Does 12V charge when remote climate control turned on?

[BiosDude]

Howdy folks. I'm planning a trip over Thanksgiving and will be leaving my MY2013 Leaf for 11 days. I know I can disconnect the 12V battery to prevent returning to a drained battery. Here's the question:

If I turn on climate control via Carwings, does that also charge the battery while the climate control is on?

My thought was to just turn on the climate control every 3 days for the 15 minutes and let it charge the 12V.

 

[essaunders]

Make sure it is off and don't leave the j1772 plug connected. Don't overthink this. I know an 11 or 12 will charge the 12v automatically everything five days or so. Someone will chime in with corn formation on the 13

 

[Nubo]

As long as your 12V is reasonably healthy, you should be fine at 11 days, as long as you leave the car unplugged. Ideally for the health of the EV battery, leave it at about half-full while you're gone.

 

[voganni]

Any time the main contactors are closed (ready mode, climate control, or charging) the dc-dc converter is on and the accessory battery is being charged. I confirmed that this morning while my 2013 was running in climate control. Battery was at 13.1 volts.

Sure, the car is supposed to charge its 12v battery every 5 days. But if it goes into "rampant battery drain" mode, like mine has 3 times now (in less than 3 months) the battery will be stone dead in 2 days and then nothing will work. I keep mine on a battery tender. I installed a plug for it inside the charge door. I left it for over a week once, and when I returned the battery tender light was green, and the battery was brim full. Even if it does wig out and start its drain thing, the battery tender will keep the damage to only about .25 amp, which would take over a month to run the battery dead.

I'm still monitoring the drain issue. Seems to recur about once a month, always after a charge session. Then I have to disconnect the battery to reset things, and it's OK for another month or so. Maybe someday I'll be able to get it to the dealer while it's in drain mode.........

 

[BiosDude]

@voganni - Thanks! I'll just plan on turning the climate control on every couple of days via CarWings while I'm gone.

 

[planet4ever]

As essaunders and Nubo said, just leave the car unplugged (and turned off) and you should be fine unless there is something wrong with some electrical circuit. If that is the case you need to find out about it anyway and get it fixed.

Your climate control solution sounds wasteful and strikes me as something you shouldn't have to worry about while on vacation. By the way, it wouldn't even work if you were going to be away for more than two weeks, as Carwings shuts down after 14 days.

Ray

 

[voganni]

Battery Tender. Found the junior model on Amazon for $23. Should be standard equipment on the Leaf!

 

[BiosDude]

Trip is done. I didn't do anything special other than make sure it was off and locked. Came back, unlocked it, got in, and started it right up like normal!