A Warning for Cold Weather and Low Batteries

[Duke95]

Well, I finally did something dumb with my Macan after 14 months of a pretty flawless experience (sure, occasion sensor systems fail but then always seem to fix themselves, the car door seems to always think there is an oncoming car and it seems like the decision whether to brake with regen or the real brake has changed and now it uses the real brake way more...but overall really I love it). This one is user error I think, so as embarrassing as this is to say, well here you go, a warning to you all:

Drove to the airport to go to a funeral. Weather 4 degree Fahrenheit. Got there with 14 percent left. At the time, trip planner said I could get back home, 7 miles away, and then to work the next day, another 7 miles. When I got back from the trip the battery was like 14 degrees and the trip planner now was saying to charge immediately. I drove to the nearest charger, 3 miles away. I never got there. 3 blocks away it died, with 9 percent left. Hard restarts were able to get me into turtle mode and off the road and into a hotel parking spot. Had to get towed to the charging station (tried the Bee Charged service, what a total shit show...first said no prob be there in 45 and will charge you enough to drive yourself to the charger, then an hour later said their equipment was not working, they would tow in like 2 hours from there...we chose to uber home and deal the next day as it was very late...agreed to meet the next day at 6 am, they got there at 8...many other issues to tell there but lets just leave it at, what a terrible experience with them! Just terrible.).

So...there you go! I knew range would be down but obviously I did not anticipate hard freezing the battery would literally make a 14% charge last only 3 miles and for it run out of range with 9% to go!

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[pm4s]

Interesting about the car dying at 9% did not know that. I haven’t tried it but I always assumed that even at 0% it would give you something under 10 miles at crawling speed (as safety to make it to the hard shoulder or a turn off).
Obviously cold weather kills the battery, my phone, camera, laptop, etc. would die when the battery is very cold.
In the summer I never let charge drop under 20% unless that last % is me driving to my house where the charger is.
Will make it 40% for the winter now

 

[Duke95]

Yeah normally I try to stay above 20% but I can charge for free at work so I try to make it there when I can (to explain why I was originally trying to get to work).

 

[SergeyIndy]

This is certainly unique to Macan EV. There is no such a thing for Taycan. I can drive it predictably to close to 0% in cold weather for rebalancing procedure to take place. 9% and completely dead regardless of weather is an indication that something is not right for any EV and based on several youtubers who drove it to 0% the only thing they concluded that in Macan EV zero means zero where in the Taycan I know I have at least 3% buffer when I at 0% so called Display SoC.

 

[sor]

I’ve run my Macan down to 3% in about 30°F weather without any unpredictability. It went to a lower power mode but had no issue with range doing something unexpected.

I was at an EA station at 8% and I was not liking how busy it was with shared load chargers so I went to another 10 miles down the road to another station, arrived at 3%.

The main difference here was that my car battery was not both frozen and low SoC at the same time, the car had been operating while in the cold and the battery was warm. I wonder in OP’s case with 9% SoC if there would have been a way to heat the battery, burn maybe 2% warming it up and then being able to drive up to ten miles or so. Like pulling over and setting a charging destination to trigger precondition.

 

[Pingechoreply]

While (most of us) try to never leave a vehicle under 20%, there are always times when we have to dip lower, and leave the car sitting; extra traffic on the way to the airport, planned chargers unexpectedly out of order, etc. This scenario, very low SOC, very cold weather, and a long idle time, is probably what we all worry about the most. Most worrying is the false SOC reading- makes me really want to treat under 15% as something. to be dealt with now, not later. That is one undeniable downside to EVs at this point in time: more limited infrastructure combined with a more difficult to measure "fuel" reserve can make for unhappiness. Thanks to the OP for the heads up!

 

[pdealessandrini1930]

Thank you for sharing.

Your experience sounds horrific. Am sorry you had that experience.

Some thoughts from my Macan EV experience:
- PCNA Roadside can handle ICE driven cars seamlessly
- PCNA Roadside doesn’t have breadth of drivers and flatbeds that can handle a locked EV car due to 12V failure when backup OEM method to unlock car doesn’t work, resulting in being stranded and multiple drivers coming then leaving….
- Why did Porsche abandon the remote key fob that contains a metal key to unlock a door (driver or passenger) in case of an electrical failure in a 100% electric car‍🫨
- Two months into ownership it took 1.5 days and 36 PCNA calls (12 had flatbeds and came, others. who called back from dispatcher said they had no flatbed, only tow trucks which couldn’t two a AWD Macan 4 in locked position), to no avail.
- Thankfully, the car was in my Apartment Building dry garage and my Dealership sent their flatbed and tech to retrieve my car flawlessly.

- Battery charge in sub freezing temps was my concern too with others herein
- Expecting temps in 20s F and <10F with windchill, I charged my car to 95% (272miles) yesterday and parked in my home garage which isn’t heated but out of the wind and snow.. approx 35F in the garage and outside 8F Saturday noon. Battery is still 95% w/272mis
- I think that if I had left it out in the wind, sub freezing temps and now caked in snow, the battery would have lost a fair amount of charge. I know my apple iPhone would be dead for sure.
- Low % charge 10%-20% before I leave for a trip and leave car outside is something I was never prepared to do. Less so now after reading this thread

Saddened to learn of your experience and truly wish Porsche designed the safety features to allow our cars to be accessed in dire cases like dead batteries and ability to take fast charge from portable roadside emergency vehicles enough to nurse the car to a charging station Without flat beds or towing.

Wishing everyone safe, fun and trouble-free driving pleasure in your EV Porsches in line with how our ICE Porsches give us endless pleasure!

 

[Pingechoreply]

Good news for our (and everybody’s EVs- they don’t care about windchill factors. Wind will bring them from a higher temperature environment (like a garage) down to the ambient conditions more rapidly than no wind, but no colder. The other side of the equation is bringing a frozen vehicle into a warmer garage, put a fan in the garage to circulate the air- it will warm it faster, and allow for faster charging sooner than would otherwise be the case. Rarely a need, as driving warms the battery, and that’s how most cars get into the garage…

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