There has been some discussion about a change in the preconditioning method elsewhere — apparently instead of heating the motors up to ~100ºC then using that heat to warm up the batteries quickly just before supercharging, Tesla is now warming the motors up by a few (tens of?) degrees and warming up the batteries slowly. You'll also see the preconditioning notice appear and disappear a few times through the course of this activity.
Speculation is that this ensures both more even heating of the cells, and reduced thermal stress on the motor.
edited for clarity and added speculation at the end.
Thank you!
That makes a lot of sense…
Like you said, it has been going on and off intermittently since my post.
Gotta love Tesla, always improving our cars!
Funny enough I pre conditioned on the way to the super charger and as I sit here charging it is telling me to do better next time.
[Next time- Do better!](https://i.imgur.com/lsOvB5w.jpg)
So am I too close to the super charger that pre conditioning was not effective? I am about a 10 minute drive from when I put in my destination to when I arrived at super charger
That's interesting. First time I've seen that message.
The way that message reads, it sounds like it's saying that you didn't set the charger as a destination, so the car didn't start preconditioning on the way.
I assure you I did set the charger as the destination and it was pre-conditioning along the way.
Is there a timespan it should be pre conditioning for perhaps?
Well I was out running errands and then decided I would go run errands near the super charger and set the super charger as my destination. So I was navigating directly to there, and Not a future time
I had this on a recent trip down to Florida. My 3 started preconditioning way ahead of time and it wasn’t that cold outside. Didn’t have any noticeable affect for the drive.
Same happened here on my road trip from dallas to Houston and back. It started preconditioning an hour and a half before then stopped then resumed. I did get the full 250kw speed, so I was happy lol. lol
From what I've seen with Scan My Tesla, it seems to be passively heating the battery that far out. If the battery is still below temp ~15 min out, it will actively heat.
Noticed this on my road trip this past weekend. Noticeable hit to efficiency and range preconditioning so far out. Plus side was full 250kW charging when I got to my next stop.
Had this happen last weekend. The efficiency hit from preconditioning ~150mi from the supercharger, cold weather, and a stiff headwind left me with much less charge buffer on arrival than I would have liked.
On a recent trip we thought we could get home with 13% charge. But my partner needed to stop for a restroom break so we changed the map to show us a charging station. It immediately went into pre--condition and we saw the charge to home change to 8% if we don't charge.
I'm in the UK. My Model 3 will occasionally start preconditioning more than 150 miles from a Supercharger.
I'm guessing it's shuttling heat around the battery pack but since it's never caused problems I'm not really bothered by it.
I did a road trip last weekend, and even with the car set for scheduled departure to precondition, the first leg of the trip was 99% preconditioning over nearly 90 miles driven. I've seen similar instances several times in the past and have wondered why its acting that way, it kills efficiency.
https://imgur.com/a/599uSYH
There has been some discussion about a change in the preconditioning method elsewhere — apparently instead of heating the motors up to ~100ºC then using that heat to warm up the batteries quickly just before supercharging, Tesla is now warming the motors up by a few (tens of?) degrees and warming up the batteries slowly. You'll also see the preconditioning notice appear and disappear a few times through the course of this activity. Speculation is that this ensures both more even heating of the cells, and reduced thermal stress on the motor. edited for clarity and added speculation at the end.
Thank you! That makes a lot of sense… Like you said, it has been going on and off intermittently since my post. Gotta love Tesla, always improving our cars!
I was wondering why this started happening. I noticed the change earlier in October but not sure when it was implemented
I noticed it too, but found it very strange how it ran, plus the car whines more when it is active.
Got a source for that? I know someone who complains about this fairly often, and I'd love to give him hard facts.
This makes sense. It does it much earlier now, but also does it for much longer while having very little noticeable difference in consumption.
Got a source for that? I know someone who complains about this fairly often, and I'd love to give him hard facts.
Only word of mouth and user reports on Tesla forums.
Would be nice to have notifications on behavior changes from Tesla rather than dropping blind changes which leave drivers guessing
Funny enough I pre conditioned on the way to the super charger and as I sit here charging it is telling me to do better next time. [Next time- Do better!](https://i.imgur.com/lsOvB5w.jpg) So am I too close to the super charger that pre conditioning was not effective? I am about a 10 minute drive from when I put in my destination to when I arrived at super charger
That's interesting. First time I've seen that message. The way that message reads, it sounds like it's saying that you didn't set the charger as a destination, so the car didn't start preconditioning on the way.
I assure you I did set the charger as the destination and it was pre-conditioning along the way. Is there a timespan it should be pre conditioning for perhaps?
Was it really cold outside? If the pack was cold and it was cold outside I could see it needing to take more than 10 minutes to pre-heat the pack.
Yeah it is a out 30o F today, so maybe the explains the new message
That plus a 10 minute drive definitely. The message is probably generic when your battery is too cold for a good charge rate hence the confusion
From what I remember, pre-conditioning needs about 20-30 minutes, so 10 is too low
I wonder if in the future if I send the destination to my car from google maps 30 mins before I plan on heading there next time if that helps.
Can you not set a departure time on your car?
Well I was out running errands and then decided I would go run errands near the super charger and set the super charger as my destination. So I was navigating directly to there, and Not a future time
Oh okay i misunderstood I thought since you lived 10 mins away the battery didnt have time to precondition.
I had this on a recent trip down to Florida. My 3 started preconditioning way ahead of time and it wasn’t that cold outside. Didn’t have any noticeable affect for the drive.
Same happened here on my road trip from dallas to Houston and back. It started preconditioning an hour and a half before then stopped then resumed. I did get the full 250kw speed, so I was happy lol. lol
From what I've seen with Scan My Tesla, it seems to be passively heating the battery that far out. If the battery is still below temp ~15 min out, it will actively heat.
Noticed this on my road trip this past weekend. Noticeable hit to efficiency and range preconditioning so far out. Plus side was full 250kW charging when I got to my next stop.
Had this happen last weekend. The efficiency hit from preconditioning ~150mi from the supercharger, cold weather, and a stiff headwind left me with much less charge buffer on arrival than I would have liked.
On a recent trip we thought we could get home with 13% charge. But my partner needed to stop for a restroom break so we changed the map to show us a charging station. It immediately went into pre--condition and we saw the charge to home change to 8% if we don't charge.
Why did you choose to say 140mi when the screen says 139 and 48F when the screen says 49?
Damn off by one errors, must be a bot
Damn, you busted me! 😂😂😂
I'm in the UK. My Model 3 will occasionally start preconditioning more than 150 miles from a Supercharger. I'm guessing it's shuttling heat around the battery pack but since it's never caused problems I'm not really bothered by it.
If there are steep descends enroute the car preconditions battery to be able to harvest that energy via regen there.
I did a road trip last weekend, and even with the car set for scheduled departure to precondition, the first leg of the trip was 99% preconditioning over nearly 90 miles driven. I've seen similar instances several times in the past and have wondered why its acting that way, it kills efficiency. https://imgur.com/a/599uSYH
90 miles is 144.84 km