Extreme Winter Driving pros and cons with Taycan

[Gru]

I don't use a car every day and recently when I drove off my battery was 1C, the lowest I've seen. I had previously noticed a reduction in performance with a cold battery, not unexpected, but never had the tortoise symbol. I wouldn't try to use full performance from a cold battery unless I damaged it - but in modern cars there seems to be software protection from abuse.

Yesterday when I knew what time I would go out I gave it the full hour pre-heat and was surprised to see the battery at 16C when I left, usually the preheat only adds around 5C above starting temperature and since it takes a lot of energy to heat 350kg of cells I was surprised to see so much more.

i ran a test this morning:
- initial conditions: car stayed outside all night, not plugged. All temperatures (outside, inside, battery) were equal to 0°. Battery was at about 83%
- i activated the pre-heat for about 40mn then drove the car. Temp required : 21°

Results are below :
- SoC went down by 6%, around 5kWh loss
- power required to heat the battery and the inside of the car is around 10kW. Quite high value, meaning if plugged at home, you are likely to see a SoC below than what you asked.
it goes down to around 2or 3kW when only waming the inside
- interior temperature raise by 20° in about 20 mn. it's already 15°C inside after 10 mn
- battery temperature : flat for almost the first 10mn (i guess that is the time needed to warm the heating system), then linear increase up to 13° in about 20mn, then flat. so in total 30mn to warm the battery

Conclusion :
in quite "extreme" condition (at least for Belgium), you'll need 30mn to warm the car, at a cost of about 6% SoC

 

[KLHubb]

I have not tried pre-heating to date....I guess I should in very cold weather in order to protect the battery. I have driven it year round since my purchase 3 years ago (20k miles), and have had no problems before the tortoise event yesterday.....not really a problem, but a demonstration of one of the car's protection algorithms.

 

[f1eng]

i ran a test this morning:
- initial conditions: car stayed outside all night, not plugged. All temperatures (outside, inside, battery) were equal to 0°. Battery was at about 83%
- i activated the pre-heat for about 40mn then drove the car. Temp required : 21°

Results are below :
- SoC went down by 6%, around 5kWh loss
- power required to heat the battery and the inside of the car is around 10kW. Quite high value, meaning if plugged at home, you are likely to see a SoC below than what you asked.
it goes down to around 2or 3kW when only waming the inside
- interior temperature raise by 20° in about 20 mn. it's already 15°C inside after 10 mn
- battery temperature : flat for almost the first 10mn (i guess that is the time needed to warm the heating system), then linear increase up to 13° in about 20mn, then flat. so in total 30mn to warm the battery

Conclusion :
in quite "extreme" condition (at least for Belgium), you'll need 30mn to warm the car, at a cost of about 6% SoC

Well measured!
I plugged mine in and it drew 6.8kW so still a small loss of SOC over the hour. Interesting mine got to 16C and yours stabilised at 13C.
OTOH I only used the dash display.
How did you monitor this data?

 

[f1eng]

I have not tried pre-heating to date....I guess I should in very cold weather in order to protect the battery. I have driven it year round since my purchase 3 years ago (20k miles), and have had no problems before the tortoise event yesterday.....not really a problem, but a demonstration of one of the car's protection algorithms.

Initially I only preheated for 10 minutes to warm the cabin then drove away and wasn’t bothered about the battery but realised having the preheat time set for 1 hour meant that heating the battery must be part of it so now use it on very cold days when I knew I was going somewhere.

 

[Gru]

Car

Well measured!
I plugged mine in and it drew 6.8kW so still a small loss of SOC over the hour. Interesting mine got to 16C and yours stabilised at 13C.
OTOH I only used the dash display.
How did you monitor this data?

I used Car Scanner with an ODB II adapter.
Indeed, strange that one went up to 13° and the other 16°. I see two possibilities:
- different software version
or
- the battery is again heated after 45 (?) mn. I stopped after 40mn while you pre-heated the battery for 1hr

unless because yours was plugged (although I was still above 75% SoC)

 

[KLHubb]

Interesting....I will plan to purchase a scanner...any preferred brands?
And by the way, I have used Rain-X on all gass including the roof glass to great effect in minimizing the difficultly of clearing snow and ice.

 

[Donlam]

My guess the battery is protected by software in cold weather. It would limit the power output to protect the battery health. I tried when the battery at 1 degree c. I could not reach 90 kph on the motorway in sport mode no matter how long I had floor it. The reason I need to preheat the cabin before I get in (i.e 20 mins) is for my health and comfort in cold weather. This is the advantage of an EV I like. ICE take ages to heat up the cabin.

 

[KLHubb]

Agreed....it would be great to find a Porsche tech who could give us a clear, detailed explanation.

 

[Gru]

Interesting....I will plan to purchase a scanner...any preferred brands?
And by the way, I have used Rain-X on all gass including the roof glass to great effect in minimizing the difficultly of clearing snow and ice.

I bought that one:

vLinker MC+ Mini Bluetooth OBD II https://amzn.eu/d/0tNDIGq

small enough to leave it always plugged.

 

[KLHubb]

Thanks.....It will be great to have detailed information.

 

[tigerbalm]

small enough to leave it always plugged.

Does that mean you get the "HV has not been de-energised" red warning everytime you start the car?

 

[Gru]

Does that mean you get the "HV has not been de-energised" red warning everytime you start the car?

no.
I leave it plugged but I don't run Car Scanner every time.

 

[Gru]

Thanks.....It will be great to have detailed information.

in combination with Car Scanner, you'll get more info that you can think of

 

[tigerbalm]

no.
I leave it plugged but I don't run Car Scanner every time.

Thanks. That makes sense. Also good to see you spell your first name correctly too – with an "e" and not an "a" !!

 

[cityhpper]

My guess the battery is protected by software in cold weather. It would limit the power output to protect the battery health. I tried when the battery at 1 degree c. I could not reach 90 kph on the motorway in sport mode no matter how long I had floor it. The reason I need to preheat the cabin before I get in (i.e 20 mins) is for my health and comfort in cold weather. This is the advantage of an EV I like. ICE take ages to heat up the cabin.

Interesting observation. Could this be linked to the use of Sport mode? My car (usually always in Normal mode during winter) will happily do 110 km/h on the motorway, even with battery temps well below zero degrees Celsius. The BMS seems perfectly OK with keeping the battery temp below zero, even when doing trips of 20-40 minutes on B-roads.

SW-mode for colder climates, perhaps?

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