Tesla Vehicles Are Among the Most Efficient EVs in Winter Months

Tesla's vehicles are well-equipped for winter temperatures.

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Teslas are among the most efficient electric vehicles in cold weather, according to a Recurrent study.

Cold weather often affects the range of electric vehicles due to two reasons. The colder weather alters the battery’s chemistry slightly; therefore, the range is decreased. The decreased range could mean some owners may have to modify their trips in the winter months when compared to warmer seasons.

Electric Vehicle Heaters

However, the biggest contributor to the decreased range for electric vehicles is due to heat production. Since electric vehicles are much more efficient than their internal combustion counterparts, they produce very little excess heat. Whereas heat is a byproduct of gasoline engines and can be funneled into the cabin to heat the passengers, electric vehicles need to produce additional heat to keep their passengers comfortable.

Resistive Heaters

This is typically done in two ways, either through electric resistance heating or through a heat pump. A resistive heater is like a space heater you may use at home. Electric current passes through wires causing them to heat up and the heat is then blown into the room.

Heat Pumps

Heat pumps are more complicated and work much differently than resistive heaters, however, they're also more efficient in most cases. They work by using outside air to warm up a refrigerant that is then pressurized to increase the temperature of the refrigerant. The refrigerant then flows to the inside of the cabin where the vehicle air passes through it, causing it to warm up and flow into the cabin. While heat pumps are much more efficient when compared to electric heaters, that efficiency is reduced the colder it is outside.

Which Teslas Have Heat Pumps

All newer Teslas use heat pumps instead of resistive heaters due to their increased efficiency. All redesigned Model S and Model X vehicles use heat pumps, as well as all Model Ys. However, some Model 3 vehicles between 2017-2020 use resistive heaters to warm the cabin, which makes them less efficient in colder months.

Find Out Your Type of Heater

If you don't know whether your Tesla has a heat pump or a resistive heater, you can find out by simply looking at your car's software. Your vehicle's heater type will be listed if you navigate to Controls > Software and then tap on Additional Vehicle Information.

Due to Tesla's unique heating system and its efficiencies, Recurrent found that Tesla vehicles hold some of the best range among electric cars. So, Tesla owners may not have to make as many modifications to their commutes. They're able to manage this because of their state-of-the-art battery technology, as well as using localized heating through heated seats, steering wheel, and cabin, as well as their advanced heat pumps.

Tesla's vehicles are well-equipped for winter temperatures.

RecurrentAuto

A new study published by Recurrent pulled data from 7,000 electric vehicles from the 14 most popular brands, including Audi, BMW, Hyundai, and Tesla. The data for each vehicle was gathered via the onboard telemetry and real-time usage. The vehicles were used in freezing (20-30 degrees F) temperatures and warm 70° F. As temperatures drop below 50° F, heat pumps start becoming less efficient.

Recurrent’s findings concluded that Tesla’s Long Range AWD Model Y and Model X 75D lost 15%, while the Long Range Model 3 with 75kWh battery lost 17%, and Model S P100D lost 19%. Compared to the Chevy Bolt, which lost 32%, and Ford’s Mustang Mach-E, which lost 30%, Tesla’s vehicles appear to be better equipped for cold weather. Unfortunately, Recurrent tested older Teslas that did not contain heat pumps, which means that Teslas numbers would have been even better if Recurrent used newer models. Even so, Tesla had some of the best performing vehicles.

Comparing Heat Pumps vs Resistive Heaters in Teslas

As Tesla continues to make improvements to its vehicles, their battery supplier, CATL, recently announced they’ve produced a battery that offers 430 miles of range.

Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

Not a Tesla App

Yesterday, we reported that Tesla updated their Steam integration on Model S and Model X vehicles. The update was part of their 2024 Holiday Update, but it looks like there may be more to this than a simple update.

Steam, a video game library app, makes it easy for users to buy or launch games on their computers. However, a couple of years ago, Valve, who created Steam, launched their own standalone device, the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck runs a custom OS based on Linux.

Steam Launch

When Tesla launched the redesigned Model S and Model X, Tesla introduced a dedicated gaming GPU with 16GB of RAM and touted the ability to play top-tier PC games in Tesla vehicles.

In 2022, Tesla finally launched the Steam app for the Model S and Model X as part of its 2022 Holiday Update. The Steam app runs Steam OS, the same OS as the Steam Deck in a virtual environment.

However, earlier this year, Tesla stopped including the GPU and Steam (Beta) in their vehicles, and we haven’t seen any updates to the Steam in quite some time. In fact, we thought Tesla was axing their gaming-on-the-go dreams.

SteamOS Update

The Steam app, which is still in Beta, is getting an interesting update for the Model S and Model X vehicles with the discrete GPU.

Those vehicles received an update to SteamOS 3.6 - the same version of SteamOS that runs on the Steam Deck. While nothing has visually changed, there’s a long list of performance optimizations under the hood to get things running smoother.

Comparing Steam Deck to Tesla Vehicles

Let’s take a look at the Steam Deck - according to Valve, its onboard Zen4 CPU and GPU combined push a total of 2 TFlops of data, which is fairly respectable, but much lower than today’s home consoles. The Steam Deck is capable of 720p gaming fairly seamlessly on low-to-medium settings on the go and is also built on the AMD platform.

AMD-equipped Teslas, including the Model 3 and Model Y, are packing an older Zen+ (Zen 1.5) APU (processor with a combined CPU and GPU). AMD claims that the V1000 - the same embedded chip as on AMD Tesla vehicles (YE1807C3T4MFB), brings up to 3.6 TFLops of processing power with it, including 4K encoding and decoding with the integrated GPU on board.

While that’s not enough for 4K gaming or comparable to a full-blown console or desktop GPU, that’s enough raw horsepower for light gaming and is currently more powerful than the Steam Deck.

The Model S and Model X’s GPU brings that up to about 10TFlops of power - comparable to modern consoles like the Xbox Series X at 12 TFlops.

Steam Gaming for All Vehicles?

The fact that Tesla is updating SteamOS even though the feature is no longer available in any new vehicles could indicate that Tesla is not only bringing Steam back to Teslas but that it’s going to play a much bigger role.

While SteamOS is run in a virtual environment on top of Tesla’s own OS, we could see Tesla bring SteamOS to all of its current vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. Steam in these vehicles would likely support any game that’s capable of running on the Steam Deck.

We think this Steam update, which includes performance improvements and a variety of fixes, has quietly passed under most people’s radars. This could be a very exciting update for those who enjoy gaming, especially for those who love to do it in their Tesla.

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Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

Robert Rosenfeld / YouTube

As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.

However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.

Not a Tesla App

Weather At Destination

When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.

Note the weather under the arrival time

Not a Tesla App

You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.

You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.

And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.

Tesla also recently introduced a new voice command. Asking, “What’s the weather?” or something similar will now bring up Tesla’s weather popup.

The weather pop-up above the ETA

Not a Tesla App

One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.

Weather Radar Overlay

As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a radar overlay centered on your vehicle. It’ll animate through the radar data over the last 3 hours so that you can see the direction of the storm, but you can also pause it at any point.

You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, even if you zoom out. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.

Requirements / Data

Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.

As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

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