Cybertruck charging limits at home +cold weather

[Cdeddens]

I'm a new cybertruck owner in Klickitat Heights, WA. I have a tesla charger in my garage and I keep my truck plugged in when not on use. I have my settings to charge to 80%, but the truck never gets above 72%. Even if I preset departure times. It is saying that the battery is cold (shows the blue snowflake-less energy due to cold battery).. my question is: if it is plugged in, why can't it sort out warming itself and get to the required level of charging set?

Hope i asked this correctly. Thanks millions!

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[SeattleTom]

Hey, fellow WA owner here and longtime Tesla owner (various models since 2017)!

The Cybertruck battery does seem to behave differently in cold weather as compared to other models. I have my truck garaged and experience a similar snowflake reduction - though I’m closer to 78% vs your 72% being outside and in colder weather. With my X and Y - two different batteries between those Teslas - that was not the case.

But every Tesla I’ve owned has improved the battery management over time and I assume the Cybertruck will as well. As one example, Tesla is just starting to roll out the V3 and V4 Supercharger enhancements to enable charging up to 500kwh - double the current top of the line. I think they’ll dial in cold weather support too.

But you should expect some battery protection in cold weather so parking outside and charging to 80% will always lose some battery. For this year, I would expect we’ll see that snowflake until April when things warm up. Hopefully next winter it’s a bit more relaxed in managing battery health!

If you need the range, you could set it to 85%. That’s higher than recommended but probably not too bad for long-term battery health at that level. 80% is the sweet spot but anything between 80% and 90% should be okay.

 

[SeattleTom]

Oh PS, love that wrap. I went with matte black but that looks sweet!!!

 

[Cdeddens]

Thanks for the response SeattleTom!

I made room in garage for my cybertruck to pull in to park and charge, so it'll be out of the snow pack, but I don't have a heated garage. Hopefully spring will come quick!

Cheers!

 

[REM]

why can't it sort out warming itself and get to the required level of charging set?

We should see winter charging get more accurate after this winter season, since there are now probably 50K(?) of these trucks on the road. Tesla still needs a ton of data from a large fleet to make these types of improvements.

 

[Kryptek]

Thanks for the response SeattleTom!

I made room in garage for my cybertruck to pull in to park and charge, so it'll be out of the snow pack, but I don't have a heated garage. Hopefully spring will come quick!

Cheers!

Get a MR heater buddy, I put mine in the non insulated garage and went from 21F external to 76 and that allowed the CT to charge properly LVL 1. Snowflake went away and range extended.

But you may want to think about installing a diesel heater or electric heater from lowes. I know I am because we are going into a cold snap of -20F for a few days and there is no way the CT will hold a charge let alone charge at LVL 1 so far with my setup without heat.

 

[Crissa]

For one: With a snowflake displayed, the displayed number isn't how much it's charged - but how much of that charge is available to you. It's still actually charged to the higher number.

Tesla seems to be being more conservative in what they're displaying to you, the driver, so that you understand that while it's cold outside, lithium batteries are less efficient.

My Zero's range will grow and shrink wildly by the overnight temperature because it doesn't have active thermal management. You're looking at missing 8% range at what, under 40F? My Zero, without thermal management, loses up to 50% of its range in cold weather. And worse, it can't even charge if its internal temperature drops below freezing!

Such is the life of an EV. The larger battery of the Cybertruck will be more difficult to raise its temperature. But all in all, it's doing pretty good.

-Crissa

 

[electricAK]

Get a MR heater buddy, I put mine in the non insulated garage and went from 21F external to 76 and that allowed the CT to charge properly LVL 1. Snowflake went away and range extended.

But you may want to think about installing a diesel heater or electric heater from lowes. I know I am because we are going into a cold snap of -20F for a few days and there is no way the CT will hold a charge let alone charge at LVL 1 so far with my setup without heat.

Wait a minute, this seems backwards to me. The CT is capable of warming its own battery, presumably in an efficient manner. If it's plugged in, you're paying your standard electric rate to warm the battery. This would be way less power use and way less cost than heating an entire garage.

So why should you need to resort to that to keep the battery warm?

 

[eswimm]

Even cold, it should be charging to the set percentage. 80% with 5% blue is still 80%, the blue is essentially an added buffer at the bottom to prevent discharge below a certain point with the cold battery. If the battery warms up while driving, you'll have access to the 5% that started inaccessible or if you navigate to a supercharger, it'll use some of that 5% to warm the battery for charging (it would have warmed the battery anyway, but it may have further to go in the cold). Temperature is pretty mild here in NC, (40s) and about 45m of 48A charging will get my battery above snowflake threshold. If you want to start with as warm a battery as possible, set your charge to finish at your departure time. A warm battery isn't necessarily much more efficient than a cold battery, especially if you're staying above 10% SOC anyway. I suspect Tesla is still tuning the thermals on the CT, but the snowflake isn't something to really be concerned about. It seems to come on sooner than my Model X did, but so far it doesn't feel like it suffers any worse a hit to regen braking than the Model X did, which is where a large chunk of cold weather efficiency loss comes from.

 

[AlmostHuman]

Studies have shown that EV batteries that live in cooler climates degrade less over time than EV batteries that live in warmer climates. I don’t stress about the snowflake on the Cybertruck but I may not have the daily mileage needs other do

https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/it-matters-where-your-used-ev-comes-from

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