I’ve been doing some experimenting on how to keep the battery warm while plugged into my L2 charger at home. With this latest cold weather snap, my unheated garage gets to the mid 30’s F by morning. The car usually shows the “Power limited due to cold battery” message when this happens, which to me indicates no maintenance or warming is happening even though its is plugged in. I always thought that is why they recommended keeping it plugged in. Lucid has confirmed to me that the car does not do ant maintenance or temp control while plugged in, only recharges to the set limit. My curiosity led me to see what happens in different scenarios. Here is what my amateurish testing has turned up:
- The Preconditioning option shows while unplugged. It goes away when plugged in.
- Even though the panel indicates you can charge while preconditioning, if I plug in after selecting preconditioning, all activity stops as soon as the charge limit is hit.
- If I select preconditioning while leaving it unplugged, it will only run until the car shuts off or the car is fully charged, whichever happens last.
Interesting though, if I leave a door ajar, effectively forcing the car to stay on, things change a bit:
- If I select preconditioning while leaving it unplugged, it will run until the battery is warmed and the Preconditioning option goes off. It does consume 10 to 15 percent of the SOC to do this however.
- If I awaken the car while plugged in, it will charge and warm the battery (or at least the cold battery warning eventually goes off).
The later two scenarios are what I hoped would happen without my intervention or forcing the car to stay on. I only speculate that keeping the battery in its optimum temperature range, even when not in use, would be the best course of action but I don’t have any facts to know if any of this is better or worse for long term battery life.
Pete