Electric car cabin preconditioning refers to the heating or cooling of an EV's interior, whilst being connected to a charging point. Preconditioning before a drive in cold or hot weather will ensure that your EV's stored battery energy will not be used as the energy will be pulled from the charger and the grid. This leaves your battery charge levels intact leaving more range is available for the journey.
Preconditioning can be set in your EV’s air-conditioning system; it is also very common for this to be set remotely using your EV's smartphone app.
Compared to a combustion engine, EVs do not have waste heat to cycle into the cabin. For this reason, air conditioning systems can draw a significant amount of electrical energy whilst bringing the cabin into a comfortable temperature range.
Battery Preconditioning is different to cabin warming or cooling and takes a little longer to perform. It can work in two ways. Firstly, it prepares the battery to accept rapid recharging efficiently. Secondly, it helps to increase your EV range in cold temperatures as the battery will be warmed up to its best operating temperature range.
In winter, it is common for EVs to lose range as the outside temperature gets colder. Preconditioning the battery warms the battery so that your EV retains as much range as possible, which is essential for longer trips. Battery preconditioning also optimises charging on the road, for example, at a rapid charging site.
You can set the preconditioning to begin every day at a set time, so your car is ready when you leave in the morning. Each EV has a battery management system which works all of this out for you and all it needs is for you to schedule a departure time.
To precondition an electric car battery from overnight parking in the cold, you need to be plugged in and it can take 2-3 hours to perform. In some electric vehicles, battery preconditioning also occurs when the car knows that you have a scheduled charging stop. An example of this can be seen in a Tesla, which will begin to get the battery into an optimal temperature range when it knows that you have a planned charge coming up (20 minutes or so in advance). You define this in the Tesla navigation to a Supercharger stop. Preconditioning in this way is automatic and means that you will be able to charge much faster when you plug in.
Battery preconditioning is only really something that you need to consider when preparing your EV for a long journey, as it will help eke-out an extra few per cent more range.  For more information, see our EV winter driving tips here: https://electrictogether.com/get-help/what-are-the-best-tips-for-winter-driving-an-ev