From the truth about cars
By Ronnie Schreiber on March 8, 2019
Let’s say you manage one of the soon-to-be-closed Tesla factory-owned stores and, for whatever reason, you have dozens of brand new Model 3 EVs sitting unsold on your lot. What are you going to do if one of them has a discharged battery? As car dealers learned a long time ago in the gasoline era, batteries won’t keep a charge forever and cars sitting for a long time sometimes need a boost to their batteries.
That’s true whether it’s a conventional 12 volt lead-acid battery for an ICE-powered vehicle’s electrical system or it’s the lithium-ion battery pack that powers a EV. That’s why car dealerships for conventional vehicles have battery tenders, heavy duty chargers that can be wheeled around the lot to whichever car might have a dead starter battery.
Of course, to recharge an EV’s battery, you’re gonna need a bigger charger.
After Tesla recently announced that it’ll will be moving all sales online and stop selling cars at their factory owned showrooms, PlainSite.org, a website that bills itself as “the law in plain sight, and news too,” checked out a couple of factory stores in the San Francisco area. Both the San Francisco and Burlingame locations were open, for both sales and service, and PlainSite tweeted out photos of both stores.
At the Burlingame, CA Tesla showroom and service center, though, PlainSite noticed dozens of unsold Model 3s filling their lot. Considering hundreds of thousands of customers gave Tesla deposits on Model 3s and considering those people waited years for mass production of the Model 3 to begin, it’s surprising a factory store has that much inventory. Sure, traditional car dealers often have hundreds of unsold vehicles in stock, but those dealers aren’t selling what is probably the most anticipated new sedan in decades.
[Images: Aaron Greenspan/PlainSite, via Twitter]
HT/Andrew B
The touch screen on the 3 is not right. The dash looks like it should have a half-dozen stuffed animals on it. Not my cup of tea. Maybe the Y
A Model “Y”?
Boy did Tesla miss the boat!!
The Model 3 should have been the Model “E”
Then Tesla would have models S E X Y
LOL … half a dozen stuffed animals on the dash … hahahaha … here in Berkeley, CA the dashboards of old rusted Volvos, and newish Subaru Outbacks have displays of dried leaves and twigs on the dashboards. I believe the owners think those eco-shrines somehow inoculate their fossil-fueled mechanical contraption into a great green spirit in the sky. Hahaha ha … eco leftists all have the slightest of grips on reality.
Eco-camouflage … ecoflage?
3 is E … backward. Musk is a GENIUS … he is stealthily sexy. Edgy sexy. Obliquely sexy. Subsidy sexy.
So it’s S3XY like license plate L33T SP34K (Leet Speak)
They want to make it s e x y but ford has the rights to model e name and threatened to sue Tesla if they used it
hehe but due to ford had a model allready named E that made Tesla rename at that time the model E to model 3
: S3XY
So thats why they couldn`t get SEXY 😛
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3
The intended name was Model E, which was abandoned due to Ford trademark.
Tesla should just release concept cars for Models H, I, and T lined up with an original Model S?
But unfortunately Henry Ford already claimed the trademark of Model T. So Elon can just sub-in the Model T(hree).
LOL … half a dozen stuffed animals on the dash … hahahaha … here in Berkeley, CA the dashboards of old rusted Volvos, and newish Subaru Outbacks have displays of dried leaves and twigs on the dashboards. I believe the owners think those eco-shrines somehow inoculate their fossil-fueled mechanical contraption into a great green spirit in the sky. Hahaha ha … eco leftists all have the slightest of grips on reality.
Sorry … repeat was my mistake
Apology accepted, but it was funny both times!
The dash on my VW van has model animals on. 1-a nodding head Bulldog (to go with my surname) 2-a nodding head Highland cow (to show my Scottish ancestry ) and 3-a little Spanish bull ( a gift from a friend to go with my surname).
I’m curious what would be the warranty situation if you bought one of these cars and the battery died because it hadn’t been charged enough in storage?
James Bull
I’m not sure Tesla is closing their retail stores.
They have large lease obligations, and it
would not make financial sense.
I think Musk realized that, and changed his mind,
for now.
Here is Michigan, I call Tesla’s “Coal Cars”,
since local electricity from DTE Energy
is about 2/3 from coal (2017 data).
Interesting that almost every one
I’ve seen on the road was painted black.
Tesla will most likely be out of business
in a few years. Their quality is below par,
and repairs require huge waits.
Other manufacturers with large
retail networks, and faster repair facilities,
will be introducing better, more reliable
electric cars, this year and next.
Or should I say “Coal Cars” !
Another one of Elon’s “jokes” I guess.
They’re still closing stores, just not as many as before. Car and Driver has the story.
Modern electric power plants and electrical grids are remarkably efficient, burning fossil fuels in them and using the resulting power in electric vehicles is more efficient than burning fossil fuels in mobile Internal combustion engines, because stationary power plants can use extremely heavy but highly efficient multi-stage generators, small engines simply can’t reach those levels of efficiency given mass and space limitations.
True, but then you leave the 30% efficiency loss just getting the power from point A to point B. Someone here did the calculations once and the total efficiency once you figured in the transmission loss and everything for an electric car was *less* than for a gasoline powered car.
I don’t think the power loss from point of generation to point of use is anywhere near 30% (not counting ‘hotel’ load or transmission system investment$ as power loss). As I recall from working at PGE (Portland General Electric) the figure is much near to 10%. But I agree it is NOT negligible.
There are also AC to DC conversion losses and voltage inverter losses and battery-charging losses, IIRC.
Grid losses last I checked were 6%.
I have a chart from Lawrence Livermore estimating US Energy Use in 2013. I would try to upload the image but the resolution is really bad.
Top line was estimated 97 Quads of energy used in 2013. 59 Quads rejected and 38 Quads useful.
Electric generation 38 Quads. Useful energy 12 Quads and 26 Quads of rejected energy. They have about another 11 Quads of rejected energy after point of use (but that is coming from a total input of about 45 Quads from all sources).
They don’t break out transmission losses explicitly but I assume it would be included in the 26 Quad number. So between generation efficiency and transmission losses, you’re looking at 33% total efficiency in the electrical generation sector.
I remember seeing the chart and thinking that if those losses in the electric system could be eliminated you wouldn’t need the 18 Quads of coal use for electrical generation and not have to cut anything else.
The thermal generator efficiency’s are roughly 33% according to the EIA. Grid losses are 5% according to the EIA.
Not going to happen even in theory. It has to be dispatchable which leaves you with thermal (coal, gas, oil, and nuclear) or hydro.
Maybe if you insist in using your 117V US electricity standards, losses could be as high as 30%.
In the advanced world where we have higher voltages and routinely have 3 phase supplies, the figure of 30% is even worse than the nonsense spouted by the greens!
Is that why the Stanley Steamer faded away?
Why not just plug in to wall outlet? Seems like overkill.
A standard wall 120v outlet is rated for about 1500w continuous output, or perhaps 2000w if on an improved circuit, it would take a rather long time to top up a battery that needs 40kw to get back to 100%. Also not recommended to attempt to run that much current through most long extension cords.
Typically Tesla drivers charging at home use a charger connected to garage 240v electrical connections originally intended for things like washers and dryers to charge overnight 5 to 20 times faster than a standard outlet. Not a common outside outlet, nor recommended to run through extension cords.
Wasn’t it Henry Ford that said “you could get the Model T in any color, as long as it’s black”
Yes….but only after deciding that one colour would reduce costs even further
Nope, that would have been incorrect. He said “in any color you want, as long as it’s black”, which means that as long as you want it black, you can get it in the color that you want.
The quote according to chapter four of his autobiography is:
“Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”
which, as you say, means that as long as the color the customer wants is black he can have the color he wants.
All batteries self discharge over time. So what is your point?
It is also a bad idea to let a gasoline fueled auto sit unused for months too. Today’s gas formulations degrade over time, and using old, bad gas can damage the engine’s fuel system.
Non- story, or a story about nothing.
DUH !!!
The irony of using DIESEL to recharge the cells.
You’da thunk they would use the pinwheels and dreamcatchers.
Or fat people on stationary bikes. Free energy, thinner people. Win-win.
My take is that it shows both reality and hypocrisy.
THE REALITY, that even the tesla folks see, is that it is more efficient to use portable fossil fuel (diesel generator) to charge the cars rather install electrical facilities and connect to the grid.
The hypocrisy is the greens that actually pay the bills do see the reality, lobby government to mandate/subsidize “green” technology to the public at large, and still do what is cheapest and most efficient for themselves.
It’s better for sales not to move the vehicles frequently any significant distance for charging, so to avoid adding unnecessarily to the odometer.
So, like I said.
(REALITY)
The negative, associated an additional 5 miles on the odometer, trumps the (fantasy) positive of having a charging station installed and connected to the grid to keep from using fossil fuels.
(Hypocrisy)
Numerous cities are installing charging stations (that they really cant’t afford) to appear green while the company that reaps the subsidies of green uses diesel.
To add to what Matthew said, the point is also that these so called hot selling cars are sitting around for months.
Profitable auto companies manage to move their production from factory to garage. They don’t sit around for months.
If all these cars have been pre-ordered, why are they sitting here?
With all of their “Prior Orders” it surprises me that they could even have a supply that could sit idle. Have ALL prior orders already been filled??
..Wrong colors ? LOL
MarkW March 14, 2019 at 12:09 pm
Hi Mark, were I worked our turn time was 7 days. We made dental chairs and cabinetry, as well as much of the dental tools.
Unless it was a custom build the product would normally be shipped within 24 hours from when the costumer placed the order.
Inventory is always the enemy. You have to pay for warehousing, and end of year taxes on that inventory. Ten percent federal. Now the interesting question is did Tesla pay this tax or were they given a pass. Also it would be interesting to know State and local tax requirements.
This is why you don’t want any inventory, this includes materials down to nuts and bolts.
We did a company wide inventory each year, tagging everything as it was counted.
End of year inventory equals lost profits.
I wonder if they are using “orders” to offset inventory taxes.
If I am preaching to the choir, apologies, I have never seen the issue covered.
michael
“If all these cars have been pre-ordered, why are they sitting here?”
Tesla has changed, quietly, to a batch production system. It apparently figures it is more efficient to produce American-compatible cars in one big batch and store the inventory (the charging port is different here), and then switch in toto to foreign-compatible charger cars, which it is now doing. Presumably the inventory will be depleted over the next couple of months as orders trickle in. (U.S. orders have dropped sharply from what was expected after 2018.)
(U.S. orders have dropped sharply from what was expected after 2018.)
indeed they have. The fact the tax rebate was slashed in half for Tesla starting Jan 1 no doubt has played a huge role in that. Expect sales to drop again starting Jul 1 when it gets cut in half again and a further drop Jan 1 2020 when the tax rebate on Teslas disappears completely.
Duane got as far as reading the Headline
Whoosh! as the point flies over Duane’s head.
As MathewW, DonM, and MarkW have all pointed out, the point is the reality and the hypocrisy. Despite all the clamor about how “green” EVs are, they’re using fossil fuels to recharge the cars. And not with the fig-leaf of the grid with its mix of renewable and fossil fuel sources, but directly from a fossil fuel powered generator.
Why don’t they install a solar powered generator to charge up those cars? Of erect a few wind turbines on the lot to provide power? Could the reality that fossil fuels are cheap and reliable and thus the go to when you need power have anything at all to do with it?
Dude it takes like two years for gas to degrade badly enough to damage an engine.
And if you’re going to mothball a vehicle for two years, you’d drain the gas tank anyway. And the oil pan. And if it’s going to be outside, put it up on blocks and move the tires somewhere indoors.
Duane misses the point. Shocking I tell you, just shocking!
Put gas stabilizer in the tank and it can sit for 6 months. Have to charge the battery though.
Tesla is advocating batteries to supplement the grid over diesel support and to reduce fossil fuel use. Might be different parts f the company, but seems they should be able to sell the advantage of their storage within the company before they hope t be convincing outside. https://www.tesla.com/powerpack
Sitting on the lot the losses can be significant
The top picture reminds me of the time the CAGW-triggered college kids at my university had a climate awareness inflatable bouncy house – powered by a portable gasoline generator.
Ha! They simply needed a “plug-in” Playhouse! That would have cured EVERYTHING!! BTW … I DEMAND to know … “Who Killed the Electric Playhouse”
college kids + inflatable bouncy house = We need an Asteroid.
AOC might say that’s a good way to get rid of diesel and to convert it to emission free battery power.
They are powered with pixie dust in that Wonder Land of lies inside her un-educated mind.
Most of the deposits must be for the more basic feature set. I think I heard that Tesla was making the higher cost full feature set vehicles first in order to gain more profits sooner.
If I have put a deposit, I would be mad. But recent signs suggest to me that Tesla is in serious trouble. I would be getting my deposit back before it is too late.
You’d think Tesla dealerships would have at least one Tesla Powerwall somewhere on the compound to keep the cars charged-up.
Isn’t THAT unbelievable! My guess? Elon is unable to obtain Federal and Local SUBSIDIES$$$ to build SUPERCHARGE stations on their own property, for their own personal use. Or worse … using the SUPERCHARGER actually DAMAGES the battery.
This is California we are talking about, it’s just as likely they couldn’t get a building permit to build one on the property because it would somehow endanger some toad or snail species. Should have tried for a wind turbine instead. Dead birds are OK, but don’t dare threaten the toads and snails.
Lower the voting age to 7 so all the Democrat’s brains have the same reasoning ability.
When I was six I was advanced for my age (I no longer am), so the 7 year old cut-off would be unfair to smart six year olds.
There should be no minimum. If someone can hold a pencil & scribble on the card (like they do in Broward County) they should not be disenfranchised.
And, of course, the Democrats should be the ones to interpret the scribbles.
when you were six you were advanced for your age. Now you are of advanced age! (sorry couldn’t resist the obvious play on words).
It still frosts me that we (I) have to subsidize Teslas for people in possession of large amounts of disposable income.
With some shame, I admit to anticipating a bit of shadenfreude hoping to see those owners eventually in possession of large amounts of expensive scrap.
That’s why car dealerships for conventional vehicles have battery tenders, heavy duty chargers that can be wheeled around the lot to whichever car might have a dead starter battery.
******************************
nitpicking as terms matter.
a tender MAINTAINS a charge.
these wheeled items, which I have used often, are boosters. not tenders.
You need to leave that comment at the truth about cars website where this article originated as I don’t think the articles author, Ronnie Schreiber, is likely to see it her at WUWT.
yeah got to register etc to comment and not wanting too as I have avoided that site (due to stuff like this) for long time.
figured would post here so those that do lot of mechanical stuff would grasp the difference
Question:
How can a company with epic and longstanding customer backlogs have huge amounts of unsold inventory everywhere you look?
Answer:
Every single car you see has one or more critical manufacturing defects which prevents delivery to the customer. Tesla had to do something just because of the required space, so they moved the inventory to the dealers.
Theory Guides, Experiment Decides:
Send someone to one of these dealers, point to a car, try to buy it. That One, Right There.
See what happens. Take notes.
TonyL. I strongly suspect you’re correct about the duff vehicles awaiting rectification on dealer lots – and Tesla will resist revealing that – big time.
Irony is defined thus:
A Tesla car being charged by diesel generator whilst a dozen power lines sag over its roof.
Tesla might have a big problem on its hand with regard to domestic sales volume. According to the website
http://www.insidesevs.com here are Tesla S retail sales.
Oct 2018 22,250
Nov 2018 17,750
Dec 2018 18,650
Jan 2019 6,500
Feb 2019 5,750
The Jan Feb sales are estimated, Tesla announces sales quarterly, but supposedly this website does a thorough and accurate analysis of actual sales. This is why the big push to move product to China and Europe, since retail sales have seemed to collapse here in the States.
Stay tuned.
You didn’t spent much time on that site, did you?
Jan sales of 6,500 would have placed 7th in 2018. Feb sales of 5,750 would not have been far behind. In fact, the combined Jan and Feb sales of 2018 were 4,360. So 2019 is an immense improvement over same-month sales in 2018.
The production rate increased significantly in 2018, from a low of a few thousand in the beginning of 2018 to over 20,000. So you can not compare same month year to year.
Elon promised a production rate of over 500,000 a year…..(which would also include overseas sales). If the January and February domestic sales numbers are correct, it is an indicator Tesla is in deep deep trouble, over promising and under delivering. That Elon said he was going to close many of their sales outlets and sell strictly online, and then make a 35K vehicle available, and then reverse himself a few days later, that they will reopen many of the same said stores, and raise prices 5%, is indicative there are serious issues.
Michael, you aren’t paying attention to the sales trajectory. Tesla car sales are dropping (after hitting their peak in Oct). Jan sales were about a third of Dec’s. The fact that the tax credit for buying a Tesla was cut in half starting Jan 1 likely played a big part of that. July will likely also feature dropping sales as the tax credit is again cut in half and come Jan 1 2020 another drop in sales is likely as the tax credit goes away completely for Tesla. Who could of imagined, you take away the government’s aid and sales drop.
clarification: Oct. was Model 3’s peak. Dec. was the peak for the combined S/X/3 sales. Jan. saw a very steep drop in sales (roughly 66% for Model 3, roughly 75% for the combined sales of S/X/3). Feb. sales (at less than 8k) were slightly lower than Jan. That’s less than Mar 2018 when the combined S/X/3 sales hit 10K for the first time ever. Tesla only has Mar-June for sales recovery before the next cut in the tax rebate for Tesla hits in Jul which will likely see another accompanying drop in sales.
Doesn’t look good.
The model 3 was first introduced to the Chinese and European markets in January. InsideEVs only tracks US deliveries, so the lower number is expected. . . . So the question becomes: What is the world wide purchase number?
What is the tariff charged on each one these American cars sold in China? I wouldn’t bank on Chinese sales … saving … Tesla’s approaching economic Tsunami
In July 2018, China slapped on a 25% tariff on 545 US products as part of their trade war with Trump. Among those products was electric cars. As far as I know that 25% tariff is still in place and likely will remain so until China and Trump come to an agreement on trade.
Here’s a December 2, 2018 quote from InsideEVs: “Donald Trump recently announced that “China has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S. Currently the tariff is 40%.”. It’s the latest and fortunately positive turnabout in the ongoing dispute/trade war.”
source: https://insideevs.com/china-remove-tariffs-cars-imported-from-u-s/
Of course these things change regularly and I don’t know the March 2019 status.
dan that’s a different tariff. Before the whole Trump/China tariff tiff started, China had an existing 25% tariff on all imported cars (it was one of the Tariffs that Trump would talkabout when talking about the unfair trade practices of China) that they boosted to 40% in their tariff tit-for-tats with Trump which they then scaled back to 15% for the temporary 90-day cease-fire (that’s the tariff your linked article is referring to). That’s a separate tariff to the 25% tariff that is specifically for importing electric cars – prior to the trade war, there wasn’t an electric car specific tariff as far as I’m aware. (I don’t know if both tariffs are applied to EVs or if the former tariff only applies to ICE vehicles. And, like you, I don’t know what the current status of either tariff is)
The model 3 was first introduced to the Chinese and European markets in January. InsideEVs only tracks US deliveries, so the lower number is expected
the lower number is in comparison to the same “US deliveries” numbers that InsideEVs reports. The drop off is huge (a little over 18K in Dec vs a little under 6K in Feb – that’s a 66% drop). With China’s 25% tariff on EV imports from the US, I don’t see additional Chinese sales making up the difference any time soon (especially as China already has a number of domestic EV makers that Tesla would be competing against).
“here are Tesla S retail sales”
No, those are the less expensive Model 3 sales. Model S sales are about 1000/month, roughly.
Oops—I meant to say the model S sells about 4000 per month, or about 48,000 per year. Sales have been declining recently, though, as the model 3 is cannibalizing them.
Oops—I meant to say the model S sells about 4000 per month
Model S sales for Feb were about 800 (according to the insideevs site). Again the cut in the tax credit for all of Tesla brands (that took effect Jan 1) is probably taking a big bite out of Tesla sales across the board.
If you look at the insideevs graph
you can see a very steep drop in sales from Dec 2018 to Jan 2019
To clarify the link is to a graph that shows combined Model S/X/3 sales. Dec (which was Tesla’s peak in sales) was roughly 35K. Jan roughly 8K (a 75% drop from Dec) and Feb slightly under Jan.
” Jan roughly 8K (a 75% drop from Dec) and Feb slightly under Jan.”
Partly that is a seasonality effect and partly it is due to Tesla’s having “pulled forward” sales from 2019 into 2018 in order to boost the Q$ earnings report. Still, after deducting those, there is a sharp demand-drop, now that the enthusiast market has been largely saturated here.
Tesla might have a big problem on its hand with regard to domestic sales volume
That’s an understatement. The cut in the tax rebate on Jan 1 likely explains most of that drop from Dec to Jan. The rebate get cut in half yet again in July And Disappears completely on Jan 1 2020. Without the tax rebate shoring up sales, it’s not looking good on the domestic front.
The ‘New Deal’ math:
Tesla’s manufactured using ‘fossil’ fuels
+
Tesla’s electrically charged using ‘fossil’ fuels
=
Green New Deal (with virtue signalling privileges).
I figure Larry Ellison and others are forking over huge sums of money to keep Tesla afloat. Or the company is hosing its suppliers on a 90-120 day payment schedule ( or using every excuse not to pay ) a veritable cash flow nightmare.
It the stock was not supported by all the no nothings on Wall Street who are being fed with a constant barrage of bovine excrement—-I’d be shorting the hell out of the stock.
Carbon Bigfoot
How long have people been saying this?
There was an unimpressive Model Y “reveal” overnight—in the premarket the stock is down about $8, to $282. For lots of contentious articles and comments on Tesla, see https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/TSLA
tsk tsk. you climate deniers
I have a diesel vehicle and I often install a wind turbine or solar panels to boost my diesel tank when it runs low.
In fact it is so efficient , I rarely have to fill up at the gas station any more.
These cars at dealers would be ideal to try the ‘green dream’ of electric cars being used to support the grid at peak times!
It will only take a few million for the grid connection and chargers.
It must be worth it! /sarc
electric cars being used to support the grid at peak times!
==========
Having charged all night, you will then run down the battery for the morning peak, then drive to work with an empty battery.
And having charged all day at work, you will empty the battery driving home and then use the empty battery to power the evening peak.
All the while shortening the $$ battery life by cycling the battery to power the grid each day.
Except that the idea is totally impractical it would be a great idea.
ferd entirely agree on the impracticality of the idea. However to be fair to Steve, you took him a bit out of context.
1) The sarc tag indicated he wasn’t being serious (IE he’s in agreement with both of us that it’s totally impractical)
2) he was discussing using the unsold cars sitting on the lot for the “support the grid” nonsense, not cars that people were using to commute to work. So none of the trying to use an empty battery is involved.
So if I want to buy a new car, I need to be careful not to buy one with no miles but a hundred battery deep cycles. Are they actually considering this?
Outside of green virtue signalers bring it up as an idea, I don’t think anyone has ever tried to actually implement the idea.
The battery doesn’t discharge that fast. You’ll loose a few miles per day, max. So the cars can easily sit for 1-3 months without any problem at all depending on how much the battery was charged before they was parked.
And slowcharging the cars from a wall outlet is no problem if these are inventory cars.
If it takes 2-3 hours to fast-charge them or 48 hours to slowcharge them makes no difference.
My guess is that this are cars that are sold and they need to quickly charge them up before they are picked up by the customer.
See my link above. They loose 5% in the first 24 hours when they are topped off. See table 4. At 77 degrees F and fully charged they lose 20% the first month. Considering the cars are sitting out in the sun I suspect the losses will be much higher due to the cars higher internal temperature. The heat gain can be significant.
I’ve owned a Model S for 4,5 years.
And I can tell you that I’ve never lost 5% range when parking the car for 24 hours.
My car has a fence of about 370 kilometers when charged to 100%, using “Typical” setting for showing range.
If I lost 5% in 24 hours that would be 18,5km.
That’s never happened, trust me.
If the car sits for 24 hours, I’ll lose about 5-6km range. After that the car goes into deep sleep if I don’t use the app. And then it loses about 2-3km pr day if it sits any longer.
Bjørn Nypan’s lost about 100km in 27 days in the winter.
And why would the sun heating the cars play a big role in the discharge? The battery is under the car and the sun doesn’t shine there.
I doubt the Tesla ever tops off the battery to conserve battery life.
2 km/ day is 60/month or 16% in a month. There are a lot of variables involved and the discharge is not linear.
If you park it on blacktop there will be plenty of heat coming up from underneath and some of the heat trapped in the cabin is going to make its way down to the batteries. Metal is a very good conductor of heat.
So the cars can easily sit for 1-3 months
≠=========??
what happens when you leave them with a flat battery. What about if temperatures are well below freezing.
The dealer won’t leave them with a flat battery.
If you own a Tesla you will soon see that it has something called vampire drain.
It’s a small decrease in range or day due to the fact that the car consumes a little bit of electricity to be online (so you can use the app).
If parked for a long time (1-3 months or more) all you have to do is make sure that the main battery is charged more than 50% and also preferably have the car plugged in. Then the car will start slowcharging when the State of Charge drops under a certain limit.
If you check out Bjørn Nylands videoes on YouTube you can se that he parked his Model S at an airport in the winter. He was gone for 27 days and the car wasn’t plugged in.
He lost about 1/4 of the batterys range in that time.
So it’s very easy to avoid problems with an EV.
1. Park it with >50% charge.
2. Plug it in a power outlet if possible.
See my comment above. Self discharge of the batteries increases with temperature so if the temperature was 32 degrees F he would have only loss 6% according to table 4.
Not so easy when you have a few hundred sitting in a sunny California parking lot.
Greg. Most of his loss is due to vampire drain.
The car has a internet connection. Using it causes power drain. It also has keyless access and air suspension.
Both systems use power when the car is parked.
When the car goes into deep sleep, the vampire drain decreases.
You can read as much as you want on battery university but keep in mind that there are a lot of different versions of Lithium Ion batteries. They can use different chemistry and one graph doesn’t show how every type works in terms of self discharge etc.
Typically you’ll lose more range when the car is parked in cold weather since the internal resistance increases and when you start using the battery more energy will be “wasted” as heat inside the battery when you drive.
It’s easy to have regular charging cables connected to power outlets using grid power to slow charge the cars rather than using a beast of a generator to quickly charge them.
That’s why I suspect these cars are going out to customers.
No need to fast-charge a car if it’s not going out to a customer.
By your numbers (2 to 3 km/day) results in a reduction in capacity due to self discharge of 76% to 84% over the period of a month. This is consistent with what I have already posted.
Which has nothing to do with the effects of cold on self discharge. Your mixing 2 separate issues together.
2-3km pr day = 60-90km in a month.
That means I can park the car for many months without plugging in as long as I park it with 80-100% SoC.
Why would they use an enormous 300kVA generator to fast-charge the cars standing in the lot when you can easily install 10 wall chargers with 2kW output each and charge 10 cars over night an fill them with 48kWh?
If you fill a car 1 time per 4 weeks you’ll be able to have up to 280 cars in the lot served by 10 cheap wall chargers using grid power rather than renting/buying an enourmus generator and burning fossile fuel by the gallons every hour.
That is what I mean when I say the cars batteries don’t discharge so fast that you need a 300kVA generator to quick-charge them several times or month.
Those chargers are most likely used for cars that are being delivered to customers and that they need to charge up rapidly.
You already stated fully charged your range was 370km. At 60 km/month your down to 84% after a month, at 90 km/month your down to 76%.
Your range will have been reduced even more than after the first month.
Might be because an upgrade from the power company is exorbitantly expensive or the power company lacks the infrastructure to supply the amount of power they need. You are instead assuming the dealer is stupid.
You are of course again insinuating the dealer is stupid.
No. I’m insinuating that the person observing the cars being charged knows very little about EVs and assume that a fast-charger is being used to maintain a charge on all the cars in the lot when the most probable explanation is that they use it to charge cars quickly when they are sold. Or even to charge the demo-cars quickly.
If I lose 24% pr month that means up to 4 months if the car is charged to 100% SoC and left unplugged. That’s a long time.
Next up the model W T F ?