New Jersey Driver Notices Tesla Model Y Charging Slowly. Should He Have Preconditioned?

Many people considering electric vehicles worry that charging will be a hassle. 

They imagine long drives spent hunting for a charger or waiting hours to refill a battery. But reality may surprise them. 

Is Charging An Electric Car Inconvenient?

In a trending video, Tesla Model Y owner Nate Nieri (@nate.nieri) cleared up a misconception some people have about the realities of driving an electric vehicle long distances.

Nieri explained that he was headed to the Jersey Shore when the urge to pee hit him, so he made a pit stop at a rest area that had something he wasn’t expecting.

“I was like, oh, look. There’s some chargers, so we plugged in,” Nieri said.

When they plugged in, the car’s battery was at 53%. “So I just went in, peed, came back out after getting a snack.”

When he checked the dash, he was at 68%, 13% more juice in what couldn’t have been more than 10 or so minutes. Despite the meaningful boost, Nieri said that charge was actually “pretty slow” because he hadn’t preconditioned the battery.

“What conditioning the battery does is it warms it up to the perfect temperature to receive electricity. So that did not happen because I didn’t intentionally travel to this charger,” Nieri noted.

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The quick top-up was enough to continue the trip, Nieri said, especially since he wasn’t even expecting to get a charge in.

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“This did not add any time to my travel. I’m gonna stop here anyway. I’m just plugging in. I’m doing my normal things,” Nieri said. 

Charging an EV is often assumed to be inconvenient or time-consuming compared to filling up at a gas station, but Nieri stressed that wasn’t the case.

“I’m gonna make my way over to the shore, get some of my appointments done, then plug in probably for another 10, 15 minutes, and then I should have enough juice to get me home,” he added.

To those who think an electric vehicle is inconvenient to charge, “It’s not,” he said. 

“You’re not constantly waiting hours to charge to 100%.”

What Is Preconditioning And How Does It Work?

Preconditioning warms or cools the car’s battery before a trip, using electricity from the wall while the car is plugged in. This means the battery starts at the right temperature for charging, which helps it accept power more efficiently, Motoring Electric reported.

A cold battery can reduce how fast it charges and cut driving range by up to 30%, especially in winter. 

Preconditioning prevents this loss, preserves the battery’s potential range, and can help maintain battery health over time. Some EVs even adjust battery temperature on the move or before planned charging stops to make charging faster and more efficient.

Commenters React

“I’ll just keep driving and never have to plan my day around where I’ll charge,” a top comment read.

“My prius prime is best case scenario. 45 miles of electric range 450 miles of gas range,” said another.

“now drive 525 miles without stopping again,...oh you can't? I can and it takes 6 minutes to fill back up and do it again,...oh, and I don't have to ‘condition’ anything to do that,” another wrote. 

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“Seriously? My Mach-e does not need to be pre-conditioned to charge. I charge 30 minutes from 10-80% in 30 minutes w/o any conditioning,” another commenter chimed in.

InsideEVs reached out to Nieri for comment via TikTok direct message and comment.

 

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