Calculating Tesla Model 3 range loss through a cold winter night (video)

-

-Advertisement-

As the holiday season is nearing, cold weather is striking parts of North American with snow and wind. A Tesla Model 3 owner from Saskatoon, Canada tested his car for overnight range loss in temperatures as low as -17 ℃ (1.4 ℉).

The Model 3 owner conducted this battery range loss calculation outside in the snow and the car was not plugged into a charger for the entire 16 hours of testing.

According to our guide on cold weather tips for using Teslas and electric vehicles, it is in the best interest of the battery and range to let the car be plugged into the home charger overnight.

Tesla Model Y Accessories by EVANNEX (Sponsored Banner).
– Sponsored –

How to check Tesla battery temperature

Before jumping on to the video, let’s catch up with some basic indicators in Tesla vehicles showing the current state of battery temperature and affected range.

Dots and line indicator on the Tesla Model 3 / Model Y center touchscreen showing how cold the battery currently is and availability of regenerative braking.
Fig 1: Dots and line indicators on the Tesla Model 3 / Model Y center touchscreen showing how cold the battery currently is and the availability of regenerative braking. Source: SaskTesla / YouTube. Editing: Iqtidar / TeslaOracle.com

As we can see in the above screenshot, the horizontal dots+line on the Tesla Model 3 / Model Y center touchscreen indicates how cold the battery currently is and how much regenerative braking is available right now.

Since Canada uses the metric unit system, the car’s range is displayed in kilometers. At the time of parking the Model 3 in snow, the car’s screen showed 362 km of range left, for a Standard Range Plus Model 3, this is around ~85% of battery left.

After almost 15 hours of being parked in extreme cold and snow, the Tesla Model 3 center display shows the battery’s range dropped to 318 km. If we look closely (Fig 2 below), I have indicated a portion of the battery is showing in blue color on the screen and a snowflake icon appears on the top-left information bar.

Snowflake icon and cold blue portion of the battery shown on Tesla center display.
Fig 2: Snowflake icon and cold blue portion of the battery shown on the Tesla center display. Source: SaskTesla / YouTube. Editing: Iqtidar / TeslaOracle.com
– Advertisement –

This blue portion shows that this amount of range cannot currently be utilized right now because the battery is cold. As soon as the car runs for around 15-20 mins, this blue area on the center display disappears as the battery gets all warmed up.

The Tesla Model 3 lost 44 km (9%) of range including the cold blue inactive portion of the battery, this range loss is calculated before the battery gets heated while being driven. Excluding the Sentry Mode usage, the estimated loss of range is only 5% according to the owner’s estimate.

The owner also intelligently used the Pre-Heat Cabin function from his Tesla Mobile App to heat up the interior of the car and melt any ice on the windscreen and other areas of the car. The pre-heating used around ~8 km (1.5%) of range — not bad at all for the comfort in this much cold.

With the advent of the Tesla Model Y heat pump, the heat management for battery and cabin heating has become more efficient. It is strongly believed that the refreshed 2021 Model 3 is now also equipped with the new heat pump technology.

Since the car was in Sentry Mode, the side and front cameras were already defrosted to keep the car’s vision clean for any vandals, like the one we just saw in London, Ontario throwing a concrete brick at a parked Model 3.

Actual Range Loss

Looking at the Model 3 energy consumption graph after more than 15 mins of driving, the car showed the projected range of 195 km left. This is around 34% loss of range in total including overnight Sentry Mode usage, pre-heating, and 15-20 mins of driving in snow which requires constant temperature management of the battery pack.

SaskTesla actually got some efficiency data from his Tesla Model 3 for the Canadian Winter and Summer and he has put it into the following graph to show us the trend of average range loss in a Tesla.

Tesla Model 3 summer vs. winter range efficiency graph.
Graph: Tesla Model 3 summer vs. winter range efficiency in Canada. Source: SaskTesla / YouTube.

Follow us for more cool Tesla news, articles, videos & updates:
Google News | Flipboard | RSS (Feedly).

Related Stories:

Iqtidar Ali
Iqtidar Alihttp://www.teslaoracle.com
Author of more than 1500 articles on Tesla, SpaceX, and EVs. His work has been liked and tweeted by Elon Musk and other prominent influencers. You can reach him on Twitter @IqtidarAlii

Latest News

Las Vegas Metro Police gets a Cybertruck fleet of patrol and SWAT trucks

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police (LVMPD) Chief Sherriff Kevin McMahill delivered his 2025 State of the Department address on Tuesday....

Tesla launches FSD in China — watch first impressions of v13

Tesla (TSLA) has finally expanded its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software outside of North America. The automaker started rolling out...

SpaceX announces Starship Flight 8 NET launch date, get preparations updates from Starbase

Elon Musk's spaceflight and astronautics company SpaceX has announced the initial date for the 8th Starship launch and landing...

Tesla engineers reveal Cybertruck secrets to a 5-star crash safety rating by the NHTSA

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave a 5-star crash safety rating to the Tesla Cybertruck. The...
- Advertisement -

SpaceX announces Starship Flight 8 NET launch date, get preparations updates from Starbase

Elon Musk's spaceflight and astronautics company SpaceX has announced the initial date for the 8th Starship launch and landing...

Flight 7 Starship looked like galactic stardust after the RUD (sighting videos) — SpaceX explains the reason

SpaceX lost the upper stage Ship 33 after stage separation as it detached itself from the booster. The private...

Elon Musk shares amazing footage of Flight 7 booster’s landing catch

For the 2nd time in history, a spaceflight company has caught a ~250 ton rocket booster on its way...

Tesla Tips & Tricks

Cybertruck rust or just dust — and how to fix the issue

It has been almost 3 months since Tesla started...

Tesla Quarterly Reports & Eearnings

Tesla’s automotive revenues slide a little in 2024 but energy business grows immensely — Q4 report

Tesla (TSLA) released its Q4 and full-year 2024 financial...

Tesla (TSLA) announces the date and time of the Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Yesterday, we published a comprehensive report of Tesla's Q4...
- Advertisement -

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended for You