Tesla Model S Has Bizarre 'Vampire-Like' Thirst For Electricity At Night

cartechboy writes "The Tesla Model S, for all its technical and design wizardry, has a dirty little secret: Its a vampire. The car has an odd and substantial appetite for kilowatt-hours even when turned off and parked. This phenomenon has been dubbed the 'vampire' draw, and Tesla promised long ago to fix this issue with a software update. Well, a few software updates have come and gone since then, and the Model S is still a vampire sucking down energy when it's shut down. While this is a concern for many Model S owners and would be owners, the larger question becomes: After nine months, and multiple software updates,why can't Tesla fix this known issue? Tesla has recognized the issue and said a fix would come, yet the latest fix is only a tiny improvement — and the problem remains unsolved. Is Tesla stumped? Can the issue be fixed?"

Comments

The only fix for vampire draw

[Anonymous Coward]

Install a manual switch between the Tesla and the mains.

Re:The only fix for vampire draw

[AlphaWolf_HK]

It is slightly different in that Tesla cars are a lot more energy efficient than gas driven cars.

That is, it isn't a simple matter of transferring the energy from the power company to the car instead of getting it from the pump, rather the car itself uses less energy period. This is mostly a result of combustion engines wasting most of their energy towards producing heat rather than actually putting the car in motion (Hybrids are also guilty here - their main saving grace is that energy production is at more of a constant rate as well as frequent re-use of kinetic energy, so less energy is wasted as heat than a regular car, but energy is still wasted almost as much.)

Re:The only fix for vampire draw

[geogob]

This is ridiculous. How would this be in anyway have a basis for a lawsuit? Unless it is explicitly denied and hidden by the maker, which it isn't, why would you even consider that?

How about your TV. It also uses power while off... should we sue there? Your phone? Your laptop? How about your (traditional) car? It also slowly drains its battery while its parked in the garage... and I bet the car makers don't even recognize it officially. Should we sue?

Re: The only fix for vampire draw

[Calinous]

My Sony compact audio system uses about 30W while off. My cable box uses about 20, with 10% more if it's on.

Re:The only fix for vampire draw

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to experience it first-hand to get it -- when you're outside the US it has no meaning. Then when you're in the US, at first, it's just like a bag of cement mix that has no warnings except in the "state of California" section, and it's a bit weird. When you finally visit the state and walk into a giant building (that is just like a train station or something) and the doors have a "this building contains materials that are known by the state of California to potentially cause cancer", it's just ridiculous.

Their "Welcome to California" signs on the highways and airports should have a "(there are materials in the state known by the state of California to cause cancer)" thing in the fine print.

Re:The only fix for vampire draw

[TWX]

And this is why an electric car should skimp on all of those gizmo-bells-and-whistles that really don't do much for the purpose. Take a Tesla, keep the batteries and charging, but give me a mechanically-driven speedometer and odometer, a nineties-era car stereo (with EEPROM for remembering the stations and a tiny CR2032 for keeping the clock running) and manually-controlled air conditioning and heat.

I don't need the touchscreen, the nav system, the multi-zone climate control, the internet connection, any of that stuff. I need the car to be comfortable, to work when I get in to drive, and to function properly.

And for those who'll argue, "but it's a luxury car! It has to have the electronics," I counter bullshit. My expensive bed doesn't have electronics, neither does my whirlpool bathtub, or my wetbar, or any of a huge number of other luxuries that I have afforded myself over the years. It needs to be simple, elegant, and to always work. It can be wrapped in expensive leather and finished with exotic wood and given the best comforting suspension and sound-insulated to almost silly levels without a single bit of electronics.

If the electronics compromise the basic function of the car then some serious reconsideration needs to be made for their inclusion.

Re:The only fix for vampire draw

[SJHillman]

Your expensive assorted bullshit is different in that *people don't expect electronic extras and can't get it from competitors". However, they do have other extras that you might not even realize are extras... they're just not electronic. All you're doing is the elitist consumer version of tacking on extra criminal charges for people that use computers to commit crimes just because it's "electronic".

In the case of the Tesla, people are buying it, in part, for those extras. Sure, they might be able to market a bare bones model of the Tesla but it won't sell well because the price and reliability won't be lowered by enough to make it worthwhile to take the bare bones model over the luxury model.

Re:The only fix for vampire draw

[Anonymous Coward]

Or in terms slashdot can understand: it's like when your online girlfriend tells you she's a hot chick but when you meet for sex, it's actually a dude.

kWh/day is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why use kWh/day when we can use W? Do these guys really not understand units, or is there some silly love for kWh/day?

This just makes me cringe:
"[...] 4.5 kilowatt-hours per day. That's the equivalent of three 60-watt light bulbs burning 24/7."

Couldn't he just say "190 watts"? (Or 180 W if he wanted to round incorrectly to match the light bulbs example).

Re:kWh/day is stupid.

[stanjo74]

Yes, it's clumsy, but Watts doesn't tell you readily how much you are paying for it. Consumers are billed for kWh, so to express the cost of the drain, they used kWh/day; example: 4.5 kWh/day * $0.20 per kWh = ~ $1/day

Re:kWh/day is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the whole article, it's clear the guy doesn't have a clear understanding of how anything works.

Right off the bat when he compares the Tesla's range estimate at the end of the day (when the batteries are warm) with the one the next morning (when the batteries are cold) I was already shaking my head. Fortunately the article later includes the explanation from the Tesla rep, but therein begins the pattern: long-winded article going on about this guy's half-assed attempts at figuring this out, punctuated by sensible explanations from the Tesla rep. The whole article could have been summarized thusly:

The owner's manual told me I should be losing about 1 percent charge per day. When I noticed this didn't seem to be the case, I called Tesla and discovered that the sleep mode used for the car's electronics were causing issues at startup, so the latest software temporarily disables sleep mode resulting in larger power draw when the car is off (this sucks, and they should fix it faster!). The Tesla rep told me I should lose around 10 miles of range per night, but using a meter on my charger I discovered I lose more like 16 miles of range per night. Hurry up and fix this, Tesla."

And why does he seem to lose more juice than the Tesla rep's estimate? (1) Tesla's estimate is likely an average and isn't specific to the cold overnight conditions this guy has (the system's drain on a cold battery will be harsher), and (2) he's measuring how much THE CHARGER is using in the morning, and he says himself that the charging system needs to warm up the batteries before charging, so he's measuring lost power PLUS the power needed to warm the system.

Re:Vampire? Huh?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd look for heat.

That amount of energy drain will be making something warm.

Re:Vampire? Huh?!

[timeOday]

I find this wrinkle hilarious, out of sympathy. I have never, EVER, in the course of using probably 10 laptops over the last 10 years, had one on which suspend/resume actually worked right. Many that worked a few times, or even a couple weeks, or that worked unless I used a docking station, or 3d acceleration, or WiFi. And yes, that includes my i7 MacBook Pro running OSX; plug and unplug the external display and network enough times, and sooner or later it will forget to wake up when you open the lid.

Re:Vampire? Huh?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or use an infrared camera on a cold night.

Re:Vampire? Huh?!

[jonr]

Now I have to say Pics or STFU.