Ready by heating

[spinna1969]

Hi All.
Awaiting my car to be delivered from the dealers once the lease company has finished messing me about and I’d like to ask about the heating that you can programme for cold mornings.
Does it take from mains if your charging lead is plugged in?
What’s the consumption/per hour of the heater on mains and the consumption off battery of mains not connected?

Sorry if it’s a daft question or if it’s been covered before.
Many thanks in advance.

[ricky10]

Same amount of consumption. If it is plugged into the main, the preheating will take electricity from mains. Otherwise it will be the 400V system.

Probably 1kwh usage for half an hour of pre-heating with window and mirror demisting.

The cabin gets warmed up quite quickly in all fairness.

[Lorttrol]

I noticed mine this morning was drawing 6.4kw from the zappi running the heater at 20 degrees. As already said it does heat up the cabin quickly so no idea how long it will be drawing that much for. When you using the app to start the heater it runs for 30 mins before stopping. When set for scheduled it appears to start up depending on how much effort it needs to put in to get to the right temprature for your departure time although this isnt something I have studied to work out so I might be wrong.

[Ken3966]

It’s a lot more than 1kW.
If you open the car data screen when you get in with the car turned on it gives you the instantaneous consumption whilst moving in kWh per mile, and when stationary the kWh/h consumption for heating etc.
Car when on and not heating is around 0.4kW, when heating is working hard, plus heated seats and steering wheel on is around 6kW total.
Heated seats are about 0.2kW, as is steering wheel, so around 5kW for cabin heating until it warms up.

My car has a heat pump so this will reduce significantly once car is in motion and it can be extract heat from wherever it gets it, without one consumption is pretty constant. Clearly once up to temp it will reduce as less needed to maintain, but I bet it will use 3kW total for 30 mins, which is about 10 miles off range if not plugged in.

If you charge at off peak rate via say Octopus you would not want it to take this from mains at peak rate if the car will still have enough range.
I have noticed that using Octopus my car preheats from battery even if still plugged in. I would probably have to select charge now on app to do it from mains, not tried that yet as not needed range.
Strangely though if I walk to the car all the systems start up to heat or cool the car and this is taking power from mains if still plugged in!

[ricky10]

The precondition only lasts 30min max.

I said 1kwh is cos I had the car on granny charge one time while it was charging and heating the cabin.

The charge from the granny was 3kw max at the time and when cabin heating was on the charge rate dropped to 1kw. So heating was pulling around 2kw and therefore for half an hour of heating it is 1kwh charge.

The only thing that you need is cabin climate control and wind shield heating (if you have the option). Car seat heating and steering wheel heating gets turned on when you switch on the car. So they don’t work in the stationary air condition mode.

Also my car has heat pump so the heating energy usage will be different if you dont have that specced. I think regular heater is 3kw rated.

[Ken3966]

My seats and steering wheel do heat if you preheat the car!
There is an option in the menu to do this automatically if temperatures is low. You can switch this off though.
There is also an option to tell it which seats to heat, either just drivers or both. Don’t seem to be able to preheat rear seats though.
Consumption when stationary and heating on full is around 5-6kW, actual consumption obviously depends on length of time this is on.

[Bryanmet]

Is there a way to force pre-heat to use car battery even when car is still plugged in?

[ricky10]

You don’t want to sue the battery that’s the point.

If you want to get the battery to warm up for whatever reason a few kW is not going to do the trick.

Tesla battery conditioning takes ages to work. Most PTC heaters 3kw rated systems or less.

[anotherjohn]

It works even when not plugged in.
Roughly 10mins cost about 13miles & the screen was clear car & steering wheel warm.

[Aragorn]

You don’t want to sue the battery that’s the point.

If you want to get the battery to warm up for whatever reason a few kW is not going to do the trick.

Tesla battery conditioning takes ages to work. Most PTC heaters 3kw rated systems or less.

Sometimes you DO want to use the battery....

If you've charged overnight at the cheap rate, and have plenty range to complete your journey, you want to pre-heat from the battery, rather than the expensive mains.