vvanders
Platinum Member
Unless you're trying to break 0-60 records you don't need a ton of juice to cruise/accel. Our 85D tops out at 375kW instantaneous power at full throttle but doing 70mph on the highway is around 25-30kW.
It also spends energy to keep the pack warmer since like you said, colder batteries have less energy/power. 99.9% of the time I'm plugged in at home so the battery is already at a reasonable operating temperature. If it gets down to ~45f I can see some regen disabled(40kw of 60kw) until the pack warms up(~5 minutes).
As for cold weather operating ranges, I generally see a ~10% hit in range, mostly tied to wind resistance > 55mph. The internal heaters do take some energy but once it's warmed up doesn't seem to take much more. AC has even less impact on range, been quite a few people who camped in their Tesla and were able to run the AC for a few days. The difference between 65, 70 and 75 is pretty pronounced once it gets below 55f, although anyone who tows and tracks mileage already probably knows that.
