Yes, I oversimplified. I charge on a 30A circuit and will see a slow drop in SoC when preconditioning in single digit temps since the car's power demand is >6kW.
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Preheating Battery plugged in?
- Thread starter VT Tessie
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I also charge at 30A; if I am inside my Model Y while plugged in with the Climate Control running, not charging in moderate temperatures almost 2kW is being consumed by the Climate Control heat pump and other accessories. Using the Tesla app I can only observe the power consumption while charging. I tried stopping charging and only preconditioning but the power consumption is not displayed unless actively charging. I also tried lowering the charge limit so charging would complete on its own. The power consumption for preconditioning and any stator heating is not displayed. If I unlock the Tesla Model Y while preconditioning with battery warming taking place this interrupts the battery warming. One more thing I can try is check the charging station while preconditioning with battery warming taking place while not charging . The ChargePoint station I use provides a power readout to 4 significant digits.
jddaigle
Member
Quick anecdote here: we took our LR up to the mountains this weekend. Overnight lows were around 8F. We arrived around 6 in the evening with 63% and plugged in to a 15amp/120v outlet, charging at 12 amps. It sipped power all night and by 10am the next day it was at ~80%. However, based on spot checks during the charging period, about 25 or 30% of the time charging was paused so that all the power could go towards heating the battery. So even L1 charging will net you some gains in cold temperatures, small as they may be.
There is an advantage to having a warm battery when you start driving in cold weather. If the car has a heat pump, it can use some of the heat energy from the battery and use it for cabin heating. In a sense the battery becomes a heat reservoir. I don't think there is an option in all cars, but with the performance cars you can turn on track mode which will heat up the battery quite a bit. Similar to battery conditioning when you drive to a supercharger. If you activate that 20 min befoe you leave while still plugged in, you get that energy from the grid. The S3XY button commander also adds that feature to non performance cars.
Rshephorse
Member
Another tactic I use in certain situations - where I am driving with a really cold battery- is to trick the care into thinking that I am navigating to a tesla charging site when I am going down steep hills.... that way, energy gets used to heat the motors that then heat the battery- so I am warming up the battery and able to scavenge a bit more of the energy I would otherwise waste using the friction brakes. I also watch the "MaxRegen" on Scan My tesla-- and when the battery is cold or close to full, not only do you have less regnerative braking, but that braking quickly trends to zero on longer hills - navigating to a charging station helps to keep the regen from dropping to zero quite so quickly.
When they say "preheating battery" they are referring to the "preconditioning" option that is available on the Tesla app under Schedules suboption. Also you can manually force a precondition if inside your car by navigating to a distant supercharger to trigger the precondition of yoru battery so that it is ready for supercharging.
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