so it is really really freaking cold out just look at the well you saw the
thumbnail image for this video regen was completely disabled and I was
limited to about a seven kilowatt of acceleration power well I just dropped
off Xiao Li at her school and they have a charge point here where
is it it is put into a nice 208 volt 30 amp charge point which is basically
nothing at all yes I did forget to plug in last night kids they can be
distracting so or up to 16 amp and hell now when I plugged in well here the
purpose of this video is to show you what happens when you have a complete
least Koltsov battery so we're gonna go right up here and actually know what
we're gonna go right down here because it's gonna be too bright to see with
your eyes alright so as you can see right up there upper right hand corner
it's pretty much hovering between 0 and negative 1 amp we want we want power
going in so that's basically telling us right now the battery is actually not
charging why because lithium can that be charged in the least consumer grade
lithium can that be charged at or below freezing look at the battery pack
temperature right there thirty point five degrees as a high and a low of 28
point now when I left the house those were both in the teens so just the act
of driving six miles here warmed up the battery that much now this is why I'm
more than happy to leave range mode off and and forgo regen its mates basically
because the pack heater to bring this up so I get region uses more power than
what I would gain by having the region and it unless it's a lot of stop and go
city driving such as for a taxi driver it's not worth leaving that on and it
warmed up that much just on the way here and the reason it's going up now even
though it's still not charging and this is how I'm at a 22 millivolt imbalance
of my pack but Dad the reason we're still drawing 16 amps let me turn my
seat heater up since we're on shore power that is how much power the battery
pack heater uses so right now I got it here too just to show see nothing's
going in the pack yet and the reason I just went up let's see what turn off my
seat heater what does it drop to 16 yeah seat heater at full power uses like 75
watts I forgot I benchmarked it at something
once before and the reason the range even though we're not charging reason
the range is going up is because the temperature of the pack is going up see
my snowflake video I'm not talking about political snowflakes I'm talking about
the battery temperature and range loss snowflake I'll link that in the video
description box below and again at the end of this video in the end screens and
that'll explain what the snowflake means basically you'll see a snowflake icon
appear if your battery pack is super cold and a little blue bar and the blue
bar at the end of your range tells you how much range you lost just because
your pack is cold and now my battery is at 32 degrees as a high but still 30.7
as a low so it's still not charging you it has to wait until that lowest cells
get to at least 32 degrees above 32 degrees
Fahrenheit but again this is cool into temperature and since it's running
through all the cells of course the Tesla fry has it programmed in to to
wait a little bit higher just to make sure the actual cells all have reached
above 32 degrees and and then start charging so still at 16 16 amps 205
volts I could actually turn my heater on and I'd have extra power to spare for
the cabin heater without taking away from charging power but so we got 16
amps times 205 volts which means the pack heater is 3280 watt heater that's
that's a lot of power think think of it as being like two space heaters the
electric space you need a 1500 watt space is more than that
but just to give you an example I mean that's that's a lot of power
this thing's drawing just to heat the cold battery
so we're 34.1 is a high and as you can see and I brought this to Teslas
attention and they said it's fine I don't believe them but you can see one
set of bricks always seems to warm up quicker than everything else whether
it's driving some our winter anything one set of bricks is always always
hotter than the rest or one sheet of cells and given that the temperatures
are the same on a cold soft battery pack I don't think it's a sensor issue I
think there is something going on with that but maybe that's the one that's
causing my range degradation would make sense if one's getting hotter heat is
what kills 32.2 let's see recharging it yeah possibly car just went up to 18 amp
negative one point four amps into so it looks like oppa now we're up to 19 yeah
it looks like charging has just begun although at an extremely slow paced
I'm turning my seat heater back on I'm sorry it's it's cold it's really cold
it's just hit 25 degrees now outside according to the on - temperature gauge
however when I left the house if we're going towards the lake Lake Michigan as
we get closer to the lake it warms up I don't little further inland about seven
miles so it was actually about 17 when we left my house that's Fahrenheit not
Celsius yes we are charging the actual current going into the pack four amps at
three hundred and nineteen point three nine volts
at this rate charging will take over 50 hours let's see
actual pack it doesn't tell us that just tells us the total amount that the
charge was drawing 45 degrees inside the cabin so chilly 27 amps
I'd imagine still most of the power and yep because we're only at the backpack
is only charging at six point two amps at 320 volts so what's six point two
times 320 I'm just gonna round it doesn't want to be that I for it 320
times six point two amps volts times amps equals watts did I do that right
320 320 volts times six point two amps there we go the pack is charging it just
a hair under two kilowatt right now yeah the charger is now maxed out
so between charging the car and heating the pack we're now we're now maxed out
on what this charge point can provide now if we were on a supercharger all the
charging power possible can be going to the pack that it would allow plus the
the plus the heater since the supercharger could provide
considerably more power and we have we've actually gained back one mile of
charge of range just from charging and the pack is now charging at seven amps
at through to three hundred and twenty-one volts so I thought this was
kind of neat thought you guys would all like to see someone how the pack heater
and charging at really freaking cold temperatures are and you can see that
once brick offset one sheet of cells is that thirty-seven point nine volts and
everything else is hovering around thirty four point six now the warmer the
pack can get up to a certain point the faster the charging you won't see full
charge speeds available until the pack gets to around 55 to 60 degrees
Fahrenheit I'm no clue hey Siri sixty degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius
sixteen degrees Fahrenheit is -8 points 9 degrees Celsius I said 60 60 degrees
Fahrenheit to Celsius
okay so approximately fifteen point six degrees Celsius
that's when you're gonna start being able to hit your high charge speeds
which of course you'll never reach except when plugging into a supercharger
but on top of that even though it might start out just a tad bit slower at the
supercharger the insane amount of power the supercharger can dump into your
battery pack does cause things to heat up quite considerably now at the top of
the spectrum your charge rates that a supercharger will actually be lowered
once the car battery hits 113 degrees since lithium doesn't like to be charged
over 113 degrees as degradation accelerates and charging a lithium
battery below 32 degrees Fahrenheit or zero degrees Celsius causes permanent
battery capacity loss which is why the car would not let it charge since the
car would not let it charge below that it's a protection feature charging
lithium below freezing at or below freezing causes the internals of the
battery cell to electroplate each other and that is permanent battery capacity
loss there is absolutely zero way to reverse that except by basically
breaking down the battery and recycling it into a new battery pack re refining
everything now there are military-grade and expensive grade lithium cells that
are formulated different that can be charged below freezing I've seen one
that could charge and I think negative forty very expensive military grade
cells though I've got two miles back
40 on the high 36.3 and the low now at 6.6 charging slowing down a little bit
we'll keep going for just another minute or two here because I think you guys are
getting the idea at this point
now even on consumer-grade cells you can charge them I'd say between 0 and 32
degrees Fahrenheit however the charge rate has to be
astronomically slow think lithium solar pathway lights that you might have
outside your home they charge off those little solar panels and extremely slow
pace and they still last pretty decently you get a couple of years out of those
one of those batteries but it's still not very good for the battery and I'm
talking about charging at a rate of maybe a quarter of a watt 0.25 watts per
cell whereas a supercharger it could charge cuchara
to about 30 watts per cell on a Model S three miles back
so I'm thinking you all get the idea and we'll cut it here so I hope you learned
just a little bit about why the cars don't like to regen or charge when it's
really cold out oh one thing I also forgot to mention you know even though
the car and the battery can take a charge know what the cells above
freezing you're not gonna get the full charge speeds because it still puts a
lot of stress on the cells to charge and a higher rate which is why it's charging
slower now as that pack warms up that's why you get your region back the warmer
the path gets so right now I'm probably limited to about almost zero regen just
extremely slow not enough to be of any use in probably just slow me down from
30 miles an hour to a dead stop would probably take a half mile if not longer
I'm actually going home now and I'm gonna plug in as soon as I get home I
only got to go seven miles see at home but I figured as long as I had a hot
charged point here and my camera why not show you guys all what it looks like
forty two point two thirty eight point five forty two point six the charge
rates still hovered around set about six point eight amps yeah it's not really
going up we'll just round that to seven times how many volts three hundred and
twenty three two point two kilowatt charge right now don't forget volts go
bolts are going up as we charge so even though the amperage isn't really going
up actually the inference is going down it's actually charging in a slightly
quicker pace three miles back my gosh and even when charging at full speed in
this charge point usually provides about 18 miles per hour recovery 18 to 25 I
think 25 was the most I've ever seen and depends on how much voltage drop this
thing actually this one doesn't have too bad a voltage drop I've seen some where
it dips down to 190 and adios cutting it in here okay literally 20 seconds after
I cut the video all of a sudden charge speed jumps up to fifteen point six amps
at 325 over run at 326 volts so 326 what reasoned it it's aside it looks like
just almost 40 degrees is where it will give us the 30 amp at 200 volt charging
so now now we are charging at the maximum rate for this station the car is
actually getting the full 30 amps to the battery no longer that going in in like
20 watts right now to my seat heater and the car is no longer running the battery
pack heater as it's not required and just the act of charging at this point
will continue to have or allow the battery temperature to rise