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In the electric vehicle world, preconditioning is the act of heating or cooling your vehicle so it is a comfortable temperature for the people in the car, or so that the battery is at a temperature that can accept the highest charge rate.
Let’s start with the basics. Preconditioning can be done for both an EV’s cabin (where the driver and passengers sit) and its battery. It is most often used to mean warming the car's cabin in the winter, since a lot of winter range loss is due to using the heat.
Creature comforts
As an example, you park your car outside – and it’s freezing. Instead of starting your car and waiting 15 minutes for your car to defrost, you set your car to heat the cabin and run the defrosters. By the time you get in your car to leave, the windows are clear of ice and the cabin is nice and warm. This can be done on a schedule, via the car’s smartphone app, or manually (like a gas car!). The real benefit? Since you are warming the car using the energy from the wall, you save the battery for range.
Cooling can also be scheduled on many EVs. And, like with heating, cooling can also be done with the car plugged in so you don’t drain your battery while keeping the temperature.
Battery preconditioning
With few exceptions, modern EVs have a system that regulates the temperature of the EV battery to maximize both its range and longevity. Moreso, on most EVs, when you navigate to a DC Fast Charger (or Tesla Supercharger), the battery will begin to heat (or even cool) itself automatically before reaching the charger so that it is at the optimal temperature to charge as fast as possible.
