Can you preheat the battery?

[Gwaihir]

Its always good to know whether things are 'fault or feature' on the car ?........ Sometimes you have no idea.

Don’t worry, Porsche will make a feature of any fault! A bit like the way they say ‘charging to only 80% is a feature’. . .

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[DrT]

Tested my ”sauna edition” CT4 and set a timer to charge from 91% SOC to 100% (outside temp -12C, cold garage carpark with a public charger). At departure the battery temp was again +30C, it seems to precondition the battery in this setting. No idea what sets it off, would be interesting to see if same happens on a home installed 11kW charger.

 

[Fish Fingers]

Tested my ”sauna edition” CT4 and set a timer to charge from 91% SOC to 100% (outside temp -12C, cold garage carpark with a public charger). At departure the battery temp was again +30C, it seems to precondition the battery in this setting. No idea what sets it off, would be interesting to see if same happens on a home installed 11kW charger.

It would be interesting to see if you only went up to 80% SOC too.

I wonder if its the final bit, charging up to 100% when the battery slows the charge rate to protect itself.... that it then uses extra power to heat the battery up?

Just guessing?

 

[McgR]

It would be interesting to see if you only went up to 80% SOC too.

I wonder if its the final bit, charging up to 100% when the battery slows the charge rate to protect itself.... that it then uses extra power to heat the battery up?

Just guessing?

Tested my ”sauna edition” CT4 and set a timer to charge from 91% SOC to 100% (outside temp -12C, cold garage carpark with a public charger). At departure the battery temp was again +30C, it seems to precondition the battery in this setting. No idea what sets it off, would be interesting to see if same happens on a home installed 11kW charger.

Thanks for showing. Would be interesting to see what happens when you just plug in without preconditioning if the battery still gets warmed up to 30 degrees. This test will only work if you get back at your car approximately around full charge. We could differentiate if the heating is a side effect and still happening without preconditioning or intended and the battery should be colder.

 

[W1NGE]

Tested my ”sauna edition” CT4 and set a timer to charge from 91% SOC to 100% (outside temp -12C, cold garage carpark with a public charger). At departure the battery temp was again +30C, it seems to precondition the battery in this setting. No idea what sets it off, would be interesting to see if same happens on a home installed 11kW charger.

No preheat set for interior temp?

 

[Deleted member 1697]

Thanks for the comments and advice from svp6. I am travelling tomorrow morning so will set up the charge timer with my departure time and see what the starting temp of the battery is.

McgR - I will post separately regarding my trip from Newcastle in the UK to Val Thorens in the French alps.

warm welcome

 

[svp6]

I charge at

You can also search specifically for charging stations for navigation. It will preheat the battery while driving and it will be ready for arrival at the charging station.

This is a great feature, but I would suggest you pay attention to your remaining range. I was driving in very cold temps (-20C / -4F) last winter. The usage was steady on the first 75 miles, then the last 15 it went up substantially. Since there was no change in temp / wind, I would assume this was preheating. This could be tricky if you are very low on range.

 

[McgR]

I charge at


This is a great feature, but I would suggest you pay attention to your remaining range. I was driving in very cold temps (-20C / -4F) last winter. The usage was steady on the first 75 miles, then the last 15 it went up substantially. Since there was no change in temp / wind, I would assume this was preheating. This could be tricky if you are very low on range.

I may be naive. But I hope the car is smart enough not to pre heat the battery if this results in not making it to the charger.

 

[Doc B]

So from my experience in UK temperatures with the car in the garage, any preheating of the battery is just a side effect of charging - i.e. preheat only works (timer or no timer) if you are actually charging. The battery heats up a little more with the timer since it is also working to heat the cabin. HOWEVER, there was a poster a while back from colder climbs who showed that when the battery is very cold (less than 5C), when he charged the battery (with a timer) it was using way more energy from the EVSE than going into charge, and it was clear from the post that the battery was being pre-heated first before getting charged. My take is that it is possible to preheat the battery BUT the car does not care about range - it only preheats the battery if it makes the charging process quicker. If it is too cold to charge effectively, the battery will be preheated, but if the battery is at a moderate temp, it is not going to preheat just because we want more range. Very annoying and clearly there is a software fix there if Porsche wanted to do it...big if

 

[DrT]

Tested today to charge only to 80% with preheating and the battery temp was 17C (outside temp -12C ?) at departure.

I have noticed the same as Doc B mentioned, that the Taycan uses energy first to warm up the battery before charging.

 

[Scandinavian]

Tested today to charge only to 80% with preheating and the battery temp was 17C (outside temp -12C ?) at departure.

I have noticed the same as Doc B mentioned, that the Taycan uses energy first to warm up the battery before charging.

I am not living in a cold country, and here the heat pump was an optional extra. I do not have it installed.

So yesterday I tried out the pre heating feature. During the night the air temp out side was around 7 to 8 degrees. Battery temp at start 9 C. That car had been charged a few days earlier to 85% so no charge was needed. Only preheating set to 21.5 C. I only did this about an hour prior to leaving. I have a 3 phase connection that can deliver the cars full 11 kW.

The car was showing 6.56 kW input power from the grid, not the full 11 kW which the car can take. The PMCC showed just over 7 kW so the difference is the loss in the cars charger.

When looking at the the rate that was put in to the battery it showed 0 km/min, which means all the 6.56 kW was used to heat the cabin as well as the battery!

When it was time to leave, the battery had heated up a bit to 13 , nowhere to the 30 C that has been described here. But still heated.

Interestingly the battery charge has also increased to 88%. But that increase is something I have noted earlier, even when the car is not connected to power at all. When it has been a cold night and it warms up during the morning, the charge level can increase by 2 yo 3 %.

So I can get the battery to heat up and have experienced that at cold nights at hotels in the Alps. But it seems you need quite a lot of power to do so. 7 to 7 kW. So if you only have a household connection at a cabin of 2.5 kW that might not be enough. Especially if you need to charge the battery as well.

At one hotel stop we managed to get the battery to 16 C when it was freezing during the night.

 

[W1NGE]

I am not living in a cold country, and here the heat pump was an optional extra. I do not have it installed.

So yesterday I tried out the pre heating feature. During the night the air temp out side was around 7 to 8 degrees. Battery temp at start 9 C. That car had been charged a few days earlier to 85% so no charge was needed. Only preheating set to 21.5 C. I only did this about an hour prior to leaving. I have a 3 phase connection that can deliver the cars full 11 kW.

The car was showing 6.56 kW input power from the grid, not the full 11 kW which the car can take. The PMCC showed just over 7 kW so the difference is the loss in the cars charger.

When looking at the the rate that was put in to the battery it showed 0 km/min, which means all the 6.56 kW was used to heat the cabin as well as the battery!

When it was time to leave, the battery had heated up a bit to 13 , nowhere to the 30 C that has been described here. But still heated.

Interestingly the battery charge has also increased to 88%. But that increase is something I have noted earlier, even when the car is not connected to power at all. When it has been a cold night and it warms up during the morning, the charge level can increase by 2 yo 3 %.

So I can get the battery to heat up and have experienced that at cold nights at hotels in the Alps. But it seems you need quite a lot of power to do so. 7 to 7 kW. So if you only have a household connection at a cabin of 2.5 kW that might not be enough. Especially if you need to charge the battery as well.

At one hotel stop we managed to get the battery to 16 C when it was freezing during the night.

Yep - this is what I'd call normal.

Perhaps the OP was in quite a low ambient temperature (-12C) then given the reliability of Porsche software, perhaps the +30C reading was not the actual temperature.

Who knows and life is too short!

 

[DrT]

Is it possible to change the lower screen to show kW instead of km/min? My always shows km/min which is a confusing metric when I want to know how fast it is charging.

 

[Scandinavian]

Is it possible to change the lower screen to show kW instead of km/min? My always shows km/min which is a confusing metric when I want to know how fast it is charging.

Yes just press on the km/min and it will change to kW! I think I showed both above.

 

[DrT]

Yes just press on the km/min and it will change to kW! I think I showed both above.

Excellent! Thanks.

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