- Where are goin', bud?
- The snow.
- We're goin' to see the snow
and so I thought it would be a good time to talk
about how winter weather affects your range on your Tesla
as well as some tips, secrets, whatever you want to call 'em
that I got from some of my friends
who live in some of the most extreme cold climates
in the United States.
Let's go.
(upbeat music)
Electric cars, like regular cars, like many things,
behave differently in extremely cold environments.
So right now with the polar vortex
upon us in the United States, I though it made sense
to kinda talk about some of the secret things
or some of the tips that you can really take advantage of
in terms of getting the most out of your Tesla
in these situations.
So the first thing is that your car
will not be able to charge nearly as fast
when it's extremely cold.
The battery in the Model 3 doesn't have a separate heater.
So the Model S and X,
the battery actually has its own separate system
to heat it and kind of keep it at an ideal temperature.
So the Model 3 is a bit different,
it doesn't have one of those.
So the battery will actually get really cold
and at that point it won't be able to charge or discharge
nearly as fast as it normally does.
So, tip.
If you are driving, you're goin' on a road trip,
you're wrapping it up.
Before head in for night
make sure you charge as much as you need to for the next day
because otherwise, when you wake up
it's gonna take a lot longer to charge
than it normally would.
So hit the super charger or whatever
before you go to the hotel and call it a night.
The next thing is that you'll notice that
the windows roll up all the way
when you're in extremely cold environments.
Now this is dramatic
but I just wanted to show you an example,
and that is because if they do go up all the way
they will freeze and then dislodge from the door
when you try to open it.
So don't be alarmed when you see that.
That is intentional.
And the third thing is that the actual charge port here
will continually engage and disengage
because these little tiny prongs in there
will get frozen again and you won't be able to charge,
which would be a really bad scenario
in a cold environment like this.
It's also really interesting to look at the data.
Fortunately, through Tezlab,
we've logged the watt hours per mile
of all the trips that people take.
And because I'm an advisor to the company,
I can look at this data and help shed some light
and tell that story.
And so what we're gonna do now,
I'm gonna head back to the studio
and take a look at this data
and see exactly how the cold weather
affects your ability to drive.
(upbeat music)
Alright, back here, almost to the studio.
Have all the data, ran the numbers over the weekend.
We're gonna go see exactly how winter weather
affects your Tesla.
(upbeat music)
So combined we have over 2.4 million trips
that have been logged by over 9,000 vehicles using Tezlab.
One of the interesting stats that we get
when we look at this data
is the watt hours per mile.
That is the actual amount of energy it takes
to move the car exactly one mile.
So when looking at this overall,
the Model 3 comes in at just over 333 watt hours per mile.
The Model S at 383
and the Model X at 454.
But that's overall,
that's not telling us much about winter driving
versus summer driving.
So what we need to do is take a look at this stat over time.
We started tracking this back in 2016
and as I mentioned, we have over 2.4 million trips logged.
We did notice a significant dip
once Tesla started delivering the Model 3
in greater quantities around July of 2018
which also coincides with warmer weather.
If we look at our overall trend we see a fairly flat line
showing how the watt hours per mile changes
throughout the year.
But there is a distinct decline starting in June
and lasting through around October.
This of course makes sense
when we overlay the median temperature during this time
for these trips.
And that kinda matches our perception, right?
As the temperatures kind of normalize and get more agreeable
the car doesn't have to use as much energy to move forward.
So that all kinda makes sense so far.
But what we want to do is dig in just a little bit deeper
and try to figure out exactly how much
the temperature affects the energy needed to go forward.
And that's what this chart here is trying to show us.
Each bar represents a five degree temperature bucket,
if you will.
So we basically logged every trip that happened
within that bucket
and then looked at the median watt hours per mile.
So that's how much energy it took to move the vehicle
one mile when the temperature was in that range.
And if you compare the best to the worst
you can see that it's a pretty dramatic difference.
Where right around minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit
you're looking at over 620 watt hours per mile
whereas in the 60 degree Fahrenheit range
we're at just above 362 watt hours per mile.
That is a 72% difference from the worst to the best.
So when you divide those two,
what you find is that as the temperature drops one degree
you need .6 % more energy to travel that same distance,
that one mile that we're measuring here.
Now this is for all models, but if we focus specifically
on the Tesla Model 3
we can see that this is even more dramatic.
In this scenario we have an average 4% increase
in watt hours needed to go one mile per five degrees,
per bucket that we're measuring here.
That means if you divide those two,
for every one degree that the temperature drops
you need .8% more energy to travel that same distance.
And I'm guessing that's partly due to
the missing battery warmer,
meaning you're gonna spin up a ton of energy
just getting things ready to travel
or potentially just because the Model 3 is still new
that there's still software updates happening
and eventually this will actually become better
than the other two models.
But right now, that's what we're seeing,
an almost one-to-one degree to percent energy change
as kind of an inverse correlation there.
So the temperature can obviously have a big impact
on your car's ability to travel a certain distance.
That's no big shock there.
And actually, it doesn't even matter
whether or not your car is electric or gas.
In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy reports
that fuel economy tests show a regular gas car
miles per gallon, can drop as much as 22%
on even very short trips in these winter climates.
So remember, when you're drivin' in the winter
you're gonna need to pay a little bit more attention
and kinda prepare just a little bit more
than you typically would in the warmer months.
But if you follow these tips,
you charge up full every night, especially if you're driving
and you're stopping to sleep,
you want to charge before you do so,
otherwise in the morning it'll take much longer
'cause the speed at which it can charge is much slower.
As well, you can't do the pre-warming
if the battery is under 20% charged.
So you definitely want to have that
so you can warm it before you even have to go out there.
And be patient,
because we are still at the very, very beginning
of the EV revolution, of our transportation system
switching from internal combustion engines
to electric motors.
And so everything you're doing right now are just lessons
that you can pass down to future generations
about how to handle these things.
And hopefully we'll look back on this fondly
years to come as kind of, you know,
the novelty of having to deal with this back them
because we'll have solved it just so dramatically
kind of over-the-top by then.
So it's gonna be a fun journey
and I hope you'll stick with me.
And if you want to track your trips using Tezlab
you can do so by getting the app for free.
It's available on Android and iOS,
just go search for it in the app stores respectively.
We don't share or sell your data ever,
that's part of our policy,
And we also don't store your Tesla credentials,
we just use them initially to get a token
which then we can query the car and then you know,
give you that data.
It's sort of like a Fitbit for your Tesla.
So I'll put a link to that
down in the description there as well.
And lastly, don't forget,
when you free data your mind will follow.
I'll see you guys back here in the next one.
(upbeat music)