Canada is inching closer towards the first days of winter, with many parts of the country already experiencing their first snowfall. One location that is already well within the grip of old man winter is Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which recently saw some heavy snow and temperatures dipping to around -20°C (-4°F).
One intrepid Tesla owner in the area, Joshua, or SaskTesla on YouTube, decided to leave his Long Range (LR) Model 3 parked outside overnight to see just how much range is lost when temperatures get that low.
The Test
Beginning the test at 5:30pm with the temperature hovering around -9°C (16°F) and expected to reach as low as -18°C (0°F) overnight, Joshua starts the test with 362km of range showing on the in-car display.
While the car was parked Joshua made sure not to open the mobile app to avoid waking it up, resulting in extra range loss. Sentry Mode was activated however. This will cause extra battery loss due to the car continuously monitoring its surroundings, even on a warm summer day.
The Results
After being parked outside for about 15 hours the battery had been reduced to 318km, a loss of 44km or 9% overnight.
As he points out in the video, the low temperatures caused the battery to be “cold soaked” with the blue snowflake, meaning part of the battery’s energy was unusable. As the battery warms up, most of that lost energy would be regained.
Joshua estimates that to have been about 5%, so the true loss due to the cold weather would be closer to 5%, or about 20-25km.
Given how cold it was, and the fact Sentry Mode was turned on for the test, the amount of range loss is quite small and less than we were expecting.
Joshua further tests his LR Model 3 out to see how efficiency is impacted driving in cold weather, and estimates it to be about 30%-40% in Saskatoon temperatures.
What has your experience been with your Tesla in a Canadian winter? Let us know in the comments below.
Check out the full video for all the details.
