Model 3's air conditioning consumes more power at 22 degrees Celsius than at 18 degrees Celsius. The actual test will tell you how much difference there is!

After the weather became gradually hot, many Model 3 owners reported that setting the air conditioning temperature to 18-20 degrees actually saves more electricity than setting it to 22-24 degrees.

First, our test conclusion is that setting the air conditioning to 20 degrees saves 45% more electricity than setting it to 22 degrees.

Yesterday, someone explained the reason on the Xiaote app. The temperature of the air conditioning evaporator is between 1-15 degrees. To ensure that the temperature of the outlet is between 15 and the ambient temperature, there are only three methods:

  1. Simultaneous heating and cooling.
  2. Cooling + mixing with outside air.
  3. Use both 1 and 2 at the same time.

Today, we also did a simple test.

  • Air conditioning is set to 18 degrees, 7th gear wind power, battery output power is 2.1 kW (362.9V 5.8A).

  • Air conditioning is set to 20 degrees, 7th gear wind power, battery output power is 1.9 kW (362.7V 5.2A).

  • Air conditioning is set to 22 degrees, 7th gear wind power, battery output power is 3.4 kW (362.2V 9.5A). It should be noted that when the temperature is just set to 22 degrees, the battery output power first surged to 6.3 kW (361.9V 17.4A), and then fell back to 3.4 kW.

From a data perspective, it is more power-consuming to increase the temperature during the cooling state, which is indeed unexpected. Owners can also carefully feel it during the use of the vehicle.


This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.