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Effects of Winter on Tesla Battery Range and Regen
Winter conditions has begun to set in here in New England with temperatures not exceeding the 20’s. Thankfully I’ve already prepared my winter wheels and tires in advance so I’m not overly worried about the potential for snow, however I’m quickly learning the effects of winter on the battery and overall energy efficiency.
Cabin Temperature
Preheating the cabin temperature through the mobile Tesla Motors app.
The first order of business is making sure I’m comfortable when I get into the car each day. This means preheating the Model S cabin temperature through the Tesla App (if I happen to remember to) or, better yet, have it scheduled to automatically preheat via the VisibleTesla app.
My daily schedule looks something like this: VisibleTesla preheats the car 30 minutes before I enter and while it’s still plugged in from my overnight charge. This ensures I enter a warm car every morning with no affect on my range – the best of both worlds!
Leaving for work at the end of the day, however, is a bit more erratic so I usually use the Tesla App to preheat on an ad-hoc basis. I realize that this preheating will eat into my overall battery range, but I’m not overly concerned because I have plenty of range to spare even with a 100 mile commute each day. It’s well worth it for a little more comfort.
I enjoy turning on the air conditioner during the summer months but getting into a warm car in the dead of winter is even better!
Limited Regenerative Braking
Prior to the winter, the only times I have experienced limited regenerative braking (regen) was directly after performing range charges in anticipations of my Tesla road trip adventures. The Tesla battery does not have the capacity to receive additional energy (when at a 100% state of charge) thus it disables regenerative braking all together.
Winter months, however, bring a completely different experience with regen. When the Model S is cold it limits the ability to regen since the batteries need to be at an optimal temperature before it receives any additional charge.
A dashed yellow line appears on the center display indicating that regenerative braking is limited. If you’ve been accustomed to driving with regen on, this new behaviour (with regen disabled) will feel and drive very differently.
I found myself quickly rolling towards the cars in front of me as I instinctively ignored the brakes and assumed that the car would just come to a gradual stop by letting go of the accelerator pedal. That obviously didn’t happen with regen limited. You’ll need to use your brakes so be careful not to “over press” it as you quickly adjust to driving with brakes again.
This winter-induced form of limited regeneration lasts for a very long. I wasn’t sure if the lack of regen was isolated to the weather conditions for that particular day so I decided to log my results over a larger sample of several days.
Here’s what I noticed about the effects of winter on Tesla’s regenerative braking:
- There appears to be a linear easing off of the “regen cap” through the first 30 minutes. At 0 miles, when the car is just started, the amount of regen is capped at 20 kW.
- 25 minutes into my drive, the regen cap is loosened to 40 kW.
Graph depicting the amount of energy that can be regained through regen over time.
As you can see from some of my data points, it took me over 45 minutes of driving (30 miles covered) before the regenerative braking behavior was back to normal — that’s almost my entire drive home!
I’ve been experimenting with various approaches to avoid the regen capping. One of which is timing my overnight charge so that it completes right at the time I’m about to leave for work. This ensures that the batteries are at a good temperature, by the time I begin driving, and with no regen cap in place. Timing it perfectly can be tricky.There’s been a few occasions where my charge completed earlier than expected and as a result the batteries cooled off before I got to drive.Here again VisibleTesla can help, but it’s an area that I wish Tesla would address directly —
add a feature to allow users to specify the END time for a charge as opposed to the start time. The Model S should calculate when charging begins based on the set end time.
I’ve been experimenting with ways to reduce the after-work limited regenerative braking occurrences but since there’s no charging infrastructure at my work, I can’t pre-warm the batteries. I’ve even tried warming up the cabin temperature in advance to see if this would have an impact on regenerative braking but unfortunately it doesn’t.
Higher Energy Use
Cold weather definitely affects energy use on the Model S. My tires, while great for winter, are less efficient — they’re not the low rolling resistance tires that came with the Model S. I’m also using extra energy for warming the cabin (despite my chilly 66 F year-round cabin temperature setting). The Model S is also using extra power when managing the battery temperature.
Prior to winter my average energy consumption was around 300-315 kWh/mi but now I’m averaging 350-365 kWh/mi or approximately 16% more energy used than summer months. I’m also using my brakes more during the winter, as a result of the limited regenerative braking, so that will also introduce more wear and tear.
One piece of advice from Tesla is to use seat heaters to warm yourself up over cabin heat. The seat heaters apply heat directly to your body and thus a more efficient use of energy. If you have your cabin temperature set at 72 F , try reducing it to 68 F and use your seat heaters to warm yourself up.
I’m sure I’ll be uncovering a lot more tips and interesting findings over the next few months especially as the snow storms start blowing in and temperatures dip into single digits! Stay tuned!
Tesla has initiated Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time, as the all-electric pickup has officially made its way to the United Arab Emirates, marking the newest territory to receive the polarizing truck.
Tesla launched orders for the Cybertruck in the Middle East back in September 2025, just months after the company confirmed that it planned to launch the pickup in the region, which happened in April.
I took a Tesla Cybertruck weekend Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned
By early October, Tesla launched the Cybertruck configurator in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with pricing starting at around AED 404,900, or about $110,000 for the Dual Motor configuration.
This decision positioned the Gulf states as key early international markets, and Tesla was hoping to get the Cybertruck outside of North America for the first time, as it has still been tough to launch in other popular EV markets, like Europe and Asia.
By late 2025, Tesla had pushed delivery timelines slightly and aimed for an early 2026 delivery launch in the Middle East. The first official customer deliveries started this month, and a notable handover event occurred in Dubai’s Al Marmoom desert area, featuring a light and fire show.
Around 63 Cybertrucks made their way to customers during the event:
First @cybertruck deliveries in the UAE 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/sN2rAxppUA
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) January 22, 2026
As of this month, the Cybertruck still remains available for configuration on Tesla’s websites for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan and Israel. Deliveries are rolling out progressively, with the UAE leading as the first to see hands-on customer events.
In other markets, most notably Europe, there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles that Tesla is hoping to work through, but they may never be resolved. The issues come from the unique design features that conflict with the European Union’s (EU) stringent safety standards.
These standards include pedestrian protection regulations, which require vehicles to minimize injury risks in collisions. However, the Cybertruck features sharp edges and an ultra-hard stainless steel exoskeleton, and its rigid structure is seen as non-compliant with the EU’s list of preferred designs.
The vehicle’s gross weight is also above the 3.5-tonne threshold for standard vehicles, which has prompted Tesla to consider a more compact design. However, the company’s focus on autonomy and Robotaxi has likely pushed that out of the realm of possibility.
For now, Tesla will work with the governments that want it to succeed in their region, and the Middle East has been a great partner to the company with the launch of the Cybertruck.
Tesla has officially launched public Robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, without a Safety Monitor in the vehicle, marking the first time the company has removed anyone from the vehicle other than the rider.
The Safety Monitor has been present in Tesla Robotaxis in Austin since its launch last June, maintaining safety for passengers and other vehicles, and was placed in the passenger’s seat.
Tesla planned to remove the Safety Monitor at the end of 2025, but it was not quite ready to do so. Now, in January, riders are officially reporting that they are able to hail a ride from a Model Y Robotaxi without anyone in the vehicle:
I am in a robotaxi without safety monitor pic.twitter.com/fzHu385oIb
— TSLA99T (@Tsla99T) January 22, 2026
Tesla started testing this internally late last year and had several employees show that they were riding in the vehicle without anyone else there to intervene in case of an emergency.
Tesla has now expanded that program to the public. It is not active in the entire fleet, but there are a “few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors,” Ashok Elluswamy said:
Robotaxi rides without any safety monitors are now publicly available in Austin.
Starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time. https://t.co/ShMpZjefwB
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) January 22, 2026
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi program also operates in the California Bay Area, where the fleet is much larger, but Safety Monitors are placed in the driver’s seat and utilize Full Self-Driving, so it is essentially the same as an Uber driver using a Tesla with FSD.
In Austin, the removal of Safety Monitors marks a substantial achievement for Tesla moving forward. Now that it has enough confidence to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis altogether, there are nearly unlimited options for the company in terms of expansion.
While it is hoping to launch the ride-hailing service in more cities across the U.S. this year, this is a much larger development than expansion, at least for now, as it is the first time it is performing driverless rides in Robotaxi anywhere in the world for the public to enjoy.
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
Tesla begins Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
