Not many Canadians will want to camp in their Tesla Model Y when temperatures dip to below -20°C (-7.6°F). But if you do, one Canadian Tesla YouTuber braved the cold to see how much energy the electric SUV consumes at such frigid temperatures.
Tesla Canuck (Paul) began his test at 9:30pm and the cold temperatures had an immediate drain on the state of charge. After hosing a livestream (you can watch that here) and keeping the temperature at a comfortable 20°C, the battery had already dropped to 74% a little over two hours later.
After waking up at just after 5:00am the next morning, the battery had dropped to 43%. That equates to 28.5kWh of energy consumed, or 3.8kWh used per hour. As Paul describes in the video, that was much more than he was expecting, especially since he had previously camped in his Model 3.
In that test with temperatures at -17°C (1.4°F), the Model 3 consumed 19.5kWh over 8 hours, or 2.4kWh per hour.
Part of the reason is likely due to the “cavernous” interior of the Model Y which would require much more heat to warm up when compared to the smaller Model 3.
The extra cargo space also lead to another problem – cold feet. With his original setup his head was behind the front seats and his feet were in the trunk. Due to not enough heat making its way into the rear cargo area, Paul had to flip part way through the night so his his head was now in the trunk.
You can check out the full video below.
