Would it be O.K to leave Model 3 unplugged for 5 weeks?

[Sparkypants]

Hello all. I do not have home charging currently (working on it, but won't have it in time for my trip) and have been street parking the model 3 for a while now. I have the option of pulling the car into the garage but it is not ideal. Here's the situation: I must leave for 5 weeks in a couple of months to a remote location. If I supercharge it to 100% and leave it home prior to this trip, how much would the battery drain realistically? I wouldn't have sentry mode on or be checking the app frequently so it would be pretty much left alone for 5 weeks straight. I've seen that Tesla reports drain of about 1% per day, which would leave me with about 65% battery when I got back from the trip. But I've seen people reporting on this forum that it can be as high as 3-4%! I can call a favor for someone to go and supercharge the car, but it is such a hassle. Would the car be ok on the street or should I move it into the garage? And would it be ok to leave it for so long unattended? It is a sr+ if that matters.

 

[Big Earl]

If you aren’t running third party apps or sentry mode, expect a loss of 1% per week or less.

 

[ATPMSD]

My model S lost 1% / day while why model Y losses 1% / week. As @Big Earl suggested, your car should lose about 1% / week. It is a good idea to perform a test by leaving your car unplugged over a long weekend to validate how much your car will lose, even if just to give you some comfort.

I would also not start at 100%, 80% would be better.

 

[BigNick]

If you have an LFP battery (newer RWD cars only), charge to 70%. If you have any other type, charge to 55%.

Don’t check the car on the app more than once per week (frequently waking up the car will use more energy) and make sure Sentry mode is not in use and you’ll be fine, 5 weeks won’t use much energy. Probably no more than 10% to 20%.

 

[Sparkypants]

If you have an LFP battery (newer RWD cars only), charge to 70%. If you have any other type, charge to 55%.

Don’t check the car on the app more than once per week (frequently waking up the car will use more energy) and make sure Sentry mode is not in use and you’ll be fine, 5 weeks won’t use much energy. Probably no more than 10% to 20%.

What is the reasoning to charge to 70% if I may ask (I am lfp)?

 

[johnnycnote]

If you have an LFP battery (newer RWD cars only), charge to 70%. If you have any other type, charge to 55%.

Don’t check the car on the app more than once per week (frequently waking up the car will use more energy) and make sure Sentry mode is not in use and you’ll be fine, 5 weeks won’t use much energy. Probably no more than 10% to 20%.

Why the 70% or the 55% charge limits? 100% will provide greater peace of mind, especially if it take the OP hits a snag and gets delayed. Charging to 100% a few times over the life of the car will not have any meaningfully affect on battery life

 

[ucmndd]

Why the 70% or the 55% charge limits? 100% will provide greater peace of mind, especially if it take the OP hits a snag and gets delayed. Charging to 100% a few times over the life of the car will not have any meaningfully affect on battery life

Sitting for long periods at high state of charge, particularly at high ambient temperatures, is the worst possible choice for battery degradation. I’d most definitely not let any of my cars sit at 100% for multiple weeks.

And it’s just not necessary. 5 weeks is nothing. As others have pointed out you’re most likely to lose 1-2% a week.

 

[RayK]

Were it me, living in L.A., I would not street park for the 5 weeks, especially if a garage is available for the duration. You say you could garage it but it's "not ideal". Exactly what does that mean? Would the assumed hassle of garaging the car outweigh the possibility of having the car broken into? Just curious....

 

[ATPMSD]

What is the reasoning to charge to 70% if I may ask (I am lfp)?

There are literally thousands of post on questions like this. If you want to geek out get a big pot of coffee and start reading. But if you would rather just enjoy your car, keep the SOC between 20% & 80% and, as they say in New York, “don’t worry about it.”

 

[fredjan]

5 weeks is fine as long as you keep sentry off. If you ever need to take your car to a body shop for repairs (after a collision, or simply to do a paint job), this is more or less how long your car would remain unplugged.

 

[3sr+buyer]

Would the car be ok on the street or should I move it into the garage?

Note that many places have a 72 hour limit on street parking (example: https://prodpci.etimspayments.com/pbw/include/laopm/abandona.html ), although it may not be aggressively enforced in many places (but five weeks may be enough for a vehicle to become noticeable by complaining neighbors, police, or parking enforcement).

Regarding battery drain, you can check yourself on the rate of drain seen in the Park tab of the energy screen over a known amount of time parked. If it is low enough that you do not need to charge it over 55% (NCA battery) or 70% (LFP battery), then charging it only that high should be better for battery health during long term parking.

 

[Sparkypants]

Were it me, living in L.A., I would not street park for the 5 weeks, especially if a garage is available for the duration. You say you could garage it but it's "not ideal". Exactly what does that mean? Would the assumed hassle of garaging the car outweigh the possibility of having the car broken into? Just curious....

The area is super safe and remote so its not an issue. The reason I hesitate to garage it is that in the event that it would need to be towed, it would be darn near impossible to from my garage. I have had to tow the car recently from a structure and it was a huge nightmare even with Tesla roadside. Plugging the car into an outlet in the garage would be impossible (again, working on a solution to this).

 

[fredjan]

The area is super safe and remote so its not an issue. The reason I hesitate to garage it is that in the event that it would need to be towed, it would be darn near impossible to from my garage. I have had to tow the car recently from a structure and it was a huge nightmare even with Tesla roadside. Plugging the car into an outlet in the garage would be impossible (again, working on a solution to this).

Leave it garaged. I would only leave the vehicle street parked with sentry on, but you can't do that long term. Reason is that you don't want to come back to a side-swiped vehicle and have no dashcam/sentry footage.

 

[ATPMSD]

would be darn near impossible to from my garage

You are overthinking this. Even if you left Sentry on in the car it will turn it off when it hits an SOC of 20%. At 20% you have almost 20-weeks before the car goes to 0%

Plugging the car into an outlet in the garage would be impossible (again, working on a solution to this).

Even if the car was dead, and as there is not an outlet in the garage, given this worst case scenario you can go to the hardware store and buy a long extension cord. This will allow you to charge the car from a standard 120v outlet.

 

[IWRBR]

Seeing this discussion makes me think it would be nice if Tesla had a low power mode that disconnected all 3rd party apps and any non essential functions like sentry and scheduled preconditioning i.e. the absolute bare minimum.

 

[3sr+buyer]

Seeing this discussion makes me think it would be nice if Tesla had a low power mode that disconnected all 3rd party apps and any non essential functions like sentry and scheduled preconditioning i.e. the absolute bare minimum

It may also help if there were ways for features like sentry mode and (Tesla or third party) app access not to need the car to be fully turned on, so that they can be used with somewhat less energy drain than is actually the case.

 

[KenC]

Here's mine from last month. I left my car for 2wks, and checked it almost daily. Since I'm in Maine, it was also fairly cold for much of the time from Feb28, to Mar13. As you can see, it lost 5.7% and 0.6% was the app, since I was checking it!

Why not test it for a few days, just to make sure your drain rate isn't high due to some odd setting, etc.

 

[MountainPass]

It is like an itch you need to scratch, but try not to check the car on your app constantly, even if you are worried about the SOC.

 

[ATPMSD]

checked it almost daily.

You really should not do that because it wakes up the car which increases consumption.

 

[RayK]

You really should not do that because it wakes up the car which increases consumption.

I believe that's the main point @KenC is trying to make. His car was queried almost every day, in cold conditions, for two weeks, and it lost less than 6%. The OP is concerned about a 5 week period so that might be a loss of 15% in those same conditions. Since the OP is in a moderately warm area (SoCal), the loss should be less. Ken's suggestion of an idle test, leaving the car parked without being checked on via the app and all unnecessary power-hogs off (Sentry Mode), should reveal what the drain truly would be for @Sparkypants .