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.

 

[Jalapeener]

If it were my car I would definitely garage it if possible, to avoid sun damage, bird poop, etc.
Parking wise we've left our M3P for two weeks on multiple occasions and it hadn't even lost one percent even with occasional checking. (sentry off of course)

 

[KenC]

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

0.6%SOC, or 1/2kWh in 2wks with daily checks, is really nothing in the grand scheme of things.

 

[ATPMSD]

0.6%SOC, or 1/2kWh in 2wks with daily checks, is really nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I suggest you are misreading this. The 0.6% refers to communication to / from the app and not power consumed when the car is awake. The 5.7% figure is really a "collection" of "everything else" not otherwise categorized. In fact the note next to it makes it pretty clear this is power lost when the car is just sitting there.

Looking at the numbers, your car consumed about 0.4% / day. I suggest this figure would have been closer to about 0.15% / day if you did not check the car every day. I suggest giving it a try over a long weekend, without checking the app, and see what you get.

 

[zoomer0056]

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.

Maybd that could be like a do not disturb mode. But sleep is better where the user still has control of phantom draining apps a sentry. It's already easy for the car to sleep.

 

[zoomer0056]

Use the Tessie app. You can monitor your car without waking it up.

 

[AAKEE]

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.
View attachment 1034253

The energy screen information is not true.

As it is cold, I guess your SOC was actually higher than displayed due to a cold battery.

Here is an example of why I call the energy screen bullshit:

Parked outside at work with 21% yesterday, the car slept constantly from shortly after the parking for 24h without a single wake up.
Yesterday


Today, until I went inside to take a photo of the energy screen:


Teslafi showed it clearly but it can be seen in the car as well: Still 21% SOC, but the car displays 14% due to a fairly cold night (down to -24C)

So, not even a single percent was used. In average it uses 0.1kWh/0.1% per day parked.

The app was never used during this 24h.
The screen wasnt used either.
There was no noticable stand by consumption, as the SOC is just about the same as when parking yesterday.

So more or less everything the car states here is not true, as 0% was actually used.

 

[AAKEE]

0.6%SOC, or 1/2kWh in 2wks with daily checks, is really nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, there is a overdriven fear to check the app.
While it is true that the car wakes up from using the app, in general it might be awake for about 20-30minutes, tops.
Thats roughly 100-150Wh, so 0.1-0.2%.

 

[KenC]

I suggest you are misreading this. The 0.6% refers to communication to / from the app and not power consumed when the car is awake. The 5.7% figure is really a "collection" of "everything else" not otherwise categorized. In fact the note next to it makes it pretty clear this is power lost when the car is just sitting there.

Looking at the numbers, your car consumed about 0.4% / day. I suggest this figure would have been closer to about 0.15% / day if you did not check the car every day. I suggest giving it a try over a long weekend, without checking the app, and see what you get.

I think you have it reversed. If I didn't check the car every day, it would have been only 5.1% lost after 2wks., and thus 0.36% lost every day, not 0.15%. That's why I called it "nothing in the grand scheme of things".

 

[OldPro]

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.

Leave it plugged in if you can

 

[AAKEE]

I think you have it reversed. If I didn't check the car every day, it would have been only 5.1% lost after 2wks., and thus 0.36% lost every day, not 0.15%. That's why I called it "nothing in the grand scheme of things".

The energy screen is filled up with bullocks (as I have written before).

If parked and the temperature drops the energy screen find out some lies to explain the loss of displsyed SOC.

According to the BMS 0.0% was used. Same (true) SOC as when parked.

On this, well dont even ger me going.
Says, ”Increased use of the clima”
(But we can see -3.7% on that)
Air resistance…
Increaaed Rolling resistance - But I had the tires pumped to 3.4 bar instead of the usual 3.2.
Battery preconditioning- was never on for the trip, still part of the contribution.

 

[Stew-2]

Was just gone for two weeks, didn’t open the app, no sentry mode. Lost 1% in two weeks, from 48% to 47%.

 

[KenC]

Was just gone for two weeks, didn’t open the app, no sentry mode. Lost 1% in two weeks, from 48% to 47%.

No way. You've got a problem. Better take it to a Service Center! /s

 

[Trojanwar]

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%.

 

[Trojanwar]

Hello there, new to tesla world. Can you expalin further more why charging LFP to 70%? Why not 60%, 80%? 90%? Thank you.

 

[Trojanwar]

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%.

Hello there BigNick..new to tesla world. Can you expalin further more why charging LFP to 70%? Why not 60%, 80%? 90%? Thank you.

 

[BigNick]

Hello there BigNick..new to tesla world. Can you expalin further more why charging LFP to 70%? Why not 60%, 80%? 90%? Thank you.

Battery degradation is a product of three things: State of Charge (SoC), temperature and time. In the graphs from the post below, the LFP degradation worsens at 70% charge or higher, compared to 55% for NCA and 60% for NMC. So leaving an LFP car charged to higher than 70% for a length of time would cause more degradation than 70% or less. This is exacerbated by heat.

Range Loss Over Time, What Can Be Expected, Efficiency, How to Maintain Battery Health

Is it possible that they are somehow software nerfed to behave like a "used" pack? no. You can read out the "new" pack via canbus as i have done above. The BMS for the Model 3 also is attached to the pack (as opposed I think the S/X in the car?). No need to let it get reads and not discharge...

teslamotorsclub.com

Posts from @AAKEE (you can search for them) will have far more information than I can provide here.

Not everyone chooses to micro-manage the battery (or has charging available at home to be able to do so.) It is optional, and most batteries will make it through the warranty period with more than 70% capacity retention that is stated in the warranty.