Tesla Supercharging in Extreme Cold
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- Опубліковано 13 січ 2024
- TESTING Supercharging and some other CCS chargers at -35°C in Alberta Canada with my 2022 Tesla Model Y AWD LR.
I started from a cold garage (-4°C) and drove 78km (48mi) to a Supercharger which I had navigated to so that the car started pre-conditioning the battery. It used 11% of the battery during my 50 minute drive to heat the battery, and the battery was warm enough that I got almost fully normal charging speeds (140kW @ 40%) Then I went and tried a couple non-Tesla CCS chargers too.
This video will never gonna make it to mainstream news 😉
Hahaha, of course not, it's too boring! (Plug in, it works, the end) 😉
Tesla hater won't want to see this
Somehow made it to my Google feed
CBC News' UA-cam channel has 3.44 million subscribers and would be happy with the view count on this video for one of their EV videos. Tesla Camping Canada for the win !
@@jameschristiansson3137 Very kind of you :)
People from Chicago who have had issues with charging their EVs in cold weather need to watch this video and educate themselves.
A majority were ride share drivers clogging up superchargers but the people who didn't precondition 🤷♂️
As said above, most of them are ride-share drivers who probably didn't know that well about how to deal with EVs in such cold weather. But apparently, the mess at that Superchargers has been normal after a day or so.
did anything really happen? all the videos were by fox so im curious why no one else reported on the issue.
@@scottmcshannon6821 There is one from "Out of Spec Review".
To my understanding the Chicago charger was literally malfunctioning
My Tesla works well here in Fairbanks Alaska even without superchargers readily available. One advantage we have is that most places here have level 1 plugs. These plugs are meant for ICE vehicles for the block heaters but it inadvertently also works well with EVs as it also keeps the battery warm and would also slightly charge the battery.
Ya we have those everywhere here too :) I imagine eventually some of those will get converted to L2 chargers, that would be pretty handy.
I'm in Dawson Creek Canada 12 hrs. from Alaska, it was -40 here and my Tesla worked fine during the cold and it was cold snaps like this is why I bought my Tesla.
I want to travel the continent and Alaska is a place that I'd really like to see. I have a Model 3 Performance that I'll camp out of but I can't seem to make it to Alaska with the Supercharger network. Are there many level 2 chargers throughout Northern British Columbia up to the populated areas of Alaska? I could maybe just use those and stop for the night each time that I need them.
@@CplgLockomait is true that you loose a lot of autonomy with cold?
How much time you waste charging in a month? How far is the charger from your home? Lol
Never had a problem with my teslas. They are awesome.
Never had a problem with my ICEs. They are awesome.
Just precondition the battery and its always fine
@@innerlight7018 Never had an engine or transmission give up the ghost on you? I experienced both, a motor dead on an 80 kmiles BMW, and a dead transmission on a 6000 mile old Toyota! So, no beat-up junk cars... Never had a dead battery, or an ignition system issue? or a bad injector?.......
Then you are an incredibly lucky motorist!
Clearly the people in Chicago who had trouble charging their Teslas were experiencing operator errors. Either that or the chargers themselves weren't functioning up to par.
Agree. Apparently many of them were ride-share drivers who had rented the Teslas. They did not know anything about battery preconditioning for superchargers, which is even more important in extreme cold. As some UA-camrs have shown, showing up with an unconditioned battery at a supercharger in sub-freezing temps can take 30-40 minutes before the battery gets warm enough to even start taking a charge. This is probably what the folks in Chicago were experiencing, thus thinking the superchargers were not working properly. I'm glad that I live in Florida!
Yes, Out of Spec has a good video on this. It does seem like a combinations of factors, some chargers actually were down, but the main problem was too many uber/lyft drivers using the superchargers and not knowing to pre-condition properly.
@@TeslaCampingCanada Thanks. I figured as much.
Honest question: I know preconditioning makes sense to get high charge rates right away but when you don’t, the battery conditioning should kick in after plugging in, right? That means it should not be possible to get stranded as Fox news put it. It just takes time until the battery is heated.
@@hkad6252 Yes. The battery should start conditioning once plugged in, but since that could take 30-40 minutes in the extreme, sub-zero cold, the driver might assume the charger is not working and give up. One might certainly feel stranded if their battery is dead and no charging posts are available! Of course, the news is gonna sensationalize.
Thanks for the research! The coldest experience for me in Wisconsin was about -25°F. Everything worked and efficiency was poor as expected.
"Everything worked and efficiency was poor as expected." Very good summary :)
So what happened in Chicago?
@@safeandeffectivelol ua-cam.com/video/K64HQ5ZPfdQ/v-deo.htmlsi=G_4Vv5O4SW2dR6Bq
I think there is a quick summary at the end which is all you probably need to watch.
In my province, it rarely dips below -30°C but twice a winter. I drove my 150km roundtrip to work and back those two days and had no issues. I had something like 235-245 wh/km efficiency over the full trip.
I drove the speed limit as best a I could.
Yes, I preconditioned 15m before I left home and same when I left work.
Education is key.
If you don't have a place to charge at home or work, EV may not be the best choice; however, even if you don't have that home/work charging available, if your range could last all week, you could just charge at a public fast charger once a week and still own an EV.
💯 agree 👍
Great video, and very informative too! Glad people like you are showcasing that the issues reported by the news are more anti-EV than anything else. A quick note about the noises you mentioned while charging the car. Often the car will run the motors at full speed to keep the battery temperature high while charging, or it will also run the cooling system at maximum to cool it off, if it's needed. Those are likely the noises you were hearing.
Thanks! Yes it was sure using everything it had to create heat, I don't think I have ever heard it that noisey before lol.
I’ve been really curious to learn more about how battery preconditioning works on a technical level. I understand that involves running the drive motor(s) to produce heat that is then used to warm the battery, but I don’t know how it can do that while putting some reduced amount of power into the wheels.
I doubt there are mechanical clutch packs involved, but I don’t know how an electric motor could run at full speed without also putting the full generated force into the wheels as well.
Anyone know of any resources that dive into this level of detail?
@@aaronboggs5799 Yeah I wonder how much the 11% conditioning reverses any of the range loss from a cold battery?
@@aaronboggs5799battery preconditioning is usually accomplished through heating the battery coolant and then circulating the warmed coolant through the battery.
Cheers
Mike 🇨🇦
@@aaronboggs5799 The best explanation I have figured out is that they use a method similar to Field Oriented Control (FOC, or vector control) to drive the motors which allows for this. In the permeant magnet DC motors they use, there are magnets connected to an output shaft, and then multiple stationary coils surrounding the magnets. In normal operation, the coils make a magnetic field which is in the correct direction to spin the permeant magnets, so all force from the magnetic field goes into spinning the motor shaft as efficiently as possible. When the car wants heat, they just purposefully misalign the magnetic field from the actual magnets a little bit. This means the coils work harder to create extra magnetic field which doesn't help spin the motor faster as it is in a direction it physically can't spin. This means all of the energy they put into the field that is in that direction turns to heat.
This follows exactly the same trigonometry of a triangle, so they can calculate the larger magnetic field strength required to still have the same component in the direction they want to spin the motor, and have the amount in the "heat" direction to produce as much warming as needed. This means if you accelerate quickly and it needs the extra power being used for heating, they just realign the magnetic field to reduce the amount in the "heat" direction, which can happen basically instantaneously as there is nothing physical to move.
Very good review on what to do in the cold. Thank you,
Thanks!
So much for "EVs don't work in the cold".... Good video👍
Thanks!
How come EVs work just fine and have the highest rate of uptake in the entire world in one of the coldest country on earth -- Norway? It's northern section is the closest to the north pole of any country on earth.
Indeed, EV sales are the strongest in Scandinavian countries. 82% Market share in Norway last year, and Iceland was in second place with 50% new vehicles being EV. The mis-information in North America is strong.
@phillipbanes5484 true but we have very few people living that far north and virtually 0 roads. I believe you can just drive to the Arctic circle in Norway on public roads.
Cheers
Mike 🇨🇦
@@phillipbanes5484 Greenland's not a country
@@phillipbanes5484 OK....🙄
Most children know that the closer you get to the north pole, the bigger the influence from Santa Claus and this is what the people of Chicago just don’t seem to understand
Great video! It doesn’t get as cold where I live (-20 maybe) and it’s never been an issue for me either. Good to know even colder isn’t an issue :)
Well sort of. If you dont have the option to heat your battery like that then all the power for that is coming out the battery itself. Also temperatures this low will degrade the battery a lot faster regardless of any other factors.
Just rented a M3LR for a 7-8 hour road trip and had no issues with charging no matter how cold it got. Made sure the battery was preconditioned and didn’t let it get too low where it could create an issue for me. If you’re smart and attentive you avoid a lot of issues. This goes for both EV and ICE vehicles. If you ignore the items you are supposed to do you will have issues no matter what car you drive.
Exactly. I've never run out of gas in a car, and I can't imagine a situation where I could possibly run out of electricity in my EV.
Issues that are not with ice cars lol precondition this that 🤣
Exactly. People are just stupid and push their luck.
I bet you never warm up your ICE vehicle, or change the oil, or filters or brakes pads.@@bobkk-ev5ls
@@bobkk-ev5ls issues that are not with EV’s … running out of oil and seizing the engine 🤡
A thing I noticed in MN level cold (Only a bit below 0F) was that you can start with a totally warmed up battery at home, but that the battery will get colder as you drive, even if it's a long trip, IF you go at highway speeds.
When you think about it, it's not that surprising. Imagine sticking a piping-hot burrito in a -5 degree 70mph wind tunnel. Won't stay warm for long.
The trick is to drive a little slower, use regen braking a fair bit even when you don't need to. Give it some hard accelerations and then go back down to regular speed. Those all helped warm the battery a bit for me.
Something else - a rule I'm making up right now, for every Degree below 0, drive 1 mph slower to help keep the battery warmer (if you need it)
Yup people just need to understand some basic concepts.
Don't want to spam this thread, but look at EVInsulate. There's no reason an EV should struggle to keep its battery warm. My guess is that engineers made trade offs related to heat exchanger capacity, using some passive cooling, but poor cold performance is a consequence.
What year and model you are driving, I heard somewhere that Dual motor is much better at keeping the battery more warm or maybe any Tesla with the heat pump.
I appreciate this real world driving in the unusual cold of Alberta…-40 is very cold but not cold for more than a few weeks as a rule. I don’t have an EV, so I find the time and costs provided very informative. I live in Edmonton so I can relate, was curious how an EV does in the extreme cold snap we had. Thanks for the video
Thanks for the comment. :)
blaming EVs for crappy charge infrastructure in the US is peak...'Murica
No, this is about bad Tesla owners that don't even know how to run that thing, & fox news landed on the right dumbasses to make that propaganda bullshit hit piece of a video
This is completely common. I was in some thread the other day where someone posts an article that Hertz is stopping EV rental in the US. It didn't occur to this idiot that maybe, just maybe that's because charging infrastructure is so terrible in the US, that no wonder Hertz had issues. It could actually work fantastically well with some joined up thinking, e.g. if you could rock up to any charger Hertz had a partnership with and just start charging, if the cars had maps and route planning that worked, if there were an actual single charging standard, if there were sufficient chargers around for all this to be viable. But that is not the case and so Hertz dropped it. Meanwhile, if you rent a car in Norway from Hertz, half the cars in their inventory are EVs and I expect in time it will all be EVs. Because Norway has put the infrastructure in and given the right incentives and consequently 90+% of new car sales are EVs.
@@drxymthe big issue is the disconnect between posted range (a mix of city and highway driving) versus pure highway driving. The 205 mile range that showed on the model 3 I rented turned out to be 130 miles at Interstate highway speeds.
@@drxymthe headlines are misleading. Hertz is getting rid of 20k EVs globally which is a third of there fleet. The primary reason is because of cost of damage repair and the decline in resell value. EVs aren’t as profitable in a rental fleet.
Legal speeds, or "Drive it like you stole it!"?@@dr.markevers8331
I arrived to one of the level 2 superchargers in NW Wisc last Sunday during the -10F freeze. Only 1 of 8 superchargers was working. A tech from TESLA was there taking photos and documenting it. He said that people were letting the plugs drop into the snow. The ends were packed with snow and either caused an error or prevented the connection from locking. I noticed that as well. The stiffness of the thicker level 2 cables in the cold temperatures were causing the plugs to pop out of their holsters. That was my experience.
And everything’s fine / back to normal now. Ok, next topic.
Uggg, useless people...
At my local closest SuperCharger I tried 3 chargers and none would lock but water came out. I actually thought maybe someone was sabotaging them by putting them in the snow but maybe they fell out of the holder like you said. Anyway I went home and charged in my garage with no problem on my 2-40 outlet. Slow at only about 22 miles an hour but it works. If I didn't have free SuperCharging and the SuperCharger station is just 3 miles from my house and located where I shop anyway I'd just charge overnight at home.
Dude, cool vid. Thx for sharing.
Thanks!
Let me tell you that cold snap we had was probably coldest i can remember. Strathmore to Crowfoot NW CGY is at least an hour drive. Looks like these Teslas can take the cold.
It's also the coldest I can remember. Yup, it took about an hour each way I think.
Great video, thanks for sharing this. Recently I’ve come across a lot more resentment for EVs across UA-cam and Instagram and then realized that they were always on videos that are meant to make EVs look bad.
We’ve been a 2 EV household for 3 years now and haven’t had issues charging outside home. It’s all about planning (an additional step) that EVs roadtripping needs.
The anti-ev FUD has been strong lately...
@@TeslaCampingCanada agreed. I guess people nowadays want to believe what they want to believe and aren’t looking for facts. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Seven years trouble free 40k miles. May need tires in 20k or so. I rarely use brakes. eSoul KIA. Solar.
Elon Fudd doesn't help any, or poor build quality... @@TeslaCampingCanada
@@OrmondOtvos What are these 'brakes' you speak of? ;)
The chargers in Chicago was off the grid, no power, malfunctioning, simply OFF.
It’s important to have an independent charger that plug up in a home. Telsa will still charge on low amps in any weather conditions even if battery is cold.
Yes at least one of the superchargers sites was totally offline, some others had certain stalls not working.
Excellent, thank you.
Odd that it was Chicago only, why not Alaska or Colorado
Out of Spec Reviews has a good video on the Chicago event. Some chargers were actually down. But the main factor seems to have been there are just too many uber/lyft drivers using rental Teslas and other EVs and not knowing about battery per-conditioning.
@@TeslaCampingCanada- and not being able to charge at home?
The people in Chicago are stupid
People that are smart enough to buy a Tesla are smart enough to understand its use. People that rent a Tesla for ride share use (Chicago), not so much..
BTW for my US friends, -40 is where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet. -40 is f-in' cold both ways..
Cheers from The Great White North.
They just didn't know. You don't do the same amount of research before renting a car as you do before buying one. I would blame Uber/Lyft/Hertz more than the individual drivers. The companies should provide more education, Tesla could help with that too.
@@TeslaCampingCanada - I agree
Thanks for this! Too bad mainstream isn't real news anymore and would never report this
"EV charging works in cold weather" - pretty boring headline lol.
@@TeslaCampingCanada you're right, plus Tesla doesn't pay them
@@bartell20j Exactly.
I love tech but I plan on staying away from Electric as long as I can. I live in Canada and it can get crazy cold here too! I've had it where even with my grill and bottom air intake were totally blocked off, I couldn't get enough heat out of a gas vehicle to keep the window clear. Several people had already stopped on the side of the road just to scrape away ice buildup. They're having the same issues as me. What would an EV do? It would be horrible. I'd have to miss work cuz of it. If I live somewhere warm all year, well that's different. Nice video, glad someone (you) posted it!
I had no problem getting heat at -40c. Maybe if you're getting down to -50c or something you might have problems, I'm not sure. Any vehicle would though. As long as you don't need the full range, I think an EV works just great in winter.
In a Tesla, you just set the time when you want to leave.Then it will pre-heat the car for you. Normally, you plug the car in to charge it overnight, so then it’s fully charged AND warm.
I live in Sweden, which has a similar climate to Canda, and have a hard time understanding these supercharger problems reported from Illinois.
I’ve had ICE cars for 40 years and during extreme cold weather it sometimes happened that the car refused to start. That would never happen with my Tesla Model 3.
No way. News told us Chicago EVs are useless in the cold. lol
Great video, thank you.
Honestly, Tesla is to blame. On delivery, they should emphasize how important preconditioning is, among other things.
EVs are a bit different and new owners should be informed. Unfortunately, too many people don't bother reading the manual.
Agreed, Tesla could do more to educate new owners on delivery.
Up! Thank you for your video
Is the grip on the supercharger also preconditioned? It looks like you did not wear any gloves.
No they are not. The charging handles were freezing cold, I should have worn gloves, but I'm a stubborn/lazy Canadian haha.
Now that's a proper cold weather test! How well did the heat pump do at keeping the cabin temperature warm?
It kept it plenty warm enough for me, no complaints :)
Thanks!
So @ 4:58 in the video, you were at 70% charge...but @ 6:32 in the video, you were back down to 40%. How many additional miles (plus climate I know) did you drive...to lose 30% of charge that fast?
76km (46mi) which used about 25%. Then I used a few percent while waiting for that last charger to open up. (driving around a bit and just sitting with climate on)
This just happened in Ottawa yesterday, only 3 stalls were working. Many drivers dried removing snow / warming up the chargers with no luck…
Strange, how cold was it?
My car can’t even pre-condition and it’s been fine in this weather.
The wasn't a long queue . What happens if you have to sit for a hour or more , waiting to get on a charger ?
Then your battery would get cold again. That's why I checked that the supercharger was at least reported as being online and there were plenty of stalls available. The non-tesla charger across the street was a potential backup. Just don't take chances in winter, doesn't matter what kind of car you have. Fuel up when you have the chance before hitting the highway.
Thanks for sharing this. That’s crazy how they raised the price like that in Canada. I guess you can say it’s like gas at this pint. 🤦🏽♂️ Did you pre-condition more than 30 minutes?
Since filming this video they dropped the price down to $0.54/kWh.. slightly better. At least that's going in the right direction haha. It started preconditioning as soon as I started the drive, so almost an hour.
I've seen pre-conditioning start 90 min from a supercharger in these conditions. Received 250kW.
How is the cabin heat at -40º? Is it able to warm up fully to 20º or does it slip some when it's that cold?
That was the outside temperature.
With an EV, when you turn on the heat, it gets produced by an electric heater, it'll continue to produce heat as long as your main battery has power. With an ICE vehicle, the heat comes bypassing some of the coolant into the heater core. In extreme cold, the heat will leave the motor very quickly, even if you have a cold front blocking a large part of the radiator. For this reason, ICE vehicles often have reduced heat output.
It was fine, no problems keeping it warm or hot even - you just burn through your battery faster.
Did you start from a windy parking lot or a home garage? How much difference does that make?
I started from my garage, it was -4°C or so in the garage. If I had started from being parked outside, with a cold battery, and not plugged in, it would have used a few more percent to warm things up.
Now I see this guy is using a ChadMo adapter not needed for Tesla Super Charger is where he should be at!!! Now he’s using a L2 EV charger but it should still work! Don’t forget Telsa are in Alaska and having no problem also Greenland too!
I'm glad I stlill have a old Fashioned battery to get going in cold weather
Precondition first but give the battery time to warm up to its optimal I used it in harsh weather in the Rocky Mountains in Winter park it was -XX below 0. And I had no problem leaving my Telsa in the extreme cold and I had less than 3% while searching for L1 or L2 charger they were all taken by other EVs … No Telsa Super chargers in winter park Colorado so I plugged my car into 110/120 socket at the AirB&B and it charged over night to 50% All Good!!!
What adapter do you use for the fast charging? It’s hard to find ones for that (a lot of them only fit slow chargers )
I use the official Tesla CCS adapter :)
Really? Last I looked you couldn’t buy those anymore. I bought some sketchy third party one that doesn’t work (or didn’t the last time I tried it)
@@GK-ee7mw Looks like they are still selling them on the Tesla Canada website at least. Maybe they were out of stock for while? I do remember they lowered the price significantly after I bought mine. But have now raised it back up recently.
My December electric bill in Bradenton, Fl was $.136 per kWh. What is your rate there? At $.59 what is the profit on a fill up?
I also pay about CAD$0.14/kWh which is about US$0.10/kWh. Tesla says they try to run the Supercharger network profitably as a stand-alone business. Pulling 250kW from the grid can't be cheap, I don't think they make much money.
I suggest visiting us here in the UK to get a sense of overpriced electricity 😢
Oh, it will be coming to the States before long. Thanks to all of the naive EV enthusiasts.
@@Ricky-mo6mv Oh, the States will be going back to the middle east at the cost of another 10,000 servicemen's' lives and two trillion dollars to fight for cheap oil security thanks to all the naïve big fat lady SUV drivers with three empty rows of seats, and lifestyle pickup trucks powered by ICE. Must be nice to fill the tank up for cheap and not even know the real cost of things. At least the UK tends to drive vehicles they actually need and not all these short busses.
Thanks for doing the video...we own a 2022 Ioniq5 and have no issues traveling or charging our car. We also own a 2017 Nissan Leaf as our run around car.
We put a crap load of KM's on our I5 (44000km in 7 months)
We just finished a 14,648km road trip over 43 days....no problems.
The people who make up all the crap against EV's tend to be people who have never even sat in one let alone driven or lived with one!
Cheers
Mike 🇨🇦
Awesome to hear! It sure is funny how all the people who have never used an electric car think they are experts..
great video
Thanks!
2:36 - the amount of time/distance that was allotted for pre-charging battery conditioning. I think it is entirely possible that the battery uses enough electricity to precondition, however, if not given enough time/distance, given those frigid temperatures, it may not be able to warm itself up enough. It certainly can warm itself up enough. It just is a matter of, allowing the car time to do so. If you were on a road trip, then it is likely you would have the entire time between superchargers to precondition the battery which would certainly leave enough time and optimize charging upon arrival.
It pre-conditioned the whole ~50 minute drive to the Supercharger, and it got very close to reaching the normal charging curve. I'm not sure if more time would have changed much. I just found it amusing that it used 11% of the battery to pre-condition, but it still wanted more.
How long did it precondition before the supercharger?
The whole trip, about 50 minutes.
Is there a way to check battery temp in a Tesla? It would be curious to see how fast it drops after a drive or a charing cycle.
You can go into service mode, but I guess Tesla doesn't like people doing that. Or you can use an OBD reader and an app like ScanMyTesla. Even the S3XY buttons can show the battery temp. I wish Tesla would add it at least as an option users could choose to display.
I like the idea of a battery temperature display ability as well. Tesla could also indicate temperature zones for allowable and optimal charging and Supercharging. It would be instructive for newer drivers especially. Tesla likes to keep this stuff from drivers, though, as I think Tesla frowns on giving drivers too many messy internal operational details.
The most important part in the video is at 1:38
Please pay very close attention to that step, as that was the key issue in Chicago failures.
So in order for the supercharging to work, the latch inside the charge port has to be working without getting froze.
If the latch is frozen, thrn sadly charging wont start.
In pre 2021 model 3, there is no heating element inside the charge port hence the latch is dependent on how much rear defrost is engaged.
I keep couple of hand warmers to melt the latch if it gets Frozen.
Ahh excellent advice! I think I remember a Bjorn Nyland video where he had a problem like that, and blasted the heat inside and folded the rear seats down (model 3?) to make sure the heat got back to the charge port area, then it worked. Can't remember the details..
I just took mine down to 10° below zero. I was preconditioning the battery I didn’t have any troubles. The only thing that I thought was frustrating is people would not put a slight bend in the cable before they put it back, so it would not stay in place always on the ground.
Ahh, good to know about putting a slight bend in the cable, i guess that is why they end up on the ground so much in winter.
I visited all of my local gas stations in subzero weather to make sure the pumps would still fill my tank, and thankfully they worked just fine.
You joke, but we actually had some gas stations here that didn't work during that cold snap.
@@TeslaCampingCanada
Touché! 😉
Thanks for the info. I was told the CDs adaptor comes with the car. Guess I should ask Tesla
The J-1772 adapter comes with the car, for slow chargers. But the adapter for CCS fast chargers is purchased separately. It is quite expensive (C$345 right now). So maybe try living without it for a while to see if you actually need it or not. I do use mine a lot in rural Alberta. There are cheap 3rd party ones on amazon, but I definitely wouldn't trust those considering how much power is going through it...
Oh, also keep in mind, now that all the other automakers have announced they are switching to the Tesla connector (NACS) the non-Tesla networks will start adding NACS plugs to their chargers over the next couple years, so the CCS adapter won't have much use at that point.
I’m curious to know why you never charge the battery to 100% capacity?
Lithium batteries degrade faster when charged to 100% or discharged to 0%, basically it's stressing the cells to the limit. Tesla considers occasional charging to 100% okay if you start driving right away - you don't want to let it sit at 100% for a long time, that is the worst for it. They recommend 80% max for daily use. This is for Nickel (NMC) based battery cells in the long range vehicles. This doesn't affect Iron (LFP) based cells as much which are used in the standard range vehicles.
so have you had any EV related issues so far in ownership of your Model Y in Alberta?
Owned it 1.5 years, 18,000km. Mainly road/camping trips. Zero problems.
Fun video. Gotta stabilize that GoPro. But still fun watching you freeze your ass off at three different chargers.
Ya I guess my gopro hero 7 is kind of old now, the stabilization isn't that good :(
How much energy does this "pre conditioning" use? I would really like to know.
In this video I show that it used about 11% of the battery (~8kWh) to precondition the battery during my 50 minute drive to the Supercharger.
I posted to a few of those stupid Chicago Tesla videos. I live in Canada and so far haven’t had any winter charging issues. Yes battery efficiency isn’t what it is in the warm months but certainly not a deal breaker. I love my Tesla.
Venturing into those videos is painful, brave of you!
this is awesome i am waiting for my model y to arrive and i am in london ontario. was wondering how far you can go when its super cold. since I drive to toronto for work hope i can make the 300 km round trip on a single charge. not daily, once a week
AWD LR?
AWD LR yes. I'm daily checking for a delivery date.
@@oxford_batman That's exciting, I remember those waiting days! My estimated delivery date keep jumping around between April to September. Those were crazy times. I waiting 10 months from ordering to delivery lol.
Mine is now end of Jan early Feb. I am exited and scared all at once. It's new tech for me and excited cause now it's a computer on wheels. The tech is my thing. Like anything else gotta get used to it. The one pedal driving might take me a while to get used to it. Question does the car get cold with the glass roof? Or crazy hot in summer? A regular sunroof my head would sizzle but I wonder one it's all glass.
@@oxford_batman One pedal driving took me maybe a few hours of driving over the first couple days to fully get used to, now I could never go back. Hmm, the glass roof is a mixed bag. Definitely lose a lot of heat through it, but, if it's a sunny winter day, I think you gain more heat from the sun shining in. In the summer it gets very hot. I use a sun shade in the summer, but take it off in the winter lol.
I'm not really a fan of EVs (or most modern cars for that matter), but I'm happy you posted this video, as it shows a real world example of what cold weather charging really looks like. I would have figured that the battery preconditioning would have been an automated system, but from the amount of power it draws, I can see why it needs to be activated manually.
It's automated in the sense that when you navigate to a Supercharger it will pre-condition for you.
@@TeslaCampingCanada yep. And it even scolds you if you don't navigate to the Supercharger so it can determine optimal preheating. I hate when I get to a Supercharger, connect, and is says "next time use Navigate to Supercharger. Idiot "
@@TeslaCampingCanada Oh that's interesting!
@@JBoy340a The battery is most conductive at 112 degrees F. It will charge just fine temperatures below this, just slower. The reason that Tesla pushes this message to help prevent lines forming at the station.
I’m in Royal Oak. Nice to see familiar roads and places. How has the range been when it has been as cold as it is? Cheers.
Hey! I'm losing about 45-50% at -30c and below. About 33% at -20c. Not really any noticeable range loss at -5c.
@@TeslaCampingCanada thanks for getting back to me! Luckily we don’t have many days at -30 or colder.
Exactly, looks like it's going to be summer weather in a few days! haha
@@TeslaCampingCanada finally! Although it has been very warm this winter overall.
@@Dogwalkerdave Ya it's been interesting weather.
$0.45 per kW isn't too bad considering you were out of network. I average around $0.36/kW for Tesla Superchargers.
Also, I think your Tesla did very well given the conditions. I grew up in an area that frequently got down to -35 C and our ICE vehicles hated it and refused to even start unless we plugged them in overnight. Even then the vehicles struggled to keep the engine warm enough to even heat the car. I remember having to employ the old cardboard in front of the radiator trick and hoping that I didn't forget to take it off when the weather warmed up.
As far as the 11% or so preconditioning usage goes, even an ICE pays a price in mileage for cold weather. Some estimates put an ICE at 25% less mileage at around -30 C.
Like anything, if people don't educate themselves on proper operating instructions they will pay for their mistakes just like the people in Chicago did. It's not really that hard.
Oh, the days wondering if my ICE car would even start in the morning...
how far do you get on one charge in these conditions :)
Summary at the end of the video, but 260km theoretically at -35c.
Is there a Supercharger between Strathmore and Kindersley when travelling to Saskatoon ? Have you ever made that trip ?
Ahh the gap between Strathmore and Kindersley... There's no Supercharger yet. Some free L2 slow chargers in Drumheller, and one single non-Tesla CCS 50kW fast charger in Hanna, but it is expensive. I haven't done it in winter, but it would work in my long range Y, as long as you don't have an issue at the Hanna charger... So I wouldn't recommend it yet. Hopefully Hanna gets some more fast chargers soon.
@@TeslaCampingCanada I will need to see more Superchargers on more secondary highways in western Canada before an EV will work for me. I'm waiting, impatiently.
Hopefully soon! It will help when the other networks start installing Tesla/NACS cables.
The whole concept amazes me. You're trying to make it to the next supercharger before going dead and the system needs to suck more power "warming the battery" so it doesn't take 40 minutes at the charger to even start charging. It took almost 1/3 of the energy conditioning as it did to power the car. Plus, if you don't want to freeze while charging, add another 6kw to heat the car (I don't know if that's a fact but heard it from another Tesla driver). That's an incredible waste of energy.
How often do you drive at -38 though?
@@TeslaCampingCanada Quite frequently, in Western Canada. Certainly not every day, but enough to make this a concern.
Ya that doesn't sound fun in an EV then assuming more than just city driving.
It did use a lot of energy to warm the battery for Supercharging, of course I didn't need to let it warm that much if I had more time to charge and could accept slower speeds. And yes the heating system is about 7kw max. That's negligible when charging at a 250kw charger though.
What happens if you don't have any available chargers?
I don't know, that's never happened to me. If travelling in winter it's probably a good idea to carry the mobile charger with you just incase, then maybe you could find somewhere to plug in. There are some roadside assistance services that can come give you a charge. AMA in Alberta has some Ford F-150 Lightnings that can come give you a charge using their onboard 240v outlet. Worst case is you'd have to get towed.
THANK YOU!!!!!!
You're welcome!
how long did you preheat the battery? 😀
It preconditioned the whole 50 minute drive. I only pre-heated the car for 5 minutes before leaving home.
But tesla's don't charge great in the cold. Yeah there's a a clip on here where everyone is just sounding stupid and I am glad you are showing this video to prove if you prepare your battery's for charging the right way that it does work. Thank you.
Exactly, just need to navigate to the Supercharger lol. It's not rocket science. Thanks for watching!
@TeslaCampingCanada Of course as tesla owner myself I'm always wanting to learn everything I can about these phenomenal products.
I saw a video of somebody doing this in Norway in similar temps. He did a bunch of hard acceleration runs to heat the battery as well.
Yup, you could definitely do that instead of, or to reduce the amount of battery per-conditioning. Might not be the best idea depending on the road conditions though :p
@@TeslaCampingCanada , it would be cool if you could actually see the battery temp real time. Could help you treat the car better like watching warmup in an ICE car.
@@TheCorrectionist1984 With an ODB adapter you could see the temps. And you can see it while in service mode. I guess Tesla just thinks most people wouldn't normally need that info. There is a blue snowflake beside the battery if it's really cold. And an icon that shows when the battery is actively being warmed up. I would love to have the option to display the battery temp though.
@@TeslaCampingCanada I use S3XY buttons to see the battery temperature and force pre-conditioning when road tripping to a non-Tesla charger. The car targets +55ºC battery temperature. So in really cold weather you need a good 30-40 minutes or more of pre-conditioning to warm it up closer to its target temperature.
@@lon6320 I didn't know S3XY buttons could show the battery temp, that would be awesome, thanks! I have been okay for now just navigating to a nearby supercharger when using CCS, since it's usually just the 50kW FLO ones I use, the battery doesn't need to be too hot for that.
It was probably a struggle to warm up the battery preconditioning at minus 35 at highway speed. Windchill feels like -70.
It sure did use what I consider a lot of energy to pre-condition, but it seemed to work, I was getting almost normal charging speeds.
Thanks for the test. Would have been interesting to go into service mode and see the battery temps.
Actually I did while supercharging but didn't include it in the video since the results seemed normal, batt min was 42°C max 58°C.
@@TeslaCampingCanada Thanks, that's plenty warm for Supercharging. I thought you might have arrived at the SuC with the battery still around 20-25°C, or less.
@@epcalderhead I was getting almost normal charging speeds, 140kW at 40% when I started charging. Looking at some charge curve graphs on google, I think maybe about 150kW would be the theoretical max at 40%.
You’re in Canada and pay that much at superchargers ? I’ve never been to one, but know that home charge rates are .08c per KwH charge during the winter. 50% charge is roughly $3 for me in my LR Model3. That means they are charging 5x the price, if that’s correct??
I pay $0.14/kWh at home all-in (fees+taxes) So Supercharging is about 4x the cost. Tesla did drop the price in Alberta to 54 cents a few days after I filmed this though.
@@TeslaCampingCanada yikes! Guess it is still very very fast charging, but that’s a massive difference. Thanks for the video it helped give me views on the difference ! I’m in Ontario ☺️
3 years of Model 3 long range ownership. 4,000 plus miles road trip in South Dakota, Black Hills mountains, Colorado and Wyoming at minus 22 degrees Celsius - wonderful experience and never a single issue with the battery and/or the Superchargers. And then there are the people in Chicago.... 🙄🤦♂️
Good to hear!
very good stuff about EVs and cold weather is there on Björns channel, Björn Nyland, lots and lots of real life tests for many years now in Norway, worth a look.
I went and moved the car out away from the building and left to completely cool down with out any kind of shelter. I finally got the blue snow ❄️ and now I see it regularly even when parked in an unheard garage. No idea why it needed that little nudge to see the effects of the colder temps.
That is strange, I don't know what's going on lol.
Thank you for the price/consumption data. What we need.
Glad it was helpful :)
There is just one difference in your case. You started the car from a garage so the car's battery temperature wasn't low to begin with. What happens when the car is parked outside in cold and you start from let's say 20% SoC?
It would take a few more percent to heat the battery/car. You really wouldn't want to let the car get down to 20% and then park it outside in -35°C weather though...
Last year I charged at my sisters place in Lethbridge -40
Crazy cold.
120 v from her home kept my Tesla 3 from draining.
I would go to the level 2 charger near a Starbucks and had no problem.
I like Vancouver cold better… 😂
Definitely, -40 is not much fun!
How do you pay for the charge?
Tesla Superchargers recognize which car it is and bills your credit card on file automatically. For the non-Tesla chargers, you use an app and tell it which charger to activate.
I would be interested to see if the charge speed stayed higher if you didn't run the cabin heater at all.
It probably would have been a little higher, since it could prioritize heating the battery instead, but I was already pretty close to the max charge curve anyway.
Anyone know how long the trip was he took to get to the charging station?
I drove 78km (48mi) to the Supercharger. The battery preconditioned the whole way there.
@@TeslaCampingCanada thanks for the reply.
Why do you tap the charge port? Just press the button on the Tesla charger cable, and it opens your charge port.
Haha why are so many people commenting about my method of opening the chargeport? I do both ways, but I prefer tapping, it's more fun! Plus, when using the CCS adapter, there is no button so you have to tap anyways. Maybe that's why I've gotten used to doing it at fast chargers. At home I think I use the button on the handle.
@@TeslaCampingCanada I just thought you didn't know. It took me some months to figure it out.
@@logitech4873 Ahh ok haha, thanks :)
yes this seems practical
Lack of knowledge in chicago plus all the UBER and Lift drivers not conditioning or trying to get their milage for the $3000.00 from Tesla
Everyone comenting on the people in Chicago should have known what to do, this is the same car that can keep itself in a Lane at 70mph, recognize traffic and automatically change lanes, keep a safe distance from the car in front and you mean to tell me that the car knows it's -40 degrees outside and knows it's going to a charger and how many chargers are available but doesn't automatically precondition the battery, yall tripping on this one.
Tesla is my favorite car but that many people having the same problem can not all be people who don't know to precondition the battery, aka push a button.
How to pre condition: select a nearby charging location in the sat nav and your Tesla will automatically precondition on the way to the location. If there's enough time to fully precondition your battery before arriving at the charger, the Tesla will do so with enough time to spare
How cold was the battery?
Not cold, not hot either. Just slow charging off 15A/120V in my cold garage before I left.
I don’t understand one thing, does none have a charger at home?
Most people do. I do. I was just out testing for fun that the charges worked in such cold temperatures.
How much do you pay for superchargers ? $ per kwh avg?
Throughout most of Canada it's in the $0.54 to $0.62/kWh range, except in BC where it's much cheaper, like $0.20 - $0.50/kWh.
@@TeslaCampingCanada great thanks! Love bc
Not sure if many people have realized the price drop at the super chargers. Now 54 cents per kwh from 59cents per kwh
Oh wow, that's almost a 10% drop, cool!
Does the app tell you the price at a super charger? And how do others work. We have Ivy in Ontario at the on route rest stops on the hey. Lots of questions newbie to Tesla 😅
Yes, the price is listed on the app at your location. Do you have an active tesla app? If so, just click on the location icon and select any supercharger. It'll show the price at that supercharger. Where are you located in Ontario? @@oxford_batman
@@oxford_batman Yes, the phone app, and the car's screen both show the price and # of stalls available at a supercharger. For other chargers you can use Plugshare to find them, and you'll probably need to install some apps to use the other charging networks. You've ordered the CCS adapter for your car? One problem is there is no way to pre-condition the battery for non-Tesla chargers. You can trick it by navigating to a nearby Supercharger, if there is one. Or, as I just found out, you can use S3XY buttons and assign one of them to manually start pre-conditioning.
Wow, Electrify Canada just switched to per kWh billing recently, and it's $0.70/kWh, insane! Makes Tesla's $0.54/kWh look like a great deal now...
You just pull the supercharger cable towards you like that normally? You know it's hooked on a notch right? You're supposed to go up slightly before pulling to 'unhook' it.
Yes I know, in my defence it was cold, I don't think my body was functioning correctly lol.
@@TeslaCampingCanadaand you can open the charge plug cover by pushing the button on the head of the charger cable
@@laplaszI know but tapping it is more fun :p
As usual the media only reported the negative aspects of BEVs when an extreme condition occurs, did not mention:
1/. Many of those UBER drivers charged up overnight at home and did not need to visit a charger or a gas station at -40 degrees
2/. When power is out gas stations also do not work, not only are the pumps electric but the router used to connect to the credit card authorization is down
Yes we had some gas stations down due to the cold here.
The Chicago incident was unfortunate for those involved, but oh man, the media coverage of it was insane!
Here in New York City at 25°F I parked my car at 7AM with 80% remaining.
Came back to the car at 1PM and had lost 7% down to 73%
That does seem a lot higher than some other tests I've seen, like this one for example: twitter.com/BruceTheModel3/status/1746727211271700558
I wonder why yours would lose more?
Did you have sentry mode running?
Does anyone know the freezing point of gasoline?
Pretty cold, the coldest temperature I have ever experienced was in the mountains of West Virginia in 1981. The temperature was -38 degrees Fahrenheit. I was 10 years old. The temperatures in Chicago last week were about -10. One idea I had was to put a traditional lead acid battery in there that with what amounts to an electric blanket over the battery in an EV that would pre-heat the battery before charging. That would pretty much solve the problem. Maybe Tesla has something similar, he mentions ‘pre-conditioning’ the battery before charging or driving in deep cold.
Most EVs have a liquid thermal management system to heat and cool the battery cells. The car can warm the battery itself before charging, it just takes some time. (Fast-charging the batteries requires them to be quite hot) I believe this is what led to some of the problems in Chicago, people didn't know about pre-conditioning, or weren't aware of how long it takes, or how much energy it can use etc.
@@TeslaCampingCanada Fast charging makes the battery hot but you need normal temperatures for fast charging so the coolingsystem will regulate that. Pre conditioning is just getting the temperature for optimal charging.
Yes, it needs to be the right temperature, which in the winter means heating the battery up first. My battery was a little over 50°C while superchargering during this video. In the summer it could be cooling it instead.
No. Wind chill is not factored in. That is a metric that relevant for animals only. If it’s -40° outside then nothing on that car will be below -40° except for the evaporator coils.
Right of course, I was having a brain-fart. Was hard to believe it was actually -40 lol
Not a Tesla driver but in Ontario the FLO network is the most reliable in my experience, we have a government supported network called IVY and while I have successfully charged a couple of times mostly it isn’t one that can be counted on.
FLO is great, I use FLO more than Superchargers, and have never had a problem, I can't wait until they add NACS cables to their chargers and I can ditch the CCS adapter.
Did the regen braking feel the same through the journey?
Yup, I think i had a little bit of limited regen at the start of the trip, but the car just blends in the mechanical brakes so I don't really notice a difference.
I own a Mod3 LR and have never seen the blue snow flake. Car sits out in the cold at work all day and gets bitterly cold but still no blue snow flake. Is that normal?
Interesting, how cold does it get where you live? I don't see it often, but I've seen it even just parked in my garage on really cold days where it might be -10c inside the garage.
I live in Calgary and my car regularly gets cold soaked. -11c for 7 hours yesterday and no blue snow ❄️
@@davidwebber8356 That does seem a little strange. I'll try pay more attention to when it shows up for me. This guy had the same problem of no icon, but nothing seemed wrong with his car, guess he never solved it: teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/6406337/
I have a MYP and the blue snowflake comes on when it sits overnight at work when temps go below 10F. 15 mins before leaving I just activate the climate system to warm up the car and the blue snowflake turns off before leaving the parking lot.
Thanks for the reply. I'll try and leave out overnight at home and see what happens. Outside temp is currently -15 C@@roylamberson7892
If the car is being driven, the battery is pre-conditioned so no problems. When the battery is cold, it won’t accept the fast charge so drivers need to understand the limitations and adjust.
In weather this cold, you'll still need to actively precondition the battery to get fast charging speeds. It would have been interesting to do another test without preconditioning to see the difference in charging speed. It's warm weather here now, might have to wait until next winter to try again lol.