My AT is garaged here in southern Maine; I think that the lowest registered "cabin temp" as we start the day has been around 25-28F. I keep it plugged in to my 50A circuit, using the Lucid Mobile Charger.
I've never heard any battery conditioning going on OTHER than when topping off a charge after the car wakes upon opening up the iOS app, or while adding charge while plugged in. My guess is that if the system does indeed do proactive warming of the batteries, it may not kick in until things get quite cold; perhaps near or at that 14 degrees they mention in the manual? (it sounds like people notice the proactive cooling in summer more often)
While I routinely get the "Warming battery to optimize charging speed" notice (even today with the cabin at 40), it ramps up to its nominal 9kW rate very quickly. It takes somewhat over an hour for the battery to warm up enough for that notice to disappear, and at that point the miles/hr notch up a bit (eg 37 mi/hr to 40mi/hr). This has generally been associated with a 6-12% SOC increase before it disappears (it may take longer if it starts colder....this week will be the first test of external temps around zero)
Turning on cabin heating sucks a LOT of juice from the charging side of things....with that on, it showed the 9kW of power generating 20mi/hr of range, with a Total Remaining charge time of 4:25 (I was aiming to go from 80 to 95%, though I ended up settling for 86%)-- when I shut off the cabin heating, it jumped up to 37 mi/hr of range and a 2:55 charge time.
When I'm going to do more than a few miles around town, I've adopted a plan similar to BlueLectroid's: my daily charge limit is set to 70%, and I notch that up to 80% or higher 90 minutes or so before planning to leave. Once the "Warming battery" message is gone (or 15-20 minutes before leaving), I warm up the cabin. This puts me on the road with a warmed battery--which I *presume* is beneficial for range/efficiency in addition to the charging speed.
What I'm unclear about is whether driving for a an hour in 25 degree air cools it down fairly quickly, or if being used keeps the battery packs nominally warm. I assume that (as at home) if it got down to a danger zone threshold, like 15 degrees or less, the warming would kick in. Relatedly, I'm a bit unclear about how much a cold battery itself reduces range/efficiency, as compared to the engine and other mechanical systems warming up a bit over the first 20 miles or so.
Separate but somewhat related: While I haven't had to charge "in the wild" yet, I wondering about the battery hit of using the Preconditioning option while on the road, given that a few posts have noted significant battery usage (5-15% SOC) when using Preconditioning, either unplugged at home prior to driving or while approaching a DCFC. Are those SOC hits outliers, or will I want to know I have at least 5-10% SOC (beyond my low-end comfort zone) to use on Preconditioning prior to arrival at the DCFC?
