4 ms·

Genuine question, what temperature are cars expected to be stored at safely? I'm not talking about engine temperature, just literally the room temperate of the

Genuine question, what temperature are cars expected to be stored at safely? I'm not talking about engine temperature, just literally the room temperate of the garage. I'm not wanting to excuse or accuse anyone here, but are cars supposed to be manufactured such that they can sit in 150F garages for days at a time without any maintenance?

xwdv 5y ago
Your garage is not 150F, and certainly not for days at a time.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Indeed mine certainly is not, but apparently the parent commenter's routinely reaches 150F.
  - kfprt 5y ago
    I suppose teslas could come with warnings, "this vehicle is not intended for use in Arizona".
  - hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
    I assumed they were referring to the interior of the vehicle rather than the interior of a building.
- jmpman 5y ago
  It’s not parked in a garage. Outside, facing southwest, in the Phoenix summer. Tesla’s overheat protection only works for 12 hours at a time. If I were commuting, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened, but during Covid, the car was just sitting there for days without being driven. Tesla doesn’t offer a way to extend overheat protection past 12 hours, even when plugged in.
heavyset_go 5y ago
There are a lot of cars that get parked in the hot Arizona sun everyday, where temperatures outdoors can exceed 100 F and interior temperatures can exceed 150 F[1]. [1] https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/home-garden/james-cornett/2016/08/05/keep-cool-hot-summer-days/88007062/ https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/home-garden/james-corne...
ihattendorf 5y ago
> my car is parked outside ... the interior temperatures can easily rise over 150f I live in Arizona as well and this is why you'll see everyone in parking lots parking under trees in the summer, with empty spaces in between. Teslas have overheat protection (turns on the AC when interior temp > 105F) for a reason (one of them because it's cheaper to manufacture cars that don't need to withstand higher temperatures).
kymaz 5y ago
I would expect SOME vehicles to do so just fine. Really hot weather in the Continental USA can be pretty toasty, and if a garage was designed more like a crummy solar furnace, I would expect to see it hit those temperatures. My car has survived at least 150F interior temperatures parked outside during a sunny Pacific Northwest heatwave. I'm estimating that temp because I had some plastic in the car that was rated to lose stiffness at 150F and it got a bit floppy after the car was parked outside in sunny 105F+ weather weeks on end and the plastic was in shade. It can be hard on lead acid batteries and shorten their life, some lithium ion battery chemistries top out at 130F ambient operating temperature, and ABS plastic that dashboards can be made of is rated to about 176F. If its 150F ambient, the dash could be even hotter.
- jmpman 5y ago
  When the Tesla technician came out to replace the camera anti reflection shield, the plastic just crumbled in his hands. Btw, they never actually replaced the camera, just the anti reflection shield, and cleaned the windshield and the camera lens.
leoedin 5y ago
Because cars sit out in the sun in hot countries all day (unavoidably), the automotive supply chain have developed quite rigorous standards for pretty much everything in a car. Typically every electronic component must be rated from -40 to +105 C. I'd imagine there's similar requirements for all the interior parts of a car too. Cars have a lot of glass, so get very hot in direct sunlight and quickly reach ambient on cold nights. The reason cars take so long to "catch up" to consumer electronics (eg it's only in the last year or two that large LCD displays have started appearing in cars, or that LED headlights have become commonplace) is that the car design cycle is very long - typically about 7 years. Tesla decided to do things differently, which meant they could iterate much quicker. It also meant they used components not qualified for automotive use. Mostly they got away with it, but there have been some issues (for example their large displays started failing in hot countries).

xwdv 5y ago

Your garage is not 150F, and certainly not for days at a time.

tshaddox 5y ago
Indeed mine certainly is not, but apparently the parent commenter's routinely reaches 150F.
- kfprt 5y ago
  I suppose teslas could come with warnings, "this vehicle is not intended for use in Arizona".
- hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
  I assumed they were referring to the interior of the vehicle rather than the interior of a building.
jmpman 5y ago
It’s not parked in a garage. Outside, facing southwest, in the Phoenix summer. Tesla’s overheat protection only works for 12 hours at a time. If I were commuting, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened, but during Covid, the car was just sitting there for days without being driven. Tesla doesn’t offer a way to extend overheat protection past 12 hours, even when plugged in.

heavyset_go 5y ago

There are a lot of cars that get parked in the hot Arizona sun everyday, where temperatures outdoors can exceed 100 F and interior temperatures can exceed 150 F[1]. [1] https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/home-garden/james-cornett/2016/08/05/keep-cool-hot-summer-days/88007062/ https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/home-garden/james-corne...

ihattendorf 5y ago

> my car is parked outside ... the interior temperatures can easily rise over 150f I live in Arizona as well and this is why you'll see everyone in parking lots parking under trees in the summer, with empty spaces in between. Teslas have overheat protection (turns on the AC when interior temp > 105F) for a reason (one of them because it's cheaper to manufacture cars that don't need to withstand higher temperatures).

kymaz 5y ago

I would expect SOME vehicles to do so just fine. Really hot weather in the Continental USA can be pretty toasty, and if a garage was designed more like a crummy solar furnace, I would expect to see it hit those temperatures. My car has survived at least 150F interior temperatures parked outside during a sunny Pacific Northwest heatwave. I'm estimating that temp because I had some plastic in the car that was rated to lose stiffness at 150F and it got a bit floppy after the car was parked outside in sunny 105F+ weather weeks on end and the plastic was in shade. It can be hard on lead acid batteries and shorten their life, some lithium ion battery chemistries top out at 130F ambient operating temperature, and ABS plastic that dashboards can be made of is rated to about 176F. If its 150F ambient, the dash could be even hotter.

jmpman 5y ago
When the Tesla technician came out to replace the camera anti reflection shield, the plastic just crumbled in his hands. Btw, they never actually replaced the camera, just the anti reflection shield, and cleaned the windshield and the camera lens.

leoedin 5y ago

Because cars sit out in the sun in hot countries all day (unavoidably), the automotive supply chain have developed quite rigorous standards for pretty much everything in a car. Typically every electronic component must be rated from -40 to +105 C. I'd imagine there's similar requirements for all the interior parts of a car too. Cars have a lot of glass, so get very hot in direct sunlight and quickly reach ambient on cold nights. The reason cars take so long to "catch up" to consumer electronics (eg it's only in the last year or two that large LCD displays have started appearing in cars, or that LED headlights have become commonplace) is that the car design cycle is very long - typically about 7 years. Tesla decided to do things differently, which meant they could iterate much quicker. It also meant they used components not qualified for automotive use. Mostly they got away with it, but there have been some issues (for example their large displays started failing in hot countries).