Preparation needed for extreme cold weather

[DK_Min]

Wow, this forum is such a great resource! I did some deeper diving through threads and now better understand the limiters. Makes sense Thanks everyone!

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[AliRafiee]

Wow, this forum is such a great resource! I did some deeper diving through threads and now better understand the limiters. Makes sense Thanks everyone!

I forgot to mention that preconditioning reduces the jail bars in colder weather.

 

[Peugfan]

See Mach-Lee's response to this above....apparently it does still warm some, but at a reduced level. I'm only charging at 16A, but my garage is also heated to ~50 degrees, so it's not a huge impact for me.

My experience shows that battery heating on a Level 2 charger (when the car is already at its max charge set point) will only happen at temps around 25 F or colder. It will then take small sips of juice drawing 30 amps as needed. I can see this on my JB app charge curve. If your garage is 50 F, I doubt your car will call for any battery heating.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

I learned a lot today! Haven’t run the full calcs but the reduction in range is given.

What I don’t expect was the power limiter (which makes sense from a protecting the battery and electronics) standpoint.

Are those the jail bars everyone talks about on the power meter? Once I got to around 30% I wasn’t able to use full power anymore (or anywhere past those bars) and then down at 25% I got the other warning. Any details on when the power is reduced?

Parking it in my warm garage tonight and will do a full charge up to 100% (as I have never charged it above 90% and want to calibrate the gauge and do some balancing of the cells.

All good things to learn!

Jail bars are connected and are a preview of upcoming turtles in a GT. I keep an eye on them now that have a GT. When I hit the turtle I had a premium, and so does Lee, so we didn’t have an early warning. You go from normal to reduced speeds right away.

 

[67 Stang Convertible]

Can't imagine why Kamuelaflyer is not chiming in on this topic!!! ? ? ? Aloha!!

 

[ryannix123]

I upped the full charge to 90%, generally at 80%, anticipating the extreme cold for the next few days, and then brought my Ford charger inside.

 

[pepiopee]

My experience shows that battery heating on a Level 2 charger (when the car is already at its max charge set point) will only happen at temps around 25 F or colder. It will then take small sips of juice drawing 30 amps as needed. I can see this on my JB app charge curve. If your garage is 50 F, I doubt your car will call for any battery heating.

Here's my report from last night. Was at full desired charge of 80% a bit before 9PM. Left it plugged in and unrestricted the schedule from my EVSE. And... yes you can see at about 2AM it took a little sip presumably to warm up the battery (temps were cold, hovering around 0deg F).

Edit: And this is on a 30A breaker, giving 24A to the charger resulting in about 5.5KW output (nothing impressive but fits our needs well).

 

[dalola]

My experience shows that battery heating on a Level 2 charger (when the car is already at its max charge set point) will only happen at temps around 25 F or colder. It will then take small sips of juice drawing 30 amps as needed. I can see this on my JB app charge curve. If your garage is 50 F, I doubt your car will call for any battery heating.

That's interesting...you'd think, if utility power was available, the battery would prefer to be more than 25 degrees, especially given it's happy place of mid-70's.

 

[RickMachE]

That's interesting...you'd think, if utility power was available, the battery would prefer to be more than 25 degrees, especially given it's happy place of mid-70's.

Optimum temperature, for driving, is 77 degrees.

Now think. A car company programs their vehicle to keep the battery at 77 degrees regardless of outside temperatures. The car eats up power, and owners have a fit.

The graph doesn't show you battery temp either...

 

[dabois89]

Just keep it plugged in at night, set a departure time, it was 14° F when i left this morning and it did just fine, kept me plenty warm at a fan speed of 3 and 75° cabin heat.

 

[dalola]

Optimum temperature, for driving, is 77 degrees.

Now think. A car company programs their vehicle to keep the battery at 77 degrees regardless of outside temperatures. The car eats up power, and owners have a fit.

The graph doesn't show you battery temp either...

That certainly would not make sense either. My question is more to the point of why <25 degrees is the trigger point? Why not 30 or 40? And I wonder what it actually heats too?

 

[RickMachE]

That certainly would not make sense either. My question is more to the point of why <25 degrees is the trigger point? Why not 30 or 40? And I wonder what it actually heats too?

There are multiple threads on this. The goal is to keep the battery from freezing. Start reading through Mach-Lee's threads if you have interest. Since your garage is 50 degrees, it will never warm your battery.

I'd also point out that IF you are heating your garage for the exclusive purpose of keeping EV batteries warm, then you're wasting money (many people say they just like to warm their garage).

 

[dalola]

There are multiple threads on this. The goal is to keep the battery from freezing. Start reading through Mach-Lee's threads if you have interest. Since your garage is 50 degrees, it will never warm your battery.

I'd also point out that IF you are heating your garage for the exclusive purpose of keeping EV batteries warm, then you're wasting money (many people say they just like to warm their garage).

lol... my garage has been 50+ degrees in the winter months long before the MME ever arrived. ?

 

[Mr Breeze]

Why park the MME when it’s cold out?

So I used my car friday and parked it in my garage friday night and went out this morning to give it a slow charge (was at 68%) and the 12 volt was stone dead.

 

[Mr Breeze]

So I used my car friday and parked it in my garage friday night and went out this morning to give it a slow charge (was at 68%) and the 12 volt was stone dead.

I should add temps are 10-25 f

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