Can Tesla’s Preconditioning warm up the battery for fast charging?
Preheating the battery to a higher degree ensures a fast charging experience, sparing you time at the station. Usually, this cycle starts automatically when the battery is cold as you navigate to a Supercharger.
The preconditioning feature remotely turns on the HVAC system to ensure that your car is at an optimal temperature for a comfortable drive during rough climate conditions. Although this process warms up the battery to a degree, some people believe this is enough to preheat it for fast charging.
To find out if that’s true, we ran tests.
[We also prepared a visual presentation if you want to see them in action]
**Tesla Preconditioning Test**
The test design was simple. We set up a preconditioning cycle and left the car for 30 minutes. During that time, we monitored the battery temperature through the S3XY App, which pulls data from the Battery Management System (BMS).
After the time had passed, we came back and reviewed the results:
Initial Stats:
- Outside Temperature: 3°C
- Battery Temperature: 9.5°C
- Remaining Capacity: 46.7 kWh
Final Stats:
- Outside Temperature: 4°C
- Battery Temperature: 12.8°C
- Remaining Capacity: 45.8 kWh
As you can see, the 30-minute preconditioning cycle consumed 0.9 kWh of energy and raised the battery temperature only by 3.3°C, not nearly within the optimal range for fast charging but enough for the regen to kick in.
**Preheating the Battery with the S3XY Gadgets**
To illustrate the contrast, we ran the test again, but this time, we used our app to preheat the battery for 30 minutes. Here are the results:
Initial Stats:
- Outside Temperature: 4°C
- Battery Temperature: 12.8°C
- Remaining Capacity: 45.8 kWh
Final Stats:
- Outside Temperature: 4°C
- Battery Temperature: 33.3°C
- Remaining Capacity: 42.4 kWh
Preheating from the S3XY products consumed 3.4 kWh of energy, but in return, we got more than a 20°C increase, making the battery ready for fast charging.
**Conclusion**
Despite the results from both tests, the preconditioning is still a handy feature that prepares your car for a comfortable drive, regardless of the weather conditions.
More informative posts are on the way, so stay tuned!
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Stoyan Gyurov
02/12/2025