Zapped
Model S - PURE EV
Does any know if the main battery is insulated ? I imagine there is a lot of heat loss at 50 mph thru all that flat aluminum undercarriage.
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Winter Driving Experiences
- Thread starter kevincwelch
- Start date
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- Tags
- Driving Dynamics Model S
So i took delivery a week ago Thursday, drove about 200 miles (lovin' every one) for work, and then decided that a college visit with my daughter and wife on Monday would be the perfect family trip in the new S. It was 288 miles r/t, but i'd found a public charger nearby Union College in Upstate NY, and the plan was to arrive early, plug in and take the tour/meet the professor while recharging. On the drive up we were chewing thru kwh's by driving at 65mph, keeping the cabin at 70 with ambient temps in low 20s. About 10 miles from the exit though, i got a "Car Needs Service" warning - then as we were pulling off the highway we popped a 2nd "12v Battery Low" warning. A call to the Tesla Service number reassured us this was likely a false alarm due to software bugs (running version 4.1) - but then just a couple of miles from destination we were put into low-power mode (still showing 100 miles SOC). We got to the college parking lot to drop off mother and child, but after i put it into park i couldn't move it, then it went into sleep mode. So the fantastic Raf from the Queens Service Center drove up to Albany to have a look. Long-story short the car may have a defective DC-to-DC converter affecting the 12v system, but i can't help thinking that the software probably read out the heavy usage (highway speed, cabin heat, cold battery pack) and may have entered low power mode prematurely (100 miles SOC should've been plenty to keep the battery warm)? Still just a theory, but this morning i loaded the 4.2 update, and the second line of the release notes says that they've suspended low power sleep mode for now (it remains a priority for future releases). After i got the car plugged in for a recharge, it seemed to run fine, with no depletion of the 12v battery. Anybody else have issues with severe cold and the low power sleep mode interrupting the 12v system?
There is a thread on 12V battery issue. I haven't read all the posts so don't know if it would cover your issue.
12V battery issues (error messages/car charging problems) - Page 18
12V battery issues (error messages/car charging problems) - Page 18
zax123 had a conversation with Elon earlier in this thread where he states that " ... they specifically designed the battery-pack/underpan of the car to thermally isolate the batteries from the air underneath the car." What we are all guessing is that this is not enough to offset the more extreme temperatures we are seeing here in the great white north.
No kidding!
After a day parked outside at work, it is the first time in 3 years that my G37 had a perceptible hard time getting started (even though it did so quickly, it sounded like end-stage emphysema).
PatP and Prime Mover related their experiences in this severe cold in the Canadian Signature Discussion thread.
RichardC
Cdn Sig & Solar Supporter
A couple of thoughts on this. The Prius uses this approach, very light regen (feels like an ICE automatic) when you lift off the gas, more regen when the brake is pressed. The later model Prius (2010+) has a display that shows the limits on regen (after which the friction brakes apply). The transition is seamless and you can't tell when the additional braking is from the friction brakes (that said, the regen braking is fairly limited on that car). I initially suggested that Tesla should adopt that model when I drove the Roadster, but have adjusted to the single pedal mode of operation (which makes the lack of braking in cold weather rather a frightening experience). I too would like to have the option of controlling the level of regen through the brake pedal (as we have with the optional "creep" setting). Additional benefits would include greater acceptance by mainstream ICE drivers, preventing the sudden (sometimes unexpected) high level regen braking when disengaging cruise control, avoiding the need to decide which pedal to use in cases where the level of braking required is unclear (as occurs when traffic moving at highway speeds suddenly brakes), and being in a better position to provide the required braking when slippery conditions prevent the rear wheels (under regen braking) from providing the required amount of braking power.
Some interesting cold weather related trivia from today...
My Ranger came to replace a couple of my door handles. Rather than have him freeze his butt, I had him do the work indoors at our office. The car was indoors at room temperature for over five hours. It hasn't been this toasty since the day it was delivered!
Afterwards I backed the car out into -25C weather, hopped out to close the door, and hopped back in to drive away. I was out of the seat maybe 30 seconds. When I restarted the car it was showing a moderate regen limit. There's no way the car got cold that fast!
Sounds like the regen/power limits are not just based on pack temperature, but also on ambient (or something in the HVAC system that couples to ambient). I was thinking there were a few times when I was surprised to see a modest regen limit... this might explain why.
My Ranger came to replace a couple of my door handles. Rather than have him freeze his butt, I had him do the work indoors at our office. The car was indoors at room temperature for over five hours. It hasn't been this toasty since the day it was delivered!
Afterwards I backed the car out into -25C weather, hopped out to close the door, and hopped back in to drive away. I was out of the seat maybe 30 seconds. When I restarted the car it was showing a moderate regen limit. There's no way the car got cold that fast!
Sounds like the regen/power limits are not just based on pack temperature, but also on ambient (or something in the HVAC system that couples to ambient). I was thinking there were a few times when I was surprised to see a modest regen limit... this might explain why.
RichardC
Cdn Sig & Solar Supporter
I'm going to disagree with you on this point. The more I drive with regen braking as Tesla has implemented it, the more natural it feels. Once your muscle memory has adapted, it's entirely 'natural' to feather OFF the accelerator, evaluate the need for more braking, and reach for the brake pedal only if needed. Similarly, I now have a right foot that's trained itself to feather ON the accelerator as I reach to disengage the cruise control, so there's no sudden onset of regen braking.
That said, it still is disconcerting when high SOC or low temperatures limits regen braking. I am loath to have Tesla start messing with moving regen to the brake pedal, though: one-foot driving is too addicting. It occurs to me that my ready adaptation to Tesla's implementation may have something to do with being a pilot: in an airplane at cruise speed, abruptly pulling power to idle would be analogous to lifting your foot completely off the accelerator pedal and is not something you'd do under normal circumstances. If you did, the deceleration would be significant, just like regen braking in the S. So my brain was pre trained for regen braking, both by flying and also by driving a manual transmission car for decades.
RichardC
Cdn Sig & Solar Supporter
Steve, I too am both a pilot and a fan of manual transmissions, and get the theory of the Tesla's single pedal style. But would still advocate that we have the option of shfting the regen to the brake pedal. I want to be able to give the car to my wife, or any one else, and tell her or them that its just like any other car to drive. While I would prefer to have the car set to "no creep" and regen set to the accelerator for my own use, when giving to my wife or another new driver to use for the first time, I would (at least initially) set the transmission to "creep" mode and shift the regen to the brake pedal. In that way the car would seem completely normal (absent the engine noise). I would probably only use that brake setting when driving in snowy or icy conditions (where I would want to control both two wheel and four wheel modes of braking with the same pedal) and leave it in accelerator mode the rest of the time. I know from the Prius that the two systems can be seamlessly integrated together, and see only benefits from offering brake pedal modulated regen as a third regen option.
RichardC
Cdn Sig & Solar Supporter
Another person in my city got his car recently. He sent me an email to give me his impressions (he's not on the forums). So I'm sharing his appreciation on Model S:
"Impressionné par la voiture, mais dans la neige, ce n’est pas son fort. - Pierre"
which translated roughly to:
"Impressed by the car, but in the snow, this is not its strength".
My own impressions are the same and I believe some firmware changes will improve this a little bit, but fundamently, *I maybe wrong* but I personally think the car will never be a very good snow car until AWD will come.
"Impressionné par la voiture, mais dans la neige, ce n’est pas son fort. - Pierre"
which translated roughly to:
"Impressed by the car, but in the snow, this is not its strength".
My own impressions are the same and I believe some firmware changes will improve this a little bit, but fundamently, *I maybe wrong* but I personally think the car will never be a very good snow car until AWD will come.
mknox
Well-Known Member
These are the points I have been trying to make in a couple of different threads, and couldn't agree more. But make it an option just like the creep setting or the option to limit re-gen. That way people who like the one pedal mode aren't harmed by any changes.
JakeP
S P4996 ==> P02547
Speaking of Regen, and also specifically related to my cold-weather 190-mile drive last weekend (in which I had cruise control set at 55 mph for at least two hours of the drive), a comment made by Eledille from Norway about varying my speeds on hilly terrain reinforced a thought I kept having on my trip. The cruise control is extremely efficient at maintaining a speed on level ground and even on uphill terrain, consuming less Wh/mi than I could manually, at least with under two weeks of car ownership and practice.
But on downhill runs, the cruise control kept me at 55 mph and had Wh/mi pinned at zero or maybe *barely* into the green regen zone. I kept thinking to myself, "I could turn off cruise control and set regen to Low, and get *much* better regen by coasting down these hills". Standard regen would have slowed me down much more than the downhill slope would have sped me up, but I think Low regen would have been perfect here. While it would have been a slight pain to constantly turn off cruise control after peaking every hill, it might have been worth it for the regen power.
Why, then, is there no setting or intelligence in the Cruise Control to "maximize regen by coasting downhill"? Has anyone else experienced this, and wondered if they could do better than the cruise control in terms of regen?
But on downhill runs, the cruise control kept me at 55 mph and had Wh/mi pinned at zero or maybe *barely* into the green regen zone. I kept thinking to myself, "I could turn off cruise control and set regen to Low, and get *much* better regen by coasting down these hills". Standard regen would have slowed me down much more than the downhill slope would have sped me up, but I think Low regen would have been perfect here. While it would have been a slight pain to constantly turn off cruise control after peaking every hill, it might have been worth it for the regen power.
Why, then, is there no setting or intelligence in the Cruise Control to "maximize regen by coasting downhill"? Has anyone else experienced this, and wondered if they could do better than the cruise control in terms of regen?
I've always enjoyed the one-pedal driving of an electric car, but i see the point - very much like the difference between manual and automatic transmissions, one is great for feeling the experience, while the other allows for greater comfort. For me, one-pedal regen is so fundamental to the 'zen' of an electric car that i would encourage guests to try it and give it time/space to learn it - if for nothing else, it's part of the game-ification that electric cars allow, "Can i make this trip entirely on one pedal?", "How much can i regen?", "How efficient can i make this run?", "Range be damned, i'm gonna let her rip", etc. But i fully appreciate that some folks may just want it to be exactly as an ICE experience, and for them moving the regen to brakes would do that.
JakeP - i had the same thought, and so i just drop out of cruise on the downhill runs. For the same reasons as above, i probably wouldn't use the intelligent cruise you suggest but would continue to play. Your suggestion of shifting to Low regen never occurred to me though - that's interesting, have you played it and found it yielded higher regen?
JakeP - i had the same thought, and so i just drop out of cruise on the downhill runs. For the same reasons as above, i probably wouldn't use the intelligent cruise you suggest but would continue to play. Your suggestion of shifting to Low regen never occurred to me though - that's interesting, have you played it and found it yielded higher regen?
mknox
Well-Known Member
I completely agree... except in certain circumstances. I would probably leave it this way for half or 3/4 of the year. It's the winter experiences that concern me. I could be in traffic expecting a lift of the pedal to slow me down and suddenly, due to a cold pack, it's not there and I have to quickly jump on the brake before I hit the guy in front of me. I would also be concerned with too much re-gen braking on the rear wheels in icy conditions. I realize there is traction control, but just yesterday in my ICE (with TC) I had to be very careful lifting off the gas due to extreme black ice on the roads. Using the existing low re-gen option would work, but then you'd lose the benefits of re-gen. Putting it over on the brake at least would get you some.
JakeP
S P4996 ==> P02547
I have not tested this out yet, but plan to do so this weekend. Low regen obviously gives less regen than Standard, but still gives (what appears to be) way more regen than I was getting downhill with cruise control set. Plus it would slow you down much less than Standard, effectively letting you coast downhill. I also notice that you can play with this a bit by letting off the accelerator (but not entirely) when going downhill, even with Standard on. I think it will just take some practice to see what works best. I'll try to post some numbers for how much regen I see in various scenarios on the same hill.
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