jadnashuanh
Well-known member
As some of you may remember, I installed a volt/amp meter on the lines feeding my EVSE about a month ago.
It was warmer then, and I'd mentioned that preconditioning on a fully charged battery was using about 12A at 245vac. Well, it was colder this morning, and when I went to disconnect the cord, I noticed that it was cycling between about 12A and nearly 19A. So, since power=volts*amps, when it was warmer (but still needed heating), at 12A*245vac, it was using 2940Watts; 19A*245vac, it was drawing 4655Watts! Since it was cycling between those two figures (maybe a heating element turning on and off?), it was averaging nearly 3800W. So, since it can take awhile to get the cabin up to temp (and the batteries as well), if you aren't connected to the EVSE at the time, that can eat up a fairly significant portion of your power available. I was surprised that it was now bouncing off 19A (it could be higher, but the sample rate on the meter is only a couple of times/second).
FWIW, I normally run the climate control at 70-degrees F (about 19C). WHen I went down to use the car, it had been preconditioning for about 20-minutes.
So, from this observation, if you don't precondition while plugged in, it will suck a fair amount out of your battery while doing it, and if you have to do that several times during the day because things cool back down again in between trips, your range has to drop. Rounding some numbers, say you don't precondion and do it on the fly, so to speak, the car will use about 4Kw, say 1/2-hour getting things fully up to temp at each end of the trip. At around 4-miles/Kw, that's 16-miles off your total available range. More if you make more shorter trips and the car has to rewarm itself multiple times.
For those of you using the (in the USA, anyways) 12A, level 1 EVSE provided with the car...it may end up slowing the speed it can precondition since, at least on mine, the car is using more than what could be provided from the level one device (no worries, the car won't take more than it announces is available).
Even if you run your cabin temperature lower, the car still needs to use some power to condition the batteries, and you are likely to be using the wipers, lights, and maybe the rear defroster more in the winter than the summer...IOW, your typical load will be greater. It could certainly help if you parked in a heated garage! At least on the first half of the trip, the conditioning load would be significantly decreased.
We don't notice this as much with an ICE, since heating is an almost free by-product of the combustion engine. It only becomes more of a load if you use more electrical devices and the alternator needs to run harder/longer.
It was warmer then, and I'd mentioned that preconditioning on a fully charged battery was using about 12A at 245vac. Well, it was colder this morning, and when I went to disconnect the cord, I noticed that it was cycling between about 12A and nearly 19A. So, since power=volts*amps, when it was warmer (but still needed heating), at 12A*245vac, it was using 2940Watts; 19A*245vac, it was drawing 4655Watts! Since it was cycling between those two figures (maybe a heating element turning on and off?), it was averaging nearly 3800W. So, since it can take awhile to get the cabin up to temp (and the batteries as well), if you aren't connected to the EVSE at the time, that can eat up a fairly significant portion of your power available. I was surprised that it was now bouncing off 19A (it could be higher, but the sample rate on the meter is only a couple of times/second).
FWIW, I normally run the climate control at 70-degrees F (about 19C). WHen I went down to use the car, it had been preconditioning for about 20-minutes.
So, from this observation, if you don't precondition while plugged in, it will suck a fair amount out of your battery while doing it, and if you have to do that several times during the day because things cool back down again in between trips, your range has to drop. Rounding some numbers, say you don't precondion and do it on the fly, so to speak, the car will use about 4Kw, say 1/2-hour getting things fully up to temp at each end of the trip. At around 4-miles/Kw, that's 16-miles off your total available range. More if you make more shorter trips and the car has to rewarm itself multiple times.
For those of you using the (in the USA, anyways) 12A, level 1 EVSE provided with the car...it may end up slowing the speed it can precondition since, at least on mine, the car is using more than what could be provided from the level one device (no worries, the car won't take more than it announces is available).
Even if you run your cabin temperature lower, the car still needs to use some power to condition the batteries, and you are likely to be using the wipers, lights, and maybe the rear defroster more in the winter than the summer...IOW, your typical load will be greater. It could certainly help if you parked in a heated garage! At least on the first half of the trip, the conditioning load would be significantly decreased.
We don't notice this as much with an ICE, since heating is an almost free by-product of the combustion engine. It only becomes more of a load if you use more electrical devices and the alternator needs to run harder/longer.
. The range was showing as having dropped 8 miles (to 56 from 64).
