Battery temp after sitting

I am a little baffled my my battery temp. My car arrived today on the back of a truck from out of state. It has been on a truck for 4 days. It arrives and comes off the truck showing a battery temp of 6 bars. Which seems kinda high since it hasn't been used or charged since it left the dealer.

Sadly the dealer apparently doesn't know much about EV's and had charged it up probably to 100% and it was sitting at 94% battery when they unloaded it here at my house today. So I was surprised to see the battery temp at 6 bars. I drove the car around a little today and have the battery charge down to 76% and decided not to charge it and let the overnight temps possibly cool it down.

Is this normal for this time of year? I am thinking maybe inside the car temps may have been very hot so that may have transferred some additional heat into the battery since the car was exposed to the sun the entire trip. Thoughts?

The temp gauge has crappy huge overlapping ranges. http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery#Battery_Temperature_Gauge is supposedly the guide.

Frankly, I wouldn't really bother with it much. Instead, look at temps via Leaf Spy.

Ambient temps alone can produce 6 bars on the gauge. I see that when the air temp has been in the mid 80s Fahrenheit for more than 6 hours.

Interior temperature has little impact on battery temperature. I don't know your location and where your car came from, but here in Phoenix I am really lucky if my battery cools off to 7 bars over night this time of year. Ambient temperature was 99 F and battery temperature was only 8 bars when I arrived home a few minutes ago. The highest I have seen so far this year has been 11 bars after a quick charge (maximum motor power was limited to 60 kW until the battery cooled off). By the way, you can add your location to your profile so others know your climate when reading/replying to your posts.

I am in Colorado, the car was shipped in from Washington state. I just ran out this morning to check the battery temps and the temp bars are now down to 5 bars. So that is better. I will take further steps to get this car some shade, and to block out some of the suns heat when it is parked. Maybe that will help. The ambient temp here yesterday was like 89 degrees, today it is supposed to be in the 90's.

So 5 bars seems reasonable with the ambient temps in the upper 80's and not being driven. I gotta get this car some shade to park it in....

I don't know how these cars survive in places like AZ. Just crazy!

Don't freak out about the temperature, just try to do what you can, when you can. There's a lot of evidence on this forum that babying your battery doesn't significantly reduce degradation.

So 5 bars seems reasonable with the ambient temps in the upper 80's and not being driven. I gotta get this car some shade to park it in....

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The pack temperature is essentially an average for the last 24 hours, because of the large mass of the pack. You must have had a cool night to bring the temp down to 5 bars, because the ambient daytime temp would otherwise have it at 6.

MalcolmReynolds said:

I am in Colorado, the car was shipped in from Washington state. I just ran out this morning to check the battery temps and the temp bars are now down to 5 bars. So that is better. I will take further steps to get this car some shade, and to block out some of the suns heat when it is parked. Maybe that will help. The ambient temp here yesterday was like 89 degrees, today it is supposed to be in the 90's.

So 5 bars seems reasonable with the ambient temps in the upper 80's and not being driven. I gotta get this car some shade to park it in....

I don't know how these cars survive in places like AZ. Just crazy!

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Well, it's been close to 100-105F here in Kennewick/Pasco/Richland, Eastern WA. Since the truck had to drive right through here (if coming from Seattle), and continue on through OR, ID & UT, I'm guessing the temps are similar all the way to CO (I've done the drive many times and the climate is essentially the same except the mountains). I see 6 bars during the day and 5 at night if I don't charge (6 if I do charge).

That might explain it, the car came out of Kennewick WA. So the car has been baking in the oven! LOL

It is pretty hot here today, I will run out and see what the temp of the battery is now that it is sadly sitting in the sun here.

Working on changing the parking situation, but it will be a few weeks before I can fix the parking situation and get the car out of the sun. Going to get some window tinting done to block out some of the heat and some window shades in the mean time.

Update: So I checked the car battery temp after sitting in the scorching sun all day and the battery bars are back up to 6. It was in the mid 90's here today. So it appears the pieces to the puzzle regarding the car arriving with 6 temp bars is adding up. I will work to get the car some relief from this beating sun. Thanks for the feedback from everyone on this.