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

[OutofSpecDetailing]

We should all take a moment to thank Alyssa for filming all this when is insanely cold outside!

[promogul]

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.

[thedmf]

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.

[gcase]

Never seen such spin on how awesome something so ridiculous is.

[nurseitkalbaev]

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 🥶

[ryan]

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!

[rothjoseph]

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.

[maxgomila]

'That pretty much will never happen in the real world...' LOL!

[KiwiShoot]

As I sit here in New Zealand in shorts and 25c, I appreciate the sacrifice made for this video Kyle. Well done mate 👍

[jwardell]

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.

[brandenflasch]

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 🥶🥶

[insylem]

Who besides me is watching this in 2024 after hearing about the new from Chicago

[kdjorgensen]

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.

[forrestcarlson]

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.

[morgan_aren]

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.

[Ben]

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.

[cgamiga]

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...?

[Adriaaan]

When connected to a Supercharger you can turn on the cabin heater to heat the battery quicker. It'll pull juice from the charger to run the heatpump (or PTC heater depending on model) and then reuse that heat for the battery coolant loop as well.

[ericm]

Reinforces what you have been telling us - on-route battery pre-conditioning is a really important feature for an EV.

[RionPhotography]

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.