Intelligent Battery Heating

[Rolfe]

How are you seeing that it's on? I'm not sure that mine isn't doing that, but I don't know how I would tell. Do you have to go into the battery charging tab?

 

[Barbette]

How are you seeing that it's on? I'm not sure that mine isn't doing that, but I don't know how I would tell. Do you have to go into the battery charging tab?

By “on”, I mean that the slide switch at the bottom right of the battery charging screen is across to the right and green. I then slide it left at the start of each journey. (So, I suppose I mean that the “intelligent” bit is on, not that the heater is actually on)

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks, I need to investigate that. You people are an absolute mine of information.

All these things to remember to set at the beginning of every journey! I was at the cinema yesterday with a friend, and usually when we leave and get into our cars I'm offski while she's still fastening her seat belt. Not this time. I was still persuading the Lane Assist to go back to sleep when she drove off.

 

[Tigger]

I thought the point of it was to speed up charging, . . . How is that affected by the length of your journey?

I think the point about the length of the journey is that a cold battery is less efficient than a warm battery. So if the car is cold, you will use less electricity driving say 20 miles if you warm the battery up first than you would if you start driving with the battery cold. However, warming the battery takes a lot of power (out of the battery), so you have to drive a decent distance for the efficiency saving to be greater than the power 'wasted' by heating the battery. I am not entirely convinced by this argument, because as somebody says, just driving the car warms up the battery (so I don't bother to heat mine, but the weather here is never that cold)..

However, if you are charging the car before driving it (using cheap electricity), it can make sense to warm the battery just before you set off, because you are not draining the battery to heat it, you are using your power source.

Warming the battery before a rapid charge is a different issue, it does indeed speed up charging. Teslas do this automatically as you approach one of their superchargers.

 

[Rolfe]

Thank you for that explanation.

 

[Ian Key]

Thank you so much for that! By the way, for point 1, how low is low?

Keeping it simple. If the car warns you of icy roads then use it.

 

[Rolfe]

It was doing plenty of that on Monday. I wish this east wind would stop.

 

[Robf]

Used a rapid charger for the first time and battery heating came on automatically, the charge rate increased as the battery got warmer, maxing out at about 60, the battery heater turned off itself after about 25 mins when the charge rate jumped by a few kw. This is a ZS.
As mentioned before I believe the intelligent bit would be if you are using the sat nav to locate your next rapid charge and its cold, the battery heating would come on a few miles previously to warm the battery which increases the rate of charge. The battery heater does seem to use a lot of electricity though

 

[Rolfe]

Well, I don't have a satnav, and I don't think the car is psychically detecting when I decide to take it to the charger at the end of my road for a bit of fast food. What confused me was that when I brought it back from that snack-time and parked it in my drive at 92% charge, then I got a pop-up message saying that it's a bit cold out and did I want to turn on battery heating?

 

[siteguru]

By “on”, I mean that the slide switch at the bottom right of the battery charging screen is across to the right and green. I then slide it left at the start of each journey. (So, I suppose I mean that the “intelligent” bit is on, not that the heater is actually on)

Are you turning it Off after you've put the car in the READY state? (From memory it should give you an Are You Sure type of message to confirm turning it off, like you get when turning off LKA. If you're not getting that prompt then it's probably not actually turning off).

 

[CarlMG4]

I tested this, this morning with much success.

Most mornings, even when it's been 9-10C outside, the car takes around 10 miles to warm up, or around half an hour in READY whichever is sooner.

I switched off intelligent battery heating, and instead of watching m/kWh sit at 2.0 for ages, straight away (after 0.5m of course) it showed as 3.5m/kWh then increased to my usual 4.0 throughout the journey.

It's been back to around 4.0 every journey I've done today, same as usual, only without the crazy drop in battery % first thing on a morning due to battery heating.

I will switch it back on if temps drop below 4-5C.

 

[Rolfe]

I was also experimenting this afternoon. I found that the intelligent battery heating was indeed switched on, so I switched it off. When my music lesson was finished as usual I had to switch off the lane assist and the number plate recognition again, but the intelligent battery heating had remained off.

I didn't notice a huge difference, even though it was 8C outside rather than the 3C it was on Monday, the highest I saw was 3 miles/kW and that was after some time which included a fair distance downhill. On the way back, which was obviously uphill, I think I was stuck on about 2.4 miles/KW. The journey wasn't that short, probably about 15 miles each way.

I'm not quite sure what's going on really.

 

[Barbette]

I tested this, this morning with much success.

Most mornings, even when it's been 9-10C outside, the car takes around 10 miles to warm up, or around half an hour in READY whichever is sooner.

I switched off intelligent battery heating, and instead of watching m/kWh sit at 2.0 for ages, straight away (after 0.5m of course) it showed as 3.5m/kWh then increased to my usual 4.0 throughout the journey.

It's been back to around 4.0 every journey I've done today, same as usual, only without the crazy drop in battery % first thing on a morning due to battery heating.

I will switch it back on if temps drop below 4-5C.

Carl, can you report back as to whether your battery heating remains off or whether you need to turn it off again tomorrow. Thanks

 

[CarlMG4]

Carl, can you report back as to whether your battery heating remains off or whether you need to turn it off again tomorrow. Thanks

Will do

 

[Rolfe]

Mine stayed off when the car was parked for a couple of hours.

 

[CarlMG4]

Carl, can you report back as to whether your battery heating remains off or whether you need to turn it off again tomorrow. Thanks

Battery heating has remained off, car hasn't been on charge though since the start of the week, so unsure if that will throw it back to default-on when it's been on charge tonight. I doubt it, but will report back if it does.

If I don't, then it hasn't came back on

 

[Barbette]

Thanks Carl,
I did some testing, started the car, turned battery heating off. Then powered off the car using the infotainment screen. Restarted the car and battery heating was back on again. - I was seated with the seat belt fastened throughout.

 

[CarlMG4]

Thanks Carl,
I did some testing, started the car, turned battery heating off. Then powered off the car using the infotainment screen. Restarted the car and battery heating was back on again. - I was seated with the seat belt fastened throughout.

I just switched it off yesterday after I put the car in READY, and set off about my day. I checked it this morning after READY, and before I set off and it was still off. Could be another quirk, depending on infotainment version, or some other variable.

Our trophy is on infotainment v24 I believe, the dealer didn't update it to the latest one, even though we picked up the car only just over 3 weeks ago.

There have been reports with certain infotainment versions fixing some issues but causing others, like losing outside temp etc.

I think it is supposed to remember all of your settings, maybe with the exception of LKA-OFF, due to the NCAP rules classing it as a Default-on setting to keep the NCAP rating.

 

[IanMK]

Our trophy is on infotainment v24 I believe, the dealer didn't update it to the latest one, even though we picked up the car only just over 3 weeks ago.

Similar supply experience here. I took it back to get v33 installed last week. I wouldn't rush if I were you. The only change I noticed is that the infotainment system lost all my radio favourites.

 

[Lucky5]

I have a trophy with R30, turned battery heating off the day I picked it up and just checked after a month and still off on mine