New Tesla Owner: What to expect this winter
For a new Tesla owner with a 2024 Model 3 AWD LR : What is more effected by cold winter weather, range or battery loss when parked? How much range reduction can I expect at various temperatures outside?
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For a new Tesla owner with a 2024 Model 3 AWD LR : What is more effected by cold winter weather, range or battery loss when parked? How much range reduction can I expect at various temperatures outside?
Precondition when you can. You can expect around 20% range penalty in cold weather. Plug in when possible and enjoy the ability to keep your car warm and windshields clear all winter.
More like 30%
More like 50%
I have a MS2022 and this is my 1st winter and it’s gotten cold here in NJ- the rated is closed to 385mils and I am getting like 280 :( …. It’s gonna get more cold so … :(
Yeah, it’s terrible. Absolutely not suitable for cold weather, and the WLTP numbers are just a joke. I can’t believe this is even legal.
More like 50-60% if you incur range loss on very short trips on freezing temps. Especially if you precondition to every drive (might be obligatory to avoid freezing glass and door handles).
This is not issue with home charging, but just a heads up. For some reason everyone always only counts long distance drive.
Maybe if you run the heat on full tilt…
When you say ‘Precondition’, do you mean heat the car in advance of a drive?
Basically turn your heating (Climate Control) on from the app will Precondition the car. Then hopefully by the time you get in your car it is the ideal temperature and the battery is warmed up
I'm a bit confused by what you're trying to compare, since range is basically impacted by battery (or battery loss). If you're comparing what will be impacted more in cold weather, driving vs being parked, it's probably driving. The worst I saw driving in winter was 50% efficiency.
This is the most accurate answer in my opinion.
You will notice more battery drain while driving and basically no other time. The reduction will depend on exactly how cold and windy it is, and whether there's snow on the ground or the roads are clear. You can see as little as 10-20% range loss on chilly, but not particularly cold, days with clear roads.
You could see 50% range loss on windy snowy days with temperatures at 0F or lower, especially if you can't preheat while plugged in.
Outside of driving, you won't notice a lot of range loss. I left my car for 4 days in an airport parking lot in an upstate NY December (temperatures were consistently below freezing, even during the day). When I got back to my car, the total battery drain was 1%.
We had a crazy winter last year a few -15°F days and boy did the battery drain. It helped for me to set the precondition schedule before I left in the morning. I had it plugged in
This will be my 11th (!) winter with a Tesla.
Batteries have come a LONG way since the A Pack but you can expect to use a lot more juice for short drives than you do now. That means if you have, say, 200 miles of rated range left on your charge and you jump in the car to go 30 or 40 miles, you may see a loss of 60 or 80.
It's normal and nothing to worry about. Just give yourself a bigger buffer than usual if you're 50 miles away from home.
Regenerative braking is also limited in the cold so you'll have a few "oh crap!" moments when you expect the car to slow with one pedal driving and it doesn't.
Don't worry too much about range loss. Charge when needed. Expect to charge more often. The real challenge is handling the car on ice or slippery snow. In curves, the regen can be too strong and make the wheels break traction. You have to learn how to slowly lift from the go pedal instead of going for the brakes. There used to be a low regen option which helped a lot but it's now gone. Regen will switch to low automatically for a while if you spin... make sure that first time isn't on an icy curve at 80km/h because the back will definitely slide.
I was reading this and about to say you just pop it into low regen mode but I must be sleeping because I had no idea they removed it.
ESP won’t hold the car?
ESP kicks in when you’ve lost traction; better to keep it than lose it and try to get it back.
And traction control? Won’t hold the slip?
Basically the same system. Wheel spin and body spin, both looking for grip with different wheels based on what’s moving outside of the norm.
Once you break traction on ice, it's much harder to regain it.
Expect around 15-20% decrease in range/efficiency. The reason is you're using the heat features a lot more and the battery doesn't like to he cold and is much less efficient while cold. Best thing you can do is preconditioning while your car is still plugged in so it used wall power instead of the battery to heat the car. Another tip, idk what your home charging situation is, but if you do charge at home slow charge over night right until you depart for the day. This allows the battery to stay warmer being charger all night. Vs setting your % soc and it stop charging at 2am and be mostly cold battery when you start it up in the am before you depart
Despite popular belief, it's not the heater that causes much of the range loss, it's the fact that air is denser in cold weather, meaning that there is more drag on the car when moving.
A Model 3 dual motor has a 77kwh battery. This is absolutely enormous and enough to power virtually any home for at least 24 hours, even with AC/heat running. Running a single small heat pump is not going to drain very much of that battery, given that it could power your house - including your dishwasher, dryer, A/C, and everything else for 24 hours or more.
Range loss in the winter applies to every single vehicle on the road - not just EV's. It's just more noticeable in EV's because of range anxiety. The cause is colder air which has a higher density than warm air, meaning the vehicle must push more air molecules out of the way for a given distance travelled (IE. more aerodynamic drag, which is the single largest factor that reduces the range of EV's, and why they go to the extremes to avoid it, like having flush door handles).
I can't speak to a new M3 but for a legacy MX I burn ~350 Wh/mile on 22"wheels during summer and ~500Wh/mile in winter (PNW).
Yup - my legacy S (days shy of turning 10) on regular wheels and my newer Y on larger wheels burns like crazy but if I'm remembering correctly, my first production 3 (equivalent to today's long range) didn't have as much an issue.
Any suggestions for a RWD M3 new owner??
Expect unusually high consumption on short drives, and decent consumption on longer drives.
The windows and door handles will freeze.
Make sure you have your "pop the door" action widget set up in your app (press and hold the icons below the car 3D model to customise what actions are there). This way you can open the driver's door even if the handle is frozen, all without using the Tesla Chop martial arts technique. (Punching the door handle)
Stuck windows will prevent you from properly opening and closing the doors. Pre-heating for 10-15 minutes prevents this.
I concur.
Sincerely, a Gal about to start her 11th (!) winter owning a Tesla.
Wow, you're a veteran! I'm only on my third year, but we have enormously long winters in northern Norway. Winter tires are on half of the year.
I’m in the northeast of the US. Not that far north though. Have never used winter tires but also don’t have to drive when it snows and my city plows fairly quickly. And it’s hasn’t snowed much the past few years.
I can’t believe it has been this long though!
While there will certainly be a noticeable range drop, Teslas are one of the few cars that will explicitly call that out specifically saying cold conditions cost x amount of range. I try and keep mine plugged in more frequently and start preconditioning either through a shortcut or schedule.
The heat pump is «magical», but it isn’t magic.
Expect 10-15% drop in range, but heating up the cabin has a penalty price associated with it.
So several smaller trips that allow the cabin to cool down will have a bigger impact on range than doing one long drive.
Pre-conditioning before starting vs. getting into a cold car tends to end up with very similar net result for the drive (unless you let the car sit for too long).
I adjust my pre-heating strategy based on the outside temp and if the car is covered in snow or ice.
As long as I can I prefer a 10 minute «de-frost» to a 10-20 minute «precondition», but if it’s really cold I’ll mix and match. If it sits too long on de-frost it gets unbearable so I’ll turn it off and let it sit with preconditioning still turned on.
The important result of the de-frost is that panels in the car also get heated up as the air in the car is a lot warmer the energy flows quicker.
Letting the car sit for a long time on de-frost zaps quite a bit of energy.
What you’ll really feel if it gets so cold that the battery needs to be heated. We had that a few weeks last winter and I can’t say having a heat pump seemed to do much difference. It probably did, but it was the coldest we’ve had in all my five years of EV ownership.
If you charge at home leave it plugged in. If you have a regular schedule that you follow you can set up both charge and pre-heating timers.
Do remember that pre-heating is not for the headlights, so they might need to be brushed and/or scraped when you park outdoors. As always, add silicone lubricant to your door and window gaskets around the openings so they don’t freeze.
Would it be all right to have without home charging? Plenty of superchargers around and close to home, not very crowded (Europe). No so big commuting distances. Only problem is really if I leave the car parked for too many days, like going for a overseas journey.
Just had our first cold snap down to -3⁰C (UK) and I own a M3 highland, first winter with the car (and first EV). I've definitely noticed a bit more consumption, and I do approx 1000 miles per month so roughly charge once a week at a supercharger. This was one of the main reasons I went for the standard car over the others, the LFP battery which is less fussy about temperature extremes. I've noticed an effect, but it just means I need to charge every 5 or so days instead of every 7, and I usually charge when I hit 20% and charge up to 80% unless I'm doing a long trip. It's not been a major concern to be honest.
The Long range awd also has LPF batteries?
I could be wrong but I think only the standard range model 3s and Ys use an LFP battery. The LR and performance use NMC chemistry which are more energy dense but are more detrimentallly affected by temperature extremes, in terms of both battery life and overall battery health, as per my understanding
Correct
If you can park it in an underground garage you won’t experience any range loss while parked.
Not crazy cold where I live and I haven’t seen noticeable differences
In a week you would lose like 1% of battery