Are departure time's (preconditioning) really necessary?

[TheVirtualTim]

You mentioned your car is “generally kept above freezing”. I noticed when the temps are in the 30’s (°F) that the range loss is not very much … usually less than 10%. It’s when it’s much colder (temps in the single digits or teens) and that’s when it’ll make a much bigger difference.

I have done this on a road-trip … there was one day that I couldn’t precondition (no charger available at my origin) and the miles/kWh weren’t very good. The next day, however, I DID get to precondition and the miles/kWh were much better (it probably made a 25% improvement). The amount of improvement is going to be based on how cold it is.

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[the golden eel]

Departure times aren't strictly necessary, but they become increasingly useful colder your battery gets. They extend range, increase available horsepower, and increase available heat output.

If the temperature is above or near freezing, or you only drive very short distances, you can probably get by without them. But if the temperature is -20ºF, you will really want to use a departure time so you have heat and more than 100 miles of range. If the battery gets too cold, your heat will be taken away to heat the battery instead.

If you are on the fence about whether they matter, I suggest trying a departure time on a cold day and seeing the difference for yourself. Pay attention to the acceleration and regen as well.

I usually use 1-2 departure times per day. Otherwise my battery would get too cold from parking outside at work and I'd have little heat driving home.

I agree with this completely. I don't NEED to precondition every day for my average 75-mile full day of driving. But the car is so much more comfortable (and drives noticeably better) with a precondition vs a 10-15 minute cabin warming. And I do think there is a likely long-term health benefit to not dumping all that regen energy onto a cold battery.

 

[eponey]

Some interesting observations today, preconditioning used a lot of energy with a pretty consistent draw at 9kw (with a small dip), for a total of 6+kw delivered, battery has been sitting at the low 40's. It didn't use to use this much energy.

My take away so far is unless your battery is so cold soaked that it's going to make heating the cabin impossible or you want to eek out the extra mile for a 100% charge, maybe not so important?

Gotta really think about the distance of your trip because 6kw is nothing to sneeze at.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Some interesting observations today, preconditioning used a lot of energy with a pretty consistent draw at 9kw (with a small dip), for a total of 6+kw delivered, battery has been sitting at the low 40's. It didn't use to use this much energy.

My take away so far is unless your battery is so cold soaked that it's going to make heating the cabin impossible or you want to eek out the extra mile for a 100% charge, maybe not so important?

Gotta really think about the distance of your trip because 6kw is nothing to sneeze at.

6 kWh is like 60¢ of electricity where I live. That’s pretty insignificant to me.

 

[eponey]

6 kWh is like 60¢ of electricity where I live. That’s pretty insignificant to me.

It's like 10-20 miles of range.

 

[EdY]

In my part of the country, at this time of year it's 10miles of range max

 

[dbsb3233]

I wish the term "precondition" would stay limited to meaning BATTERY preconditioning. It's often confused with cabin heating which is a whole different thing.

 

[tuminatr]

It depends on what model car you have too. On my GT without preconditioning the software severely limits performance in the cold. It was -10 or so a few weeks ago and the car was parked somewhere where it could not be plugged in. The next morning I got a red screen that said performance is being severely limited due to battery temperature. The car would barely accelerate and would decelerate on the highway going up hills.

It was -20 this week and with preconditioning the car has summer levels of performance.

Preconditioning in freezing is a good idea

My car is set to precondition daily however I have turned off the cabin comfort. The preconditioning keeps the battery warm enough that it lets me enjoy the car in when its cold

I traded my PHEV Fusion AKA "The Peanut Grinder" and don't want to experience that level of slow again.

 

[eponey]

I think the best bug was the charge after the departure time tried to go to 100 instead of the set limit.

 

[ex2bot]

I think the best bug was the charge after the departure time tried to go to 100 instead of the set limit.

This happens to me occasionally. The car just decides to charge to 100%. One time, I noticed and stopped it from the app, but it just waited a few hours and started again to 100%.

Annoying.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

I set departure times so my occupants don't bitch about getting into a cold car. Period. No amount of range lose could be worse than listening to my son complain.

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