Protecting the battery from degrading in cold weather

[Jylkat]

According to the manual one should leave the car plugged in, when not driving it for longer periods of time with cold weather. How many follow this instruction and what do you perceive as "longer" periods of time?

 

[Lukeetal]

I would love to know. It seems to me a gasoline engine car battery seems stressed after not getting driven for 2 weeks or so. When it is real cold we just leave the car plugged in so we can pre-heat the car before we leave (using the departure temp thing). I think most people drive daily so I would say 7 days would be a pretty long period.

 

[Stretch2727]

If you watch some of Jeff Dahn video you will understand cold storage is actually good for the battery but cold operation is tough on the battery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qi03QawZEk

The main reason they have you plug in so it is warm for operation. If you are not using you should not have to plug in as long as the battery does not have a low (<20%) state of charge. You should try to charge or warm up the car just before you use the car to warm the battery.

I turn the car on 5-10 mins before I leave and the battery seems fully warmed as I get full regen. The overall efficiency is better as the battery is not warming as I am driving. What I lost in the initial warm up is made up during the drive cycle as the battery is fully conditioned.

 

[JeffRay]

Well to protect my favorite MBe, I put it inside a paid garage. Whilst the storm continues to dump snow, it is happily juicing up. Tomorrow, I will retrieve it and park on the street somewhere hoping my Michelin snow tires are effective in packed snow. Will report on snow tire performance in a few days. I switched from the OEM tires a month ago to try to improve traction. First test coming up.