Intentional cold soak -15

[TaxmanHog]

Thinking on it, my biggest concern with this is the thermal cycling here. Battery experts chime in here, but wouldn’t it be better for the pack to stay at a low temp if I don’t need to charge or hit the highway rather than plug it into maintain a warm pack? Considering at nighttime, it’s going to get cold soaked either way

I'll leave the battery chemistry optimization to others like @MickeyAO

Eventually you need to replenish the battery, and that initial overhead say once a week in extreme conditions like this example might slow the process to a point which cramps your ability to use the truck for an impromptu long trip, stacking all the worst case conditions up.

Would it be better to :"always be plugged in" so that spontaneous moderation of the battery temps will improve recharging & drive performance?

I guess the cost / benefit relationship we each value differently is the final determining factor.

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[TMND]

Oh, I would like to stay plugged in at home as well, but at these temps the power connector errors out. so I need to upgrade. I just gotta be careful where I spend my money. I juggling a lot right now. In a few more days, this will all be over and should be the end of the worst part of the year for us.

 

[potato]

Brrr !!!
You might just be the first to ever see the battery temp gauge change color (at least due to the cold).

Hehe. I have seen mine in the orange a few times. I think orange starts around -16 or -18 C battery temperature. Never down to 17% power though. It definitely reduces the current limit (hence available power) aggressively when the pack is cold and/or low state of charge like the 45% shown.

I agree on the thermal cycling. I just let mine stay cold - I haven't set a departure time these last few weeks of cold weather and the battery temp is always below freezing. Maybe made it up to freezing once or twice if I've been using it all day and it's a warm ish day (in the single digits below freezing). But typically if it starts at say -7 C I will drive around for a couple of hours and it'll still be at -3 or -4 C.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Overnight temps were about 15° f, she called for a 12 minute warming session, rate 8.9 KW, consumed 2 kWh.

 

[TMND]

Surprised that’s it

 

[TaxmanHog]

Surprised that’s it

Yes, that's been about the extent of it, 10 to 15 minutes and she's done, we have a few more days of teens to get through, what I'm hoping to see is that by Sunday afternoon the incremental heating/will be approx the same cost as warming the pack prior to weekly charging session. Logic say's the daily losses will cost me more than a single heating session at the start of the charging cycle.

 

[TaxmanHog]

After doing todays travels, I parked the truck for the rest of the day, plugged in, the power output was limited to 92%, down from this morning 100%.

The Truck decided it was time for another 12 minute battery warming session, NOTE the cabin was not being warmed, only the battery, 2 kWh worth of energy, total energy includes 15 minutes of cabin warming this morning via remote cabin start at 07:46 to 08:01