Pre-heating while plugged in...

I was trying to warm-up the car before I left the house yesterday and didn't want to bother with the whole "departure time setup" rigamarole. The car was plugged in, I turned it on, and then set the climate controls. The fans went on and I heard the on-board charger, but the climate control never dispensed any heat. i unplugged and the heat came on. Turned the car off, plugged back in, turned the car on, no heat.

I can't seem to manually set the climate controls & get heat while I'm plugged in, e.g. I can only get heat if I drain my battery. WTF. Is this by design or am I doing something wrong?

Never tried turning it on to preheat like that. Possibly it is using the charge current to precondition the battery and not the cabin.

Depending on the settings simply pressing the unlock button on the key fob will start the pre conditioning but it could behave the same way.

What charger do you use? Possible the behaviour varys depending on available current from the wall.

For pre-heating the car while plugged in, I just push the temperature hold button inside the car about 30 mins before departure. It will run for about 45 min on whatever temperature you dial up, using power from the EVSE. No need to turn the car on. Setting the departure time from inside the car works ok, but will only heat for 10 min, which is sometimes not sufficient. Using the phone app is completely unreliable in my hands.

snowds said:

For pre-heating the car while plugged in, I just push the temperature hold button inside the car about 30 mins before departure. It will run for about 45 min on whatever temperature you dial up, using power from the EVSE. No need to turn the car on. Setting the departure time from inside the car works ok, but will only heat for 10 min, which is sometimes not sufficient. Using the phone app is completely unreliable in my hands.

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OK. I'll try that. Thx.

Though that will heat or cool the cabin (after walking to the car the pushing it) it won't precondtion the battery to my knowledge. So as soon as you power up and drive off that process will start and chew away range.

I assume the way to tell of the ECell gauge, if that isn't fully up the battery isn't conditined yet. In warmer temperatures this won't matter but if you live in a cold climate and park outside it will.

The app (buggy as it is) and unlocking the doors will start the preconditioning and cabin climate at the same time even if only for 10 minutes.

Stig, as you know I live near you in the city and park on the street to boot. So you are saying go to the app and do the climate control thing and voila, the battery will be conditioned and the car will be a little warmer. That way, I might get more miles out of the 26 kWh? Just checking as I have not fiddled with it having just gotten the app to work a few weeks ago.

I honestly don't know what it will do if you are street parked and not on a decent sized charger at the time the preconditioning is requested. The climate control will turn on I'm sure, but not sure on the battery warming. If you hear the anything running other than the climate control might be a way to tell.

Stig, ah right. Good catch. OK, so good to precondition battery if attached to charger but otherwise maybe stuck with cold start. Thanks.

Even if it did precondition the battery without the charger, I wouldn't expect a benefit. It is still using kWh and range either way.

Also Preconditioning doesn't save $ by my thinking, it increases range by taking that power off the wall but you are still paying for it unless at a free charging station of some sort.

I took the car for a quick trip this morning and the Ecell was pinned at max from the start from my 50 degree garage without a precondition of any kind. Maybe the precondition only occurs at some lower temperature.

Stig, I think you were right. I tried the climate control on the app this morning. When I entered the car exactly on time, it was warm and I could see the climate controls and heated seats on. I then looked at the percentage of battery left and noted that it drained from 93% to 88% to heat up the car and possibly condition the battery. So conclusion is unless it is plugged into the commercial charger in the paid parking lot, most of the value of preconditioning is likely lost.

Wow, 5% is a lot of charge to loose on preconditioning and warming the cabin and seat. But if you were parked outside and the ambient temp was 30 or whatever ridicules cold it has been I guess that makes sense.

Try it again if it ever warms up outside, at some point I'd expect the battery precondition stops occurring and you are just lightly heating or cooling the cabin. That can't take up 5% charge.

Either way you are paying for comfort, unless on a "free" charger.

Stig, yes, I am on a free charger so nothing out of my pocket. I charge twice a week at dealer and they throw in a wash to boot. Once a week, I charge at ChargePoint stations and occasionally there is a nominal $2.50 charge. So warming does not move the needle charge frequency wise. I am hoping that with warmer weather, my weekly charges go down to 2x a week from 3x. Plus energy is not free so am conscious of that.