Tesla charging below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

[GhostAndSkater]

That's quite a bit of heating power. I'm surprised it takes up to an hour to heat the pack. It is very massive, of course.

Would it make sense to insulate the underside in cold climates?

It's a 500+ kg hunk of metal, to increase it's temp ignoring any losses by 20 °C (or °F) takes 2.8 kWh

I don't think insulation would help much, there is already an air gap between the bottom of the pack and the cells, which is a pretty good insulator, but it's only a few mm thick, so there isn't much you can put there that would help when you have 40+°C temperature delta

And all is all, 2.8 kWh isn't much, it's a matter of educating people on how to use the vehicle in those conditions

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[jerhenderson]

Fahrenheit? Wtf is that? Let's use Celsius here like the rest of the planet.

 

[PilotPete]

Fahrenheit? Wtf is that? Let's use Celsius here like the rest of the planet.

Says the guy from the "Land of the Loonies"!

 

[CyberGus]

Fahrenheit? Wtf is that? Let's use Celsius here like the rest of the planet.

 

[Chris9702L]

I think it was on one of the videos that it was mostly a people education problem. They for some reason didn’t know about battery preheating.
Another interesting fact was the rear wheel drive Model 3 only has so much preheating power due to having only one battery. So at a certain temp the battery cannot preheat.

 

[XCeilidhX]

Reading the news online, I see many articles on the same theme, that EVs won't charge in cold weather. Here is an example: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...ures-hit-chicago/ar-AA1n7FAq?ocid=socialshare
Conveniently none of the articles allow public comment.

I have two coworkers here in MN (Where cold weather means sub-zero in Fahrenheit) and have asked both of them 1) "Does your vehicle charge OK in cold weather?" and 2) "Does the cold drastically affect your daily driving range?"

Both coworkers stated that 90% of the time they charge at home and have had no problem. When they charge at Tesla chargers neither of them have had issues either.

They also both stated that their normal daily drive (approximately 100mi/day) has been unaffected, but neither has done a long road trip in sub-zero weather.

Since many of the forum readers are prior Tesla owners with years of use, and since there are a few Cybertrucks on the roads these days, I was wondering what your experiences have been. Also wondering why there are SO VERY MANY articles slamming EV charging/performance in cold weather.

So to answer the why are there so many articles about EVs in general and Teslas in particular having significant problems in the cold would require a political discussion we are to refrain from on this forum. I’ll leave it at that.

I was one of the first 1000 orders for the Model S and (I think) the third 60 to roll off the production line in Fremont. So my initial battery was about the smallest it could have been or that Tesla has ever produced in terms of capacity. My first road trip was a month later in February and I drove from the SF Bay Area to Tahoe for a conference. It was frigid, and the roads were pretty snowy, and that drive is basically straight uphill. I stopped to charge in Auburn on my way up because at the time there were zero (And I mean none) superchargers. At the hotel, I had to trickle charge in the parking garage from a standard 15 amp home wall outlet because they had no EV chargers (and it was a fancy AF hotel).

Bottom Line: No problems.

I wouldn’t worry about it but i would plan on SOME decreased range with ultra cold weather and increased heater usage for climate control while driving. Those conditions are not times to push the limits of your range. Be more conservative with when you plan to charge and daisy chain from charger to charger for longer trips.

AND while still avoiding politics here, when I got my Model S there was an article from the New York Times where a guy claimed to have reviewed the Model S and ran out of charge and cold weather was blamed. The same trip was then done by like 20 Model S owners that week just to prove the article was BS. None had an issue. It was the last time I trusted the NYT and “all the news that fit to print.” These articles seem like more of the same to me. Yes, I am sure there are boneheads who crank up the heater and drive to the limit of their range. I could also imagine a very busy charger in bitter cold where people are waiting to charge for a long time and run out of battery while directly adjacent to the charger in very rare circumstances where they arrived with very little battery left already but if you play it smart you won’t have issues. That’s my two cents. Perhaps that all it is worth, but FWIW I hope my experience helps.

Cheers.

 

[Crissa]

They didn't do breathless articles on all the gas stations turned off by the weather, or ICE powered vehicles stranded on the streets.

That seems important.

-Crissa

 

[Crissa]

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/i...he flags,dust collected from Tranquility Base.

-Crissa

 

[XCeilidhX]

They didn't do breathless articles on all the gas stations turned off by the weather, or ICE powered vehicles stranded on the streets.

That seems important.

-Crissa

Exactly. Indeed it is important to think about such comparisons… especially if you enjoy breathing and don’t enjoy planet-wide sea level rises, forest fires, increased frequency and strength of tornadoes and hurricanes which incidentally are occurring in wider geographical regions as the years pass and the planet warms, and the not as far-fetched as it originally seemed suggestion of the global warming ice age trigger proposed by the book that inspired that God-awful movie “The Day After Tomorrow”. Because… SCIENCE.

But I digress, as these days science has been deemed “political” because of those pesky “facts.” And political discussions are a no-no here.

Cheers

 

[Crissa]

Red-flag weather in the summer means the gas stations are turned off. And spent a couple weeks without power last year during winter storm season. No gas stations then, either.

Gas station doesn't work then; but when the power flickers back on, or I plug into my genny, I can charge up. EVs don't care where the electrons come from, when they arrive, or have to be taken to a particular store and babysat to get them.

-Crissa

 

[ÆCIII]

I had no issue last year when traveling and charging at -6 degrees fahrenheit, and my car was outside away from my home and garage for over two weeks in generally cold weather.

I would think one should never leave the car overnight or longer in extreme cold with a very low state of charge. I always charged back up when my car was between 10 and 20 percent SOC. I think if someone procrastinates and lets their car get down to 5 percent or lower in extreme cold and then tries to go to a supercharger they could risk their battery temperature and energy getting critically low. The Tesla UI warns driver with messages on the screen at times when the SOC is getting low and the weather is cold.

So you have places like in Chicago with extreme cold temps along with wind chill carrying heat away even more. Then when someone lives in an apartment without being able to charge at home and procrastinates to a very low SOC percentage before going to the supercharger, I could see this potentially causing problems if the car has been outside and is very cold, with the supercharger not that far away that the car really didn't warm the battery much before getting there.

I think this is one of the reasons Elon was emphasizing shortly after the Model 3 ramp, that people should generally get used to charging at home like one does with their cellphone. If more apartments and townhome areas installed the destination chargers (wall connectors) and/or put the electrical services in when building to accommodate destination chargers, more people in these living arrangements would be able to charge at home to prevent cold weather charging issues.

It's funny how the MSM pushes FUD stories at certain times for places like Chicago, when you have Canada, Alaska, and a country like Norway which is farther north and has more Tesla's per population probably than any other country - yet these places aren't having any significant charging issues in cold weather.

- ÆCIII

 

[jerhenderson]

Says the guy from the "Land of the Loonies"!

A coin that has a bird on it its somehow relevant to using the Fahrenheit scale ? 8D

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

We are on a road trip to Denver this week. In Flagstaff I went out to the car before I preheated and the snowflake was by the battery icon. It went away as the battery warmed up. The battery ‘cannot’ be warmed up too quickly or it would get damaged; that is why preheating before going to an SC can begin even 100 miles out.

there are several issues that need to be addressed in super cold weather:

1. preheat the battery or get super slow charging
2. Snowflake on the battery means you won’t get fast charging and you can wait in the cold
3. If you drive before the battery is warm you will decimate your range.
4. Super cold SCs hoses get really stiff and very hard to get to and plug into the car.
5. Many non-Tesla SCs just don’t work in cold temps and Tesla probably has a lower limit too - though I don’t know what it is.

for sure the media don’t know what they are talking about and push the doom and gloom Tesla story, but I suspect that most EV drivers just don’t pay attention to proper battery management good practices.

 

[jerhenderson]

I had no issue last year when traveling and charging at -6 degrees fahrenheit, and my car was outside away from my home and garage for over two weeks in generally cold weather.

I would think one should never leave the car overnight or longer in extreme cold with a very low state of charge. I always charged back up when my car was between 10 and 20 percent SOC. I think if someone procrastinates and lets their car get down to 5 percent or lower in extreme cold and then tries to go to a supercharger they could risk their battery temperature and energy getting critically low. The Tesla UI warns driver with messages on the screen at times when the SOC is getting low and the weather is cold.

So you have places like in Chicago with extreme cold temps along with wind chill carrying heat away even more. Then when someone lives in an apartment without being able to charge at home and procrastinates to a very low SOC percentage before going to the supercharger, I could see this potentially causing problems if the car has been outside and is very cold, with the supercharger not that far away that the car really didn't warm the battery much before getting there.

I think this is one of the reasons Elon was emphasizing shortly after the Model 3 ramp, that people should generally get used to charging at home like one does with their cellphone. If more apartments and townhome areas installed the destination chargers (wall connectors) and/or put the electrical services in when building to accommodate destination chargers, more people in these living arrangements would be able to charge at home to prevent cold weather charging issues.

It's funny how the MSM pushes FUD stories at certain times for places like Chicago, when you have Canada, Alaska, and a country like Norway which is farther north and has more Tesla's per population probably than any other country - yet these places aren't having any significant charging issues in cold weather.

- ÆCIII

No issues charging here at all..... -25 to -33 Celsius the last 2 weeks.

 

[Cybergirl]

why there are SO VERY MANY articles slamming EV charging/performance in cold weather.

For the EV/Tesla haters out there, it's "never let a good crisis go to waste".

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