Tesla battery preconditioning adapts to the season to knock 10 minutes off a Supercharger session

The so-called battery preconditioning feature of Teslas and other electric cars is a convenient way to squeeze every last bit of charging performance for spending the least amount of time at a Supercharger before continuing on one's merry way.

It uses the energy stored in the high-voltage battery to warm it up to a temperature that is the most convenient for ion transfer and optimal charging speed upon arrival in the Supercharger station. According to Tesla's engineers, the Tesla Trip Planner that can set the warmup process in motion also "adapts to fluctuating temperatures," meaning that it takes into account the weather, depending on the season.

The ambient temperature determines the automatic preconditioning of the high-voltage battery, and Tesla claims that when it accounts for the seasonal fluctuations, it can knock ten minutes off a Supercharger session. This is important since Tesla vehicles charge comparatively slow, as most of them still run on the older 400V powertrain architecture and can only take 250 kW charging speeds. For comparison, the newest EV platform of Tesla's main competitor BYD now supports 1 MW speeds for 5-minute charging sessions.

Granted, the Cybertruck runs on a fairly modern 800V architecture, but its 4680 battery cells aren't the most thermally efficient out there, so its charging curve still leaves a lot to be desired. Even at Tesla's fastest 500 kW V4 Superchargers, however, it still takes about 35 minutes for the Cybertruck to hit 80% charge, and that is if it arrives at the station with a low state of charge and a warm battery, so every little bit of preconditioning optimization helps.

Tesla has now released a cool time-lapse of how the ambient temperature changes at its Supercharger station network around the globe to hammer the preconditioning adaption point home.

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