Planning a long trip or heading out of town for an extended period? One common question from Tesla owners is, “Can my car sit for a month without damaging the battery?” The good news is yes, your Tesla can handle it—but a little preparation goes a long way in preserving battery health and system performance.
Leave It Plugged In—Even at 110v
The golden rule from Tesla: “A plugged-in Tesla is a happy Tesla.” If there’s any way to keep your car plugged in while you’re gone, do it—even to a basic 110v household outlet. While it won’t charge quickly, it will provide enough juice to counteract the slow but steady energy drain from background systems like the battery management system and cellular connectivity.
Set a daily charge limit (around 50-60% is fine for long-term storage), and let the car maintain itself. Tesla’s onboard systems will manage battery health and temperature without your input.
If You Can’t Plug In
No access to power? No problem—with some precautions. Your Tesla will lose anywhere from 1-3% of battery per day depending on settings. To stretch the battery as far as possible, make the following adjustments:
- Turn Off Sentry Mode
Sentry mode is the biggest source of phantom drain. In order to detect activity around your car when parked, the full computer system and cameras need to be active, watching and interpreting the video feeds to detect threats. The computer uses power whether it detects anything or not. Sentry can use up about 1-2 miles of your battery per hour, which really adds up if you are away. Turn it off. - Turn off Smart Summon Standby
Smart Summon Standby for ASS has a similar effect of keeping the system active and preventing it from going to sleep. Summon can still be used, it just takes longer to wake up. It’s likely not something you will use if you are away, so turn it off. - Disable Cabin Overheat Protection
Cabin Overheat Protection is there to prevent the internal temperature from getting too warm. It will turn on the fans and (optionally) even the air-conditioning to cool down the car. Obviously, the fans and A/C will use up battery, but even in a cool covered parking garage, there is also some circuitry that needs to remain active just to monitor the temperature. - Avoid Frequent App Checks
Also on the topic of waking up your car for no reason, the Tesla app on your phone can wake up the computer. The app no longer wakes up the car simply by opening it, but it will wake it up if you access any of the controls. Remember that this will bring all of the cars systems online for about 15 minutes every time you wake the computer. It’s still a good idea to just avoid the app. - Disable third party apps
Third party apps like Teslafi, TeslaMate, Tessie or other apps on your phone have some great features for data or to remotely check on your car. This is a great treasure-trove of information, but it comes at the cost of waking up the computer. Most of these are intelligent enough to pause their polling to allow the car to sleep, but if you have several of these running, they can conflict with each other and keep the car awake. Even if you turn off scheduled departure, apps like Optiwatt or Stats will override those settings and use their own schedule. To be safe, turn these off for your trip.
What to Expect
If your battery is around 80-90% when you leave and you’ve disabled energy-draining features, your Tesla should retain enough charge to avoid damage over a month or two. Tesla’s battery management system prevents deep discharges that could cause harm—but if the battery does drop too low, features like remote access may stop functioning until it’s recharged.
Final Word
Whether it’s a vacation, business trip, or just life happening, your Tesla can easily handle time off the road. The safest and simplest route is to keep it plugged in—even to a basic outlet. But if that’s not possible, just prep it with a few quick settings changes, and it’ll be waiting patiently when you return.
