how do I pre-condition Tesla without heating up the cabin?
I heard it takes 20 mins to pre-condition the battery during cold weather like 10 degrees, I don't want to lost too much range daily, so I would like to pre-condition the car, I heard that's good for battery life. is it true?
Due to narrow garage space, I don't want to park the car in my garage every night, only when i need to charge the car.
If not plugged in it will use a fair bit of battery, so it’s best when plugged in.
To precondition the battery ‘for optimum performance’ which will give you a fair bit of regen when driving, you need to schedule the departure to precondition. Doing so will warm your battery way before it warms the cabin. It will still preheat the cabin for departure time however, just not till the end of the preconditioning of the battery. It takes 30-60 mins to properly warm the battery up.
When I’m driving and not plugged in I only hit the climate 10-20 mins before I leave, but in the mornings I have it plugged in. Running long preconditioning when not plugged in mostly wastes power. Probably more power than you would gain from regen. Eventually just when driving the battery will warm up enough (about half an hour depending on weather) and will regen.
Preconditioning in cold weather is not for battery health, it's for comfort and performance. A warm battery will provide more power and stronger regen braking. If the car isnt plugged in when youre preconditioning, its going to pull power from the battery pack to do it, thus effectively decreasing your daily range.
Theres no way to precondition the battery in cold weather without turning the climate on, they are tied together as its presumed that you want to warm the entire car up before you get in to drive in the cold.
Yes the car can decide to separately heat the battery and the cabin, but there is no setting specifically to do that. The only options are to activate the climate or schedule preconditioning, and in either case you are telling the car to decide if both the cabin and the battery need to be heated.
Yes the car can decide to separately heat the battery and the cabin, but there is no setting specifically to do that. The only options are to activate the climate or schedule preconditioning, and in either case you are telling the car to decide if both the cabin and the battery need to be heated.
it can be done with the s3xy commander/app, but you can't do it remotely
How do the s3xy buttons do this? They still use the fleet api and vehicle command protocol so should work local or remote if it works as you say.
Super clean to have a mechanism to start / stop battery preconditioning while driving without needing to navigate to a supercharger.
They don’t only use the api. The commander is hardwired and sends commands directly.
Oh yeah, have been reading up on it and about to place an order. Hadn’t realised at the time there was a physical connection to the car as well as the api endpoints.
You’re gonna love it. Amazing product.
S3xy buttons allow you to precondition without using the climate control
I wouldn’t know.
thanks for clearing up. I always thought Pre-condition battery is for battery health.
Preconditioning by warming battery before going to a supercharger is important for battery health but that is a distinct phenomenon.
No. Preconditioning before supercharging is all about charging faster. It has nothing to do with battery health.
But it does, as charging too fast in cold results in lithium plating, which can induce major failures later (and be silent as well until sudden failure) distinct mechanism from normal calendar and cyclic aging. Higher current requires higher temperatures to avoid damage.
The BMS is restricting the current in the cold intentionally because of this property.
But you’re not preconditioning to protect the battery. The BMS does that for you if you don’t precondition. You precondition so that doesn’t happen and you can charge fast. If the BMS didn’t protect you already, then yes, you want to precondition to protect the battery.
Well, the supercharger will protect battery health by charging a cold battery much more slowly, so if possible in winter charge then park and don't park and then expect to charge quickly the next day.
Run an extension cable out to your driveway? We have two electric cars and only room for one rapid charger so that's what we do. I have an Alexa routine to warm up the car before I leave.
Unless you are planning to go to a charger, don't worry about preconditioning if you aren't interested in warming the cabin. Preconditioning will get you a warm battery and more regen, but you'll use more energy warming the battery than you'd get from Regen. The battery will warm up as you drive.
How long does it take for a battery to get good State for supercharging? From my home to the nearest supercharger is like 20 min.
It depends on how cold it is. Could be as much as 30 minutes, but that's just for optimal charging speeds. 20 minutes would be plenty of time to get the battery warm enough to supercharge. Just make sure you use the supercharger as the destination in navigation, otherwise it won't preheat.
There is no need to precondition the car if it's not plugged in. Just heat up the cabin, get in and drive.
How do you precondition before charging?
Use the car navigation to navigate to the Telsa super charger it will notify you on the way it's preconditioning
If I tell the cabin to warm up during frosty weather, the preconditioning icon will also show up.
Those SEXY buttons are supposed to have a function to turn on battery heating without going to the charger. Somehow bypass.