-up and you'll see it there on the bottom "stay on" slider... chose this to keep the car warm.
It's bitterly cold here.. hitting around -30C and I wanted to see the effect on battery level SOC when keeping the car constantly warmed, while charging from a 120V/20A source using UMC and Tesla NEMA 5-20 plug adapter fitted to it.
Scenario:
- after long drive and battery heat stabilization on the trip...
- supercharged the car to 90%, drove it to parking spot few miles away and was 87% SOC at 9:15am
- outside temp was -27C. Bright sunny day. But COLD.
- set the HVAC heat level to 15.5C, all "auto" except: no AC, feet and face heat only (no windshield)
- put car in park, slider for heat to "stay-on" which cranked the fan up a bit, so I cranked it manually down to 2
- range mode slider OFF
- no seat heaters, no other accessory heaters on
I picked the lowest possible consumption of cabin heating. 15.5C is the lowest setting on the dial before it just reads "LO" which means the heater will not come on. For reference: room temp is about 20C and that's where I typically have it set while driving.
Mid-day check, 3 hours later... I visit the car and HVAC has stayed on... I didn't drive the car, just checked on it. The interior is keeping warm and is very comfortably warmer at 15.5 than the -25C outside (rose a bit since morning). No frost on any windows. Annnnd (drum roll please) the SOC is 88%.
Green port blinking, still charging... my set point of 90% has not been reached. Was it ever during this period? Doubt it.
I think it's been one continuous charge at 2kW rate (max the 5-20 plug can suck) as the HVAC has been cycling to keep car at 15.5 drawing off the battery as needed. Almost an even race.
I suspect solar heating is easing the demand on battery a bit. Re-doing this experiment at night would be a good thing to check. If holds true, this way of "trickle heating" overnight seems viable with no fear of big range loss for morning travel and may help alleviate a lot of grumpy cold startup / wakeup issues some people report, and I have experienced on cold soaked mornings too.
The experiment now continues into the afternoon. I'll follow-up with more observations like when I drive, where is the yellow dashed line, do I have regen, is there a blue snowflake... did SOC hit 90%.. did it stop charge and re-start repeatedly cycling up to 90% - App notices will tell that... etc.
Check out the new stay-on heat after parking feature that got released recently. After putting the car in Park, press the climate controls pop-up and you'll see it there on the bottom "stay on" slider... chose this to keep the car warm.
It's bitterly cold here.. hitting around -30C and I wanted to see the effect on battery level SOC when keeping the car constantly warmed, while charging from a 120V/20A source using UMC and Tesla NEMA 5-20 plug adapter fitted to it.
Scenario:
- after long drive and battery heat stabilization on the trip...
- supercharged the car to 90%, drove it to parking spot few miles away and was 87% SOC at 9:15am
- outside temp was -27C. Bright sunny day. But COLD.
- set the HVAC heat level to 15.5C, all "auto" except: no AC, feet and face heat only (no windshield)
- put car in park, slider for heat to "stay-on" which cranked the fan up a bit, so I cranked it manually down to 2
- range mode slider OFF
- no seat heaters, no other accessory heaters on
I picked the lowest possible consumption of cabin heating. 15.5C is the lowest setting on the dial before it just reads "LO" which means the heater will not come on. For reference: room temp is about 20C and that's where I typically have it set while driving.
Mid-day check, 3 hours later... I visit the car and HVAC has stayed on... I didn't drive the car, just checked on it. The interior is keeping warm and is very comfortably warmer at 15.5 than the -25C outside (rose a bit since morning). No frost on any windows. Annnnd (drum roll please) the SOC is 88%.
Green port blinking, still charging... my set point of 90% has not been reached. Was it ever during this period? Doubt it.
I think it's been one continuous charge at 2kW rate (max the 5-20 plug can suck) as the HVAC has been cycling to keep car at 15.5 drawing off the battery as needed. Almost an even race.
I suspect solar heating is easing the demand on battery a bit. Re-doing this experiment at night would be a good thing to check. If holds true, this way of "trickle heating" overnight seems viable with no fear of big range loss for morning travel and may help alleviate a lot of grumpy cold startup / wakeup issues some people report, and I have experienced on cold soaked mornings too.
The experiment now continues into the afternoon. I'll follow-up with more observations like when I drive, where is the yellow dashed line, do I have regen, is there a blue snowflake... did SOC hit 90%.. did it stop charge and re-start repeatedly cycling up to 90% - App notices will tell that... etc.
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