I Deep Froze My Tesla And Immediately Plugged It Into A Supercharger To See What Happens
Kyle and Alyssa deep freeze their Model 3 to see what happens when you try and Supercharge a frozen battery pack. Hope you find this interesting!
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#tesla #cold #charging
We should all take a moment to thank Alyssa for filming all this when is insanely cold outside!
She's a real trooper. I also love the real "teaching" conversation going on. Really helps bring this stuff down to earth to regular folks.
Lol….she really does put up with a lot of antics….my wife would have been like…”interesting experiment, let me know how it works out and can you stop and pick up some casamigos on your way home?”
She’s the best ❤
I don't know a lot of women that would do that, hopefully you took her out for breakfast :-)
stfu. people work in the cold all the time. 5 minutes of recording shouldn’t necessitate a round of applause.
FYI: My R1T sat outside since Wednesday in CO. I plugged it into an L2 charger in my garage and it pulled 7kW for ~45min before it put anything into the battery and went up to the full 11kW.
That's like while filling you tank with gas every 5 seconds you pull out and spray a seconds worth onto the ground? What a waste of ''Paid'' energy
@@yabbadabbadoo8225 it’s not wasted.. it’s used for a heater which needs to be anyway. It’s like saying your starter motor is a waste of energy
@@SurtistuffOf course it is wasted energy. And when you compare with the starter motor, you should now that if we have a pretty beefy starter motor that is 2 kW. Then you use around 1 Wh to start the car....
@@Surtistuff Why can't they build a battery that's devoid of this process? It still seems a massive waste of power? 5kw for 45 minutes just to ''Heat'' the energy cell so that it can ''Hold'' a charge?? Times this by 1 billion some day and thats1000's of power plants just keeping batteries ''Warm''?? Combustion provides this energy for ''Free'' in gasolene motors.
@@yabbadabbadoo8225 Try starting your deep frozen combustion car, it probably won't even straight up start. Then in cold countries you start and idle the car to warm it up, and in that process you wasted a lot more energy than 13500kJ. In fact every gallon of gas you burn later down the line while driving produces at least 59400kJ of waste heat assuming you have a 50% efficient engine. I doubt your engine does anything close to that
Never seen such spin on how awesome something so ridiculous is.
“Nobody does this better than Tesla” sure, but it is still really bad..
Yeah. This is definitely serving the metal idol instead of the car serving you. Sitting in a freezing car, with just seat warners, spending an hour of warming batteries with "waste heat" before even pushing a charge.....running back to another car with the cabin heater on to survive the night....running down the charge on the other vehicle. What a Doc Brown nerd fest. We saw Tuesday that the cars went down to zero, just parked overnight.
he intentionally did not turn on the cabin heater for the test. you could just sit in the car normally. and normally it would precondition. and also gas cars in freezing weather need to use engine block heaters and stuff.
His closing comments didn't age well. An extreme case but it would never happen in the real world.... Chicago Chicago that toddling Town. Any severe cold situation involves vehicles left alone and untethered to freeze up. His method on trips, also discussed, running down in his skivvys to plug in his car at the hotel charger to prewarm it....that doesn't work when the hotel is full and there are two chargers.
Or you have to dig the car out...or wait a week for a plow
Who besides me is watching this in 2024 after hearing about the new from Chicago
It’s so funny especially with everything he says in the first 3 mins about not charging in the cold being nonsense
What is new? Sorry I’m from Denmark
what news is that?
@@smacktard6051 If you do additional research the reason was that there was a power outage for one thing. Gas stations in the area didn't work either because the pumps are electric. Also a number of people didn't prepare the car for high speed charging by pushing the button on the screen. That made the cars slow charge, which then makes the next guy have to wait and so on. People in other areas with cooler temps aren't having these problems.
@@oddjobsandrandomprojects also don't forget - they let their teslas run on next to no battery power too. That's like me complaining about how shit my Buick Regal Grand Sport is, because I ran it to mere fumes and moaned that it wouldn't start in the cold.
Tip for those charging connectors that won’t latch…there’s a small notch on the underside of the connector that gets iced up. Blow your warm breath onto it and scrape it out so the receiving end on your Tesla can latch onto it. I was recently in Tahoe during the 5 foot snowstorm and the superchargers had a foot and a half of snow on them, and it was 9 degrees F. Had similar charging experience as Kyle did.
Tell your wife to blow on the han dle with the kids screaming in the car!
I've also had one or two experiences when snow got blown into the connector and then froze, so I had to remove the ice before the connector could be plugged into the car.
Or buy a real car
No way this is the best toy ever!
I remember the time when my history teacher told me about the good old times, where everyone had a coal or wood stove. It was so nice outside that you couldnt even breath normal and everything was dark from the soot (i hope you get the irony). Your real cars are the coal and wood stove from that time. Its time to move on to cleaner cars too. Sure they are still not perfect but give them time and you will see they are the better solution in the future and even now. Maybe in some years even you will then realise how short sighted your thinking was back then.
Can you imagine somebody from the 1950's watching this video and thinking how convenient technology has made life ? No me neither.
In the 50s you had to drain your cooling system in the cold or your engine block would crack.
you called charging a car while watiing 45 plus minutes convenient? It doesn't matter how cold it is. It could be a regular summer and you still have to plan your days around your EV
@@johnphelps2941 No, you didn't. You just had to keep the right antifreeze in it, or plug it in. Lots easier than this bullshit.
@@johnphelps2941 did your ever hear of antifreeze?
@@LuisDonadoI literally wake up and my car is charged. Every single morning. Seems pretty convenient to me. I don’t know why you ev bashers believe that stupid line about “planning your day” around your ev. I literally never have to stop at a gas station unless I drove over 300 miles.
Absolutely love the cycle times on my 2011 Chevy Impala. Can visit fill station and go from 5 miles to 375 miles range in only four minutes, AND no wasted time for preheating.
I don't know much about Tesla's, but I learned so much from this video. I know now to take special precautions to keep battery warm when temps drop really low. Therefore, for those with garages should install their own chargers so they can charge it the night before with their own Tesla charger. The software applications for the diagnostics on the screen looked quite amazing.
As I sit here in New Zealand in shorts and 25c, I appreciate the sacrifice made for this video Kyle. Well done mate 👍
Just you wait till April comes around , mate...
Summertime
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 might get as cold as 3 degrees centigrade overnight for a couple of days in Auckland…
@@Telcontarnz Lucky you then.
Ditto from 37c Melbourne
huge thanks to kyle and alyssa for working on content over the holidays running important experiments. your work isn't going unnoticed and is deeply appreciated!
I appreciate all your effort. The lessons of cold weather charging are very clear. If you want to travel any great distance to Grandma's this Christmas, take an ICE car.
@@byrnc927 Hmmmm..... He wasn't travelling anywhere. It was called an experiment. Like you. You're clearly the result of an experiment. A FAILED experiment...
@@byrnc927 a real car
EVs junk
@@marklassanske2716 Look! Look! A real M0re. 0n!....
I ran my own experiment this morning in bitter cold. I started my ICE SUV and drove to Panera Bread. I didn’t have to precondition anything and I had no fear whether or not the car would start. I also didn’t worry if my heat would reduce my range. I also charge my car with gasoline in 5 minutes. Ironically in my 43 years of driving, the only time I had a car that wouldn’t start was because of a battery. Typically 7,000 cells in an EV. 14,000 points of failure. Sometimes being practical is far better than being cool.
What temperature? Below -30 (-22F) I would strongly recommend block heating ahead of a trip. Edit: IMO the 18650 cells were a patent work-around. Panasonic, Toyota's battery supplier for the RAV4 EV, was sued for patent infringement by Chevron a few years prior to the Roadster being developed. Battery suppliers can't get sued for supplying "commodity" cells for EVs. The Nissan Leaf, built a few years after that, used much larger pouch cells.
Running the cabin heater would aid in warming the battery because the rest of the frame of the car would warm the battery some. It's really important to do all the heating you can.
For those who live right near by the supercharger, if you even turn on your tesla cabin heater on, it will start heating your battery as well, so just make it toasty before driving to supercharger and it will be way efficient charging than just showing up cold 🥶
Heat is a byproduct of most electric generation. Park near an electric plant.
I just get gas, takes me 5 minutes MAX if that, and i’m gone. over 500 miles.
@@johnnylego807 this is about doing it in -20° F. At that temperature, your vehicle is not going to even start in the first place unlike a Tesla and you're probably going to have to get an engine block heater as well as an oil heater and something to jump the vehicle and a battery blanket as well. Your rubber tiles will be dented in the area that touches the ground so you'll be going to get very low speeds until they warm up anyways but the beauty of hybrids and electrics is even in this crap of the weather they'll start and move
thanks for the tip!
@@NadeemAhmed-nv2br Lol yea ok, here in Canada I've parked my vehicles overnight at below -30C without a block heater and was still able to start them no problem. If you have an old shitty battery obviously it'll have problems starting, I guarantee an older battery in a Tesla is going to give some problems in the cold as well. I'd rather not screw around having to wait for the battery to warm up or charge the damn thing while i'm getting frostbite, and this is after messing with that charger that looks like a pain in the ass to deal with in freezing weather.
It's a real odd thing, sitting at the gas station waiting for the vehicle to accept the gas.
We actually had #2 gelling in the pump hose at -40 one day (it was even winter blend) the gas station owner blended it some more LoL
@@SegoMan that is frigid!
@@TurboWorld Nation record was set about 50 mile from here one winter day at -60 no wind that day either.. The cold temps keeps the rif-raf away LoL
@@SegoMan lol no doubt!
'That pretty much will never happen in the real world...' LOL!
Except it does. Currently we're in negative temps once again, and almost every day over the past 2 weeks we've seen negative temps. Same goes for last year as we had a 2 week stretch of nothing but negative temps.
It happened to hundreds of people in Chicago , it won’t happen in the real world ( my a$$ ) !……
People are dumb, they don't know how to condition the battery.
@@leerman22What type of battery, and how to you condition it?
@@MassBoost It's a battery heater, you press a button, that way you don't have frozen electrolyte capping the power draw or charge. You do use some energy in the battery to heat itself like a couple space heaters of power draw worth.
Started my V6 powered truck this morning in les than 10 min. my cabin was warm my windows that were covered with ice started melting. While I was sipping my coffee, I turned truck around and headed out to the gas station. took less than 5 min. to fill up. How much did your pre charge cost??
Opportunity cost in charging an EV, that is always the thing that gets me. I have a truck with a 33 gallon tank. Average fill time from just before the warning light comes on is under 3 minutes unless I'm at a REALLY slow pump in which case it's closer to 10 minutes. That hasn't happened in many years though. I fuel up. I walk in to the convenience store. Grab a snack. Walk out. I've spent less than 15 minutes, usually under 10, at the gas station and I've got a full tank and a happy attitude because of the snack. Im on the road and off to making some money and on with my life! Come on. I must say, electric vehicles, the technology: so cool! I love seeing crazy new things, but EVs as a direct replacement for gas/diesel vehicles is a hard no still. They have their use cases, but they are not for everyone.
Pack temperature is one of the most informative pieces of data for an EV driver to understand vehicle performance and it’s a shame most EVs don’t show it. I keep a min/max pack temp display on my Tesla and Rivian dash to understand how the car will drive and charge.
How did you accomplish that? (Engineer nerds want to know!!)
Or not lol
How to get park temperature in tesla?
@@avvarutheja kzhead.info/sun/qrOxh52ppKRsYIk/bejne.html
@2QRh6g1I thanks, I wish tesla could provide this info directly from their interface, but that video is great to get lot of information from car.
Makes me think of the days back in the late 60's to 80's when I was driving air cooled VWs and minivans.....this where when we got into the car which had been sitting in an unheated garage and drove somewhere just around the time we got to where we were going to park the car the the engine started to throw a little heat of course by that time our toes and hands were frozen and we had been scraping the ice off the inside of the windshield for the whole trip. Imagine now all the progress we've made😂 We even had a reserve gas tank lever. I can just see somebody hiking down the road to get to a charging station to pick up a spare battery instead of a 2-gallon gas can🎉
I can’t imagine owning a Tesla in the winter without having a home charger. Absolutely great car when you can wake up and it’s charged every morning, but dealing with charging a cold car and having to wait for your car to precondition… nah.
Me too
Did you not watch or listen? The Tesla will condition the battery and charge normally, you'd have to deliberately not do this to have a problem...
@@bellshooter I live about 20 minutes from a charger. I have forgotten to plug my car in overnight, navigated to a charger so it was preconditioning the whole way, and it still didn't charge at full speed and told me my battery was too cold. I'm guessing if you live in the city and drive one block to a charger your battery is not going to be very warm when you arrive at the charging location. So no, it's not quite that simple.
Thanks for running this! I am an engineer responsible for thermal systems on BEV with a large auto maker. Really helpful to see how the competition is doing.
Which car has best battery thermal management? Also, do you have any influence to improve public CCS charging?
Ccs is trash
Thanks for your hard work on EVs.
Replying to Barry, ALL OF THE CCS CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE DECISIONS ARE BASED ON THE THERMAL TESTING LAB TECHNICIANS OPINION.
@@eletrohitsbr I have not had a CCS charging problem for over 7 years.
Try dealing with 50+ Teslas in these conditions all self-draining due to the cold and only having 2 Superchargers powered by a generator at your disposal for charging them… I dealt with that working at Tesla in Minnesota 🥶🥶
I hope you make the tesla owners sit next to the generator exhaust the entier time they charge. You should rig up some seats that if their ass leaves, their car stops charging. they should have to huff that beautiful exhaust gas the entire time they charge so they KNOW where this comes from. What facility do you run? Gas station? Hotel?
Yikes, why do they have to be powered by a generator?
@@Pythonzzz there wasn’t a way to have a grid connection fast enough
Generator? Are you sure?
That sucks!!!
I have an interrupting electric meter on my home for the AC in the Detroit metro area, because our electric grid has brown outs at peek times . How lets everyone plug in their EV after work and see how that works 😂
Damn, that's gonna increase the queues at the superchargers in the cities on a cold winter morning
Nah, most people will be smart enough to use the Pre-conditioning features. All it takes is 40 Uber drivers who have no clue how to drive the car to ruin it for everyone, though.
@@IsaacNewsome yeah, true enough.
@IsaacNewsome you'll be waiting behind some of them
LUDICROUS
Love EV's and love my Model 3, but winter road trips are definitely a limitation compared with ICE for now.
'Dead robots': Chicago's extreme cold knocks out Tesla cars
"Extreme cold" in Chicago be like ~0°C, while in Russia the pretty average temp during winter is -17..-28°C And there is no big problems about "dead robots", lol, even on -40°C cities.
@@BANDERAZZ07RUSKeep telling yourself that. We're experiencing the same issues in Iowa as they are in Chicago.
have you looked at chicago weather before commenting ? its -25c right now @@BANDERAZZ07RUS
The media is playing it's usual games, bad mouthing Tesla while cheering for green. For whatever reason Tesla isn't left enough for them. Go Elon😊
No problems. Precondition first. 😂
Many don't realise that the power you put in is never fully what you can use, extra cost that doesn't get talked about.
I saw that they lost 5% leaving to go home.
Love these testing videos Kyle, can't wait for the arctic circle roadtrip video
Just a few more days and part 1 will be up on Out of Spec Motoring
Awesome! Can’t wait.
Dude!! Really strong video! Thanks for braving the elements and running the tests. I’s so glad i went with a Tesla. And big thanks to Alyssa LOL no way I’d have done that. Merry Christmas to you both and keep making videos!!!
In Chicago the EVs were shut down by the rechargers with low charge .Some must have run their EV below 20% as recommended !
About 100 things I don’t have to worry about with a V8!
Great video. I know the BMW i3 uses similar telemetrics to regulate and pre-heat for charging. They just never thought people would want to see any of the data involved, but it is all available via detailed OBD data viewing.
That battery has enormous thermal mass. Enormous. Loved watching this full-geek test😊
Can you explain thermal mass?
@@SimRan-ur5nl Thermal mass is the capacity material have to absorb, store and release heat. Your question was great, because its not clear why a enourmous thermal mass would do any good for that EV without good gravimetric energy density and low thermal inertia. That EVs battery could have great thermal mass but still be useless after one cold night if it had high thermal inertia and even more so if the nominal energy would be low.
@@SimRan-ur5nl The specific heat depends on the material, but for batteries with copper foil, steel, carbon, plastic, some solvents and the cooling water, it should average about 0.45 Jules/degree C per gram. So heating a 770 kg battery + 20 kg water from -20 C to +20 C would take: 0.45 * 40C * 790,000g = 14,220,000 Jules of energy. dividing by 3600 seconds in an hour and by 1000, that is about 4 kWh to warm the battery up, or 5.25 kW for 3/4 hour. (assuming the battery and cooling system is perfectly insulated, which is isn't)
@@philipriesling3897 you can just answer the damn question, people like you make me sick
Its thermal mass would be very low aside from chemical reactions it will reach ambient temperature quickly.
Cool experiment, thanks for braving the cold to do it. Questions: How much did it cost to heat up the battery before it was able to charge? If you'd have run the HVAC to keep the car warm while charging, would that have added to the cost or time to get to 90%? That's probably a more realistic scenario, as few folks in this position would have a second car to hang out in to keep from freezing. Thanks!
@oscarpaisi4037 Wouldn't want to forget a bunch of bull 💩 you just made up.
@oscarpaisi4037 huh?? Lfp battery Tesla says charge to 100%. Yes, below 20% and it won't precondition battery for SC but it will charge fine. You probably own a 2005 Civic.
I know some people are trying to say that internal combustion engines waste energy more than electric vehicles. One of my colleague who now drive a Tesla had a Chevrolet cavalier which he purchased new for about $15,000 Canadian, he documented all the expenses for 16yrs .It was slightly around $20,000 for gas purchases and maintenance for 16 years. Adding this maintenance , gas price over the 16 years plus the purchase price , the total came to a little below $36,000. All his gas guzzling and purchase price is still less than the purcase price of the cheapest Tesla.
Great video! Thanks for doing this test for us. I'm in Atlanta, GA and just had a small dusting of snow last night (usually happens once every year or two lol) it didn't get above 32F the past few days and my car didn't charge at my house. This taught me a lot! Heading to the supercharger now with preconditioning on 👍🏻
I also live in Atlanta. I have never had this problem. If you leave it plugged in at home in the cold it will never get cold soaked since it will just use a tiny bit of electricity to keep the pack warm. Even if you don't keep it plugged in and it does get cold soaked then go into your Tesla app and select 'schedule' category and then schedule a departure time in the morning and then select 'precondition'. It will turn on and run the climate and precondition the battery ahead of that departure time. I've never even had to do that in Atlanta though. If you try to plug in and it won't charge then just either turn on the car and leave the heat on for 30 min. to an hour and then retry charging or go into the app and do the departure 'precondition' thing. Or set the nav to the nearest Supercharger to you and it will begin to automatically precondition the battery for charging even if you aren't driving. Whatever system you use, even sitting hooked up to a Supercharger, the pack will only use 5 kWs to precondition. So might as well let your battery warm itself up for 30 min to an hour. That will only use 2.5 - 5 kWhs of energy which isn't much. Edit: The reason your home charger isn't able to charge is that it is likely trying to put more than a 5kW rate into the pack which I guess is the limit Tesla has set to protect the pack. Most home L2 chargers are in the 7-11 kW range. There is a manual setting on your Tesla screen under charging where you can select the AC max power which you could set lower to like 20 amps so it would only allow just under 5 kWs from your home charger into the pack. Then it would charge, but just slower until the pack warmed up. The Supercharger has more sophisticated software that communicates with the car and throttles back to 5 kW. Your home charger doesn't so you have to manually set it to 5 kWs or 20amp/240V.
@@flipadavis way too many variables to drive an electric car, stick with fuel type car , or a hybrid, unless you want to be stranded in the cold ~ its just that simple . .
@@kingdommusic5456 I've driven 100,000 miles across two EVs. Drove my Tesla with 3 people cross country stopping at dozens of sights. In one day that Summer we went through and stopped in Death Valley and then past Mammoth up through Tioga pass and into Yosemite where we stayed that night. Drove through a record heat wave in 121 degree temp days later coming back through Barstow. Had no problems.
@@flipadavis Yes, you had no issues, but it seems you are very well versed in the operation of your EV. Unfortunately, maybe one person out of every five (probably a very conservative guess) will be as well versed in the proper operation of their EV. That being said, the manufacturers needs to understand that not every owner will bother to learn all of the nuances, and proper operation of their EV. On the other hand, when ICE driven cars first hit the scene they weren't as simple to operate as they are today. As late as the late sixties and possibly the early seventies it wasn't uncommon for a vehicle to have a manually operated choke, which the operator had to have a basic understanding of in order to operate. If one didn't know how to operate the choke, they would never get a carbureted ICE started even in mildly cold temps. And that's just one of several things that one had to learn in order to operate an ICE in cold weather. So its a learning curve, but unfortunately we are being pushed to adopt a technology that isn't ready for the big time, yet. I feel that if we were to wait ten more years the battery technology would probably be at a point where it would absolutely, make more sense to buy an EV. However, as it stands I'm afraid all that is being done by pushing EV's on everyone before they are practical will do nothing but create a stigma for EV's that will take a long time to fade.
Thanks for sharing. Me too, I've got nothing else to do but sit in a frozen vehicle and watch the battery charge.
Best video so far to make me NOT buying EV! Thanks.
its impressive how you got so much time
this was SO interesting to watch hahaha. I just moved from Toronto to Arizona so it's nice to not have any snow. I just recently got a Model 3 too and always wondered how the range would be impacted in Canadian weather lol. Great video!
Yeah, I'll just keep enjoying filling up my 22 civic for 30 bucks once a week. I have enough stress in my life.
18 Accord Twice a Month (aprox 30mile round trip to work and back )
Not as easy as you might think. If you fill up once a week, and it only takes 5 minutes to do so, that means you will have spent 216 hours of your life pumping gas by the time you are 68. That's assuming you started driving at 18. Doesn't sound that great when I think about it. And this is coming from a fellow Civic owner.
Well you convinced me! I'd rather have a horse and buggy than trust my life to this technology.
tell yourself whatever you need to in order to cope with a changing world
Nah just don't buy Tesla. They're California cars that are kinda notorious for being poorly engineered for severe cold (how many times have their heat pumps been recalled in Canada?). Heat pumps win over resistive heat in mild cold, but in a scenario like this, Tesla's thermal management is piss poor. How the hell is the motor that toasty warm but the battery too cold to take a charge, other than poor design? As much as people malign the Chevy Bolt for slow charging, it has a dedicated 2 kW resistive heater for JUST the battery and I've NEVER seen a Bolt battery take as long as this car did to warm up.
As a person with Reynaud Syndrome I am always amazed at people whose hands never get uncomfortably cold at any temperature.
Took my 2020 model 3 to MN over the holidays from CO. Once the outside temps dropped below 5 degrees, the efficiency really started to take a hit, and even when navigating to a supercharger the battery wouldn't warm up enough to take a full power charge right away. Also encountered a LOT of snow/ice clogged charging heads, especially in Central Minnesota, as well as cables that had been knocked down by the wind, then filled with snow.
We traveled from northwest Ohio to Chicago on I 80/90 in northern Indiana. Many Supercharger cables were blown down in the wind and snow covered. It is unfortunate that the Supercharger stations don't have shelters over the units and the units don't have automatic heaters and sitting on top of the shelters that don't have a combination of solar panels and small wind turbines. We have a way to go yet. There is so much opportunity nonetheless.
@Stephen Orr I think they need a more secure latching system. Hope they get enough feedback to consider it.
@@kdjorgensen98 I agree with that whole heartedly. I have trouble with these Superchargers putting the handle back into the correct position all the time. Not intuitive for a klutz like me.
A has car is way better!
@@Frank-sy3li was that a gas car or a has-been car? sorry.... but not better for everything, just some things, and EVs are in their infancy. Many of their negative quirks will be worked out over the next decade or two. The government should not force folks to move to EVs, but eventually EVs will be so compelling and cost effective that most folks will want them. If I want to sleep in my car (Tesla Model Y) when visiting friends/relatives or traveling, I can do so comfortably with no fear of dying from car exhaust while the car stays warm in the winter or cool in the summer overnight. Most folks wouldn't care about that feature, but it appeals to me. Making sure I can always charge the car takes a little planning, but not much effort and I find it fun. Folks how prefer their blackberries and flip fold phones from the 90s over modern smart phones will probably continue to prefer gas cars and I'd bet that gas cars, at least used ones, will be available in sufficient number to scratch their itch for several decades, though eventually they may become subject to increased tax and registration fees as the government or even HOAs will be pushing for cleaner air in places where folks like to enjoy the outdoors.
I'll stick with internal combustion, thank you. Not ready to drink the Kool Aid. 2 MInutes at a gas station and on my way. Warm and toasty.
I find it difficult to understand why EV owners just accept the craziness of this scenario. Hour and ten minutes it took you to charge, I could have driven in my ICE car to my nearest town, had breakfast at the local cafe and come home.
That was for 56% charge btw
Sirs, I have a degree in physics and really thought it would be fun to have an electric car. I see videos like this where it takes 40 minutes or so before the car even starts charging. Range is like 180 miles on EVs in the winter. You sit in it freezing your backside off because you don't want to use heat because you will lose range. My present car is a VW Passat diesel. Starts in 3 or 4 seconds even when -25 defrees f. I honestly drive slow for the first 5 minutes or so in very cold weather. It gets 50 mpg in the winter and 55mpg in the summer. It takes 3 minutes to refuel. It's hard to do a trip somewhere past range/2 because you are sweating the recharging. When we have nuclear fusion electric power, a really good electric distribution system and better means of storing electric power then it makes sense. Green people may want to understand what the carbon cycle is also.....
Thanks for bringing issue of “no home charger” and “rely on supercharger” issue to attention. I don’t understand why can’t they just add a “Pre-condition” button to controls instead of having to defrost the entire cabin, which is a huge issue when you are in ice cold conditions unplugged.
Other good tip for overnight roadtrip stops, besides preconditioning, is to supercharge ON ARRIVAL, when the battery is warm from driving (and the pre-conditioning), and get a decent charge while still warm... vs letting it cold-soak overnight like this, and trying to charge in the morning. And/or if you have destination charger, let it charge & stay warm all night plugged in... or you can mix both and supercharge a moderate amount on arrival, and finish charging overnight. Then pre-heat the cabin (and battery!) while plugged in before leaving. re the frozen latch: isn't there a recent feature to not engage the charge latch in freezing temps, so it doesn't get frozen/stuck? I've seen folks complaining of "latch not engaged" warnings in very cold temps, I think it is intentional? Made worse by a clogged/frozen plug end too, but...?
My early M3 LR RWD has this software feature to not latch the cable when below freezing. However it is for L1/L2 charging only. Supercharging would not be safe without the cable latch.
@@georgepelton5645 Thanks for clarifying/confirming!!
All of that vs stopping at the pump...... Convince me it's worth it. I'll take my 6.2L Denali any day.
@@fyrefitrt2 bigger the car, the smaller the penis
@@fyrefitrt2 I'm sure with your Denali when it's been sitting cold in -14 for two days straight you just crank it up and floor it without any warmup. Good way to damage your engine. Not to mention when you start getting down to -15 to -20 F you almost need a block heater for an ICE. An EV doesn't because it uses a minimal amount of power in the battery to keep it safe. The colder it gets the more energy it will use. With an ICE the colder it gets then you better have a block heater. With a Tesla you simply set a timer from your phone or the car to begin a battery preheat at a certain time in the morning. You can do it 1 hour before you leave the house or whatever. Just like warming up your car. It would melt the snow and ice off the windshield for you and the battery will be conditioned when you come out and jump in. This video is only a sensational example of what would happen if you didn't preheat the battery to show how long you would need to wait. If you are driving your Tesla in -14 then the battery will be warmed up and you won't have to wait when you stop to charge. Only when it's been sitting for days cold soaking. No different than an ICE engine like yours.
Wow. Sounds like a dream. Being able to add only a couple of hours to drive home from work.
Yeah. Most current EV owners will tell you how much they love their EVs and that's because they are delusional enthusiasts and owning an EV is basically their hobby. These people are literally sitting around in a freezing cold car so it will charge faster and it took over 45 minutes before it would even start charging. Lol.
@@michaelhill6451 They're too busy patting themselves on their backs to argue with you.
@@michaelhill6451 Or perhaps the just let it charge while the sleep and then wake up to a full charge.
@@oddjobsandrandomprojects Yeah, that’s really great for long distance driving. The last time I filled up my ICE vehicle it took 4 minutes.
@@michaelhill6451 No, it's not great for long distance driving. But not everyone does that frequently. I haven't done that in years. Having that extra range just in case you might need it is like wearing spurs boots and chaps to the mall because you might decide to ride a horse. Rent it if you need it. Now, realistically there are people who need the range for their jobs and they may not find an EV suitable for their situation. But that's not most people.
I never have to worry about not being able to turn the heat on in my gas powered Jetta 👌. Enjoy the struggle tho Broski
In the extreme winter, ABC, per Bjørn. Even trickle charging will provide a bit of heat to the pack overnight, though L2 and garaging is preferred.
Reinforces what you have been telling us - on-route battery pre-conditioning is a really important feature for an EV.
Tesla has said as much as a 25% reduction in charging time with proper pre-heat procedures. #Wow
Glad I don't have these problems with my ICE vehicle! Never will. 😃
@@rkeith4442 I preheated (and charged) an ICE car for 30 minutes last week at -20C (-4F) because it would not start (weak battery). Replaced the battery in those temperatures because I needed to drive the next day at -30C (-22F). Pre-heated the car for 2 hours for that trip.
@jamesphillips2285 My ICE F-150 never had that problem! I replace the battery ever 3 years or so, well worth the money.
Glad all i have to worry about is what number pump to use
Yeah, I know me too.
You are aware your range is reduced in cold weather too? And you can't fill up with gas at home so you are totally subject to fuel availability and pricing. So you have issues too, but you've adapted to them just like EV owners have to with the issues they have.
I love that I can't fuel up my car when it's cold, this is freaking awesome! I gotta sit in the cold car and wait for the battery to heat up before I can even fuel it up, I'm loving it!! Lmao...
You can set it to defrost while youre in your house? or where ever you are before going into the car. Dont be low iq.
@@jasonstyrke1805 so you only have to sit in the car 30 minutes to charge it??? How much is your "high IQ" car worth once the battery can no longer charge, say 5 to 10 years???
@@a-fox Dude... what? I literally said you can stay in your house... you dont have to sit in the fcking car unless your away from your house lol in which case you should utilize the life support system included in your car which is the HVAC system. If my battery no longer works say 5years from now, teslas has a 8 year warrenty that will cover it, asuming i didnt surpass the mileage warrenty. 10 years from now, I will replace it for 6k per insurifys battery cost replacement if warrenty does not cover it, which is still half the cost of any of the other S 3 and X models that cost 12-15k to replace. Is that high iq enough or do i need to dumb it down somemore? im drunk and high btw. Im "high" iq as fck. u kive weed
@@jasonstyrke1805 1st Nissan Leaf battery Degradation was Catastrophic There's literally people with 36 miles range and can't get a new Battery for 2 Reasons 1 - There's not enough lithium to give it away to Thousands of People which bought leafs 2- There's not enough money to fund thousands of Battery replacements 3- As result Nissan states, I know you only 36 miles left however it's duo to your poor driving drive more Eco friendly next time saving billions 🤑🤑🤑 you still have 7 bars there for your battery 70% SOH 😛 . Which begs the Question who Determines what is a Faulty Battery 🤔
@@niceboy60 Ford Ecoboost motors on the Ford bronco self destruct and they didn't want to cover them under warranty, so all gas cars are terrible. That's what that logic about the Gen 1 Leaf is like.
As an old leaf owner I eagerly await the cold soak leaf test. I imagine it'll be similar but start charging earlier at like 1 or 2kw. We saw -10C recently but home charging and cabin preheating made it a non-issue. I don't think the battery even got to the blue section of its temperature gauge.
Great video. Reminds me of a ski trip I took with college buddies where the next morning, only one of the cars (all ICE cars back in the day) would start so had to use that one to get the other engines to start. Oh and one guy had borrowed his brother's truck and for some reason, the coolant antifreeze was bad and it cracked the block.
Generally I need to do a quick google search to convert freedom units to metric. Appreciate you including both in the video Mr.Colorado man!
Good video, I get it.... I'm not getting a EV... even without a deep freeze your essentially dancing on eggshells to keep your vehicle ready, between range and temperature charging.... probably work much better down in the South though.
Extreme heat reduces the long-term battery life, so not too sure about having one in the South either (batteries don't like being above 85f).
Ev still seems to be best in tandem with ICE. I want an EV for when I can do city driving and maybe some road trips in the summer but for everything else I would still use ICE
@@jch010 ok
Such a cool video. Love your and Alyssa's dedication in making these videos.
Imagine vehicles with no battery heating. No other have preconditioning on the way to a charger. THANK YOU TESLA !!
Talk about making the case for avoiding EVs! I'm over 70, and I guarantee that I would never want to deal with this situation. A few minutes pumping gas, and a few minutes later I'm on the road and toasty warm.
Most people who have these cars don’t do this, either. They just charge at home, cold or not, and they wake up with all the charge they need. On road trips, it’s never this slow as your battery is warm while driving. This temp is also pretty extreme. These videos are interesting, but they aren’t very representative of typical owner experience.
@@house9120 In everyday situations, sure. Charge at home, commute to work, come back on the same charge. But that also means that EVs are fundamentally more limiting that gas cars when it comes to long trips/spontaneous trips. You'll literally have to theorycraft how you'll get to your destination, including chargers, expected weather, charger availability, time alloted, etc - something you don't really have to do with gas car, simply because gas stations are so common after decades of constant gas car usage.
@@fortissears5388 there can be some additional planning, sure. I’ve taken a lot of EV road trips though and the car navigation system largely takes care of the planning, finding charging stops needed to get to your destination and calculating how long you’ll need to charge there. Many of my stops are sub 15 minutes. We can expect this experience to improve a lot as charging speeds increase, charger availability becomes more dense, and navigation planning becomes more sophisticated. I think the future of this is pretty bright
ah the 98% problem, where people really care about the 2% very rare edge cases, but put a second priority to the extra benefit of the 98%
The army has done equipment studies in cold weather simulation buildings and in places like Alaska just to study how equipment performs and how to use the equipment. It seems like Tesla and other ev manufacturers need to start doing this so they can adjust things like the plugs and heat packs for winter areas. Maybe a built in heater for the tip of the charger for locations that get winter weather to help prevent or mitigate water freezing in and around the tip.
was thinking the same.
We are in NJ this morning, 9F plugged in and saw 48kW initially. As battery warmed up saw 100kW. Usually see 145kW in warm weather. This on a new EA charger. So etron does pretty good hooked to a good charger. Range 155 @100% charge.
Great video! Thank you both for enduring the pain of that cold weather to give us all this extremely good info! 🙏🏼
Could you try this again with air conditioning on? I think it would speed it up with 2021+ model 3's due to the heat pump. As you've done a test in the past heating up the interior quite fast using the heat pump model 3. While heating up Aircon, the car also heats up the batter by default when too cold and not preconditioned to the level for regular driving.
Half an hour later, a diesel would have been full, toasty, and 30 miles away.
I appreciate the effort this guy goes to. To me all of these little tests just proves to me you have to be an enthusiast to own an EV. Can you imagine owning one 8 or 10 years old , out of warranty? You would have permanent anxiety 😅 I charge my turbo diesel once a month, takes 5 mins, rain, snow, hail, or shine. No will the pump work? No charging experience, no chatting or arguing with other EV owners over chargers. In and out in 5.
That’s the thing you don’t wanna pick these up used like you would a Camry or civic specifically for that battery being out of warranty
lol how many moving parts your turbo diesel has, have fun disassembling a quarter of the motor to get to a frozen pulley or stupid stepper motor when its 0 out
That turbo diesel will be full of random parts in 10 years time while I didn't pay for shit with my Tesla 😂 well I guess tyres... Lol!
Yes, my lovely 75k turbo diesel left my family stranded in a winter storm, because the stupid EPA required DPF clogged up with soot, because it wouldn't regen properly. Now I run an aftermarket monitor in the truck so I can watch it for problems before I get stranded. Everything has pros and cons. Most EV's are charging at home while their owner sleeps BTW. They don't ever go to a charging station except on road trips. Most people can't fill up their diesel truck at home.
Wow! Really interesting test! I was astonished, that you could open the doors that easy and that the windows moved! 😉 Thank you for the test!
You know when the window works I am sold
Real world. Tell that to someone Evs SUCK stop 🛑 with the shit INTERNAL combustion is the greatest invention Of all time junk the ev
One way to warm up the batteries is....park next to a EV that is on fire, works every time.
Keep a bag of marshmallows and 8-pack of weenies in trunk, incase you come upon a burning EV. Then it's roasting time.
"A situation you'll never run into in real life." Tell that to the people who have taken a day to charge their car.
Those people should read the owners manual. LOL
Cool. Very.
Do they charge their car by cycling on a bike or what?
@@reahs4815 You are onto something. Maybe the next Tesla will have charging pedals!
Watching you look out the frosted fogged up windows and seeing your breath made me really appreciate my internal combustion engine; thanks for the video.
Tesla needs a cast-iron wood-burning stove for heating :)))
He could have just turned on the heater though, and been warm in a minute or two. At those temperatures that takes an ICE forever.
@@Adriaaan It only takes my Expedition 5 minutes to warm up enough to put out heat. And I've owned and operated ICE driven cars that put out usable heat much quicker than that. If you can't make it 5 minutes without heat, you should probably stay inside your house anyway.
@@Adriaaan And he would have filled up his tank and driven off in 90 seconds instead of sitting so long it warranted a video. EVs are a friggen joke and everyone knows it.
@@GenXRanter Sometimes, I 'Like" comments sarcastically.
Nice work as always, any thoughts on how a frozen Tesla would do with AC charging, while the charge rates are much slower, 6kW its often enough to fill the battery overnight.
Loved this thanks Alyssa
When I drove my Model 3 cross country this time last year, when it was 0F basically as soon as I unplugged one supercharger it started preconditioning for the next. Very neat to pull into the next one and get normal charging rates.
Kyle and Alyssa, your last two “sub zero” episodes illustrate why Out of Spec is the definitive American EV channel. Keep warm and have a merry Christmas with the dogs!
Hahahahahaha. Y’all shoulda gotten yourself a Prius!!! 😂
Similar results on cold soaking (air bnb had no outlet) and took about half an hour to warm battery at -25F. Keep in mind many diesels and some gas cars will not even start at these temps! Not an EV problem but an infrastructure that needs to be built out. Haters will hate as soon as ignorant! And their selfishness is more important than the environment! All the gas cars are plugged in here or LEFT running with block heaters! This is a 0.01% use case, an extreme test! Great video!
My gosh. The best EV channel out there.
Kyle and Alyssa, thank you so much for making this video! You have no idea how close to my situation this is. I live in South Lake Tahoe, where we have a SuperCharger at the Hard Rock, an Electrify America station, and slower EV Go chargers. The wait during a holiday week is insane for them. My HOA does not allow EV home chargers, so those public stations would be my only options. I have consulted with my electric company, and the grid can only support one 11kW charger for the entire duplex. That's including my replacing the electrical panel to double my available amperage, which would mean my neighbors would be stuck with what they have. I might be able to get the HOA to change its rules, but the grid where I live simply cannot support wide-spread EV charging. After test-driving Tesla, Genesis, and BMW EVs, I wanted an i4 or iX, but with a two-year wait, I bought a gas car. I had entertained the thought of a second car Model Y, Fisker Ocean, or fantasy Rivian R1T, but your videos confirmed it's not viable for me while I live where I currently reside. We have just had several feet of snow, so my car sat for 2 days. I dug it out today and started it, but the roads were still too bad to go anywhere. Even if I charged an EV to 100%, I would lose considerable power before being able to go back to a charger. I would lose power warming the car and pre-warming the battery. The traffic from my home to the charging stations is impossible with the accidents and stuck vehicles of tourists. I would likely be waiting 5 days- not 2- to go back to the charger. Even the solar roof of a Fisker Ocean wouldn't offset the cold weather power loss. Parking is a tandem hassle. The whole point would be to have a vehicle with a lot of ground clearance so I wouldn't just leave the car for 10 days until the snow melted. If I did, I'm sure it would be an ice brick. Even as a second vehicle, an EV doesn't make sense where I live. EVs are awesome if you have a garage to prevent extreme temperatures or at least a home charger. For the rest of us, hopefully the electrical grid can be upgraded. Eventually, I hope that solid state batteries will provide the answer...
??? *HOA can't tell you that you can't have an EV home charger! That's like telling you you can't have a refrigerator! SUE them, take them to court, you'll win hand down. Usually HOA wins on stupid things, but they won't win on this because EV home charger is the future. All new homes will have built in EV charger.*
@@radicalrick9587he also said the electrical grid in his area could not accommodate him having a charger, even if he upgraded his home electrical panel. Although I believe you are correct about the hoa can’t prevent you from getting one, but then you make yourself a target for them to get revenge on you. It’s beyond me why ANYONE would even consider buying into a hoa neighborhood.
Filling up my car takes three minutes.
No, -20C is not an extreme case, its a normal winter temperature for many places. -40C could be called an extreme case.
It would have been amazing to see the "scan my tesla" info live during the video. Looking at the battery temps and motor temps would be great. Time to get a new adapter?
Kyle what dedication, the real world information you provide is fabulous!!
Thank you---Great video---Especially like how your best friend braved the Coldplay-_-WOW---Lucky Guy.
Would like to know how much life was removed from the battery? When you run batteries through a cycle like this it usually removes battery life span.
Respect for the dedication because that was crazy. That being said, I would probably do the same in your situation. I had my own experiments going on in the 15° temps we had in SW Louisiana an hour from the Gulf of Mexico.
That was just brilliantly good to watch, well done. There is not a car producer anywhere that would present such info, and the info is so necessary, logical and realistic. Well done. In Australia we would actually say, bloody well done, not sure that is allowed over there but. 👍
No car NEEDS it... Never had a issue refilling my ICE vehicles... takes 3 min...
Looks like you guys are getting that weather again!!
Ya it's been-40 in Canada -50 with the wind that's a beep freeze lol -15 is is nothing its t-shirt weather 😂
I find it interesting that folks are willing to own a car where the car company determines your route. When I take a trip, I like to take the "scenic route." In any event, I like to have control. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against electric cars. I can start my gas truck, however, be warm in 5 minutes, fill it up in under 10 minutes, and then drive over 500 miles on the route that I choose.
Many GPS generated routes are incorrect, causing excessive fuel, or power usage. People just have to drop the DUMB PHONE, which perform many tasks, but none well.
How much does it cost you to put 500 miles of gas in your truck? I drive an electric car for work, I personally think they’re much nicer to drive and considering our routes are around 100 miles a day - it’s a ton of money saving - I think. But as you’ve pointed out, the infrastructure is not there yet for long distance.
That wasn't true when the infrastructure was just getting started for gas automobiles. You are very much tied to that. I drive rural routes in North Dakota and have to check my tank carefully to make sure I've got the range I need, because I can drive a long time without gas stations. It is certainly worse for EVs right now, but it takes time to grow the infrastructure just like it did with gasoline.
Left wing folks like to let someone else to control them
@@keithstack6321 a hell of a lot less than pulling into a service station. And a hell of a lot less time.
Leave the snow on the windshield until the heat has had a chance to work. The snow acts as insulation and helps the cabin warm up quicker.
This is a really cool experiment, thanks for sharing. At say 0 F or below, what kind of range loss do you get? I live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area so it's routinely 10F or colder for months on end and I have a 70 mile round trip commute to work. I looked at Tesla websites but they only publish losses down to 32 F which isn't much at all. I am assuming 40-50% loss? I would love to get an EV but given the cold, my commute and often driving 70-100 miles or more in the winter to rural areas for hunting I am worried about getting stuck so I think a PHEV is best for me as it would cut my commute gas usage in half, while I work from home it can be entirely electric driving around town and no need to worry when driving longer distances especially during the colder months here.
Cap between ideal and reality seen from facts.
You: When will you be here to open gifts? Them: April.
Great video I’m in MN and we just had a stretch of sub zero weather. I charge overnight in an underground heated garage. Standard 110 outlet. I have a 35 mile commute with the car parked outside for 10 hours. Took about 10-12% each way instead of the 8-10% during non sub zero. Also I lost about 7-8% while parked outside all day. I found that I would get better overnight charging if I navigated to the super charger near my townhouse then plug in at home. This way my battery was already warm I charged to 93% overnight instead of the normal 83%. During the 10 day stretch of sub zero I “topped off” at a super charger twice - because I was actually making a Target run and they have Super Charging. I’m new to EV with my 22 M3 LR. I love it. Like I mentioned before I just charge with 110 and haven’t had any problems. One thing to note-make sure no moisture is in the charging port. It throws my GFI on the wall outlet. Had that challenge when we had a warm wet snow and everything was slushy. Some snow got in the port. Thanks again for the video
I dont own an EV, however this is eye opening for me thanks for your good work, please stay safe! :)
as a kid, I watched Dr Zhivago at the drive-in on a really cold day. I burnt my tongue on the Thermos of coffee.
I think you will encounter this in the real world. It’s on the news and if it’s to cold some EV cars won’t even move or just stop on the side of the road. Electronics and batteries don’t like cold and the last few days where I live it’s been -11 at night and a high of like 10 Fahrenheit. Good ole V8 starts right up and is warm in 10 minutes.
That happens with the battery in your fire breather too.
@@johnphelps2941 My "firebreather" starts at -40 no issue, and then it doesn't just quit and fail to restart when I'm on the TransCanada Hwy. My buddies Tesla fails this way weekly in the winter.
Garage kept, no doubt. Lead acid batteries don't like cold weather either. But you won't hear about this problem when sodium ion batteries take over. That's already started. The dinosaurs are going extinct. ICE is dying. we'll see if your kids thank you for climate change.@@brentlloyd7908
@@johnphelps2941 yeah but every 3-5 years I need to replace it and it costs me anywhere from 100-150 dollars. Not 17,000 and I can put it in myself with a couple of tools and 5 minutes of my time. Really no comparison.
Thank you so much for the very real-world test and your dedication. I don't own a Tesla but this is another piece of info I need to make a decision. Really liked what I saw here. :)
what decision LOL... Cars are junk, things a joke... worried about mpg? hybird.
We found this out when heading home from FL to IA winter of 2020. Stayed overnight at a supercharger hotel. But parked with 30ish % overnight. Plugged in in the AM and it took an extra 45 min. Personally I suggest just charge it to 80% on the SC while the family is checking in the night before; But it’s a personal preference I suppose. I really Appreciate these style of videos !
Better reason to charge the night before instead of the morning. I woke up in the morning to a dark hotel. Mile away the supercharger also lost power along with the gas station it was located at. Since I charged the night before no issue.
Or set it to warm up for 45 minutes to precondition the battery and cabin before everyone is up and packed and checking out.
@@flipadavis - why spend the additional time in that town, multiplex. (preference ≠ logic, it doesn't have to be)
@@kadmow It's not additional time if you set it to warm up while you are still in bed and not up, packed and checked out yet. If you are planning to get up to check out at 6am set your car in the app to turn on and run the cabin heat and precondition the pack at 5am before you even wake up. Right in the phone app there is a 'schedule' category where you can set the departure time and a button to select to precondition which means to set the climate and precondition the battery. This is exactly why this app exists. No need to do like in the video and go out and sit in the cold car for 45 minutes. If you have access to the weather forecast you know how cold it's going to be.
@@flipadavis : sorry - I must have misunderstood, not having stayed at a supercharger hotel (they don't exist in my "neck of the woods", I didn't realise that you could park all night in a supercharger stall.... kind of relegates it to merely a charger - slow charge overnight is definitely better for battery longevity.