100% charge or 90 or 95?

[hgmichna]

When you do not want to go to your car, you can achieve something similar from the app by starting the charging at such a time that it reaches the desired state of charge just when you want to leave. And you can switch on the climate half an hour before you leave.

The in-car settings are more convenient though. I wish I could set everything from the app.

 

[glide]

I know this makes sense... but when you are driving 120 miles one way she tends to push it to get their faster. I showed her the difference in time and explained the range shes losing for those 6 mins isn't worth it.

Ummmmm...leave earlier?

 

[Ostrichsak]

No one *Needs* a Tesla either. Could have bought a Diesel 2 seater with 800 mile range. The MSP car makes the trip just fine, the issue is trying to understand the relevance and implications of charging daily >90% when Elon clearly says this is not in the best interests of battery life.

You bought a screwdriver to drive nails. No reason to be upset when someone points out that the hammer would have been the much wiser choice for this use case. I mean, it's literally the only difference between the two options these days and you selected performance over range when what you need is range. You sacrificed LOTS of range to get faster acceleration which isn't a necessity. Especially when you consider that even the non-Performance option does 0-60 in the mid 3-second range. You now have to live with that decision every day and it sounds like it's going to come with a punitive negative experience just about every day which will likely sour your opinion of EVs even though it's not the car's fault.

 

[ucmndd]

The issue is not charging to 95 or 100%, the issue is leaving it there (or at a low state of charge).

Disagree. A daily deep discharge from >90% down to <20% is going to degrade the battery very quickly.

 

[ucmndd]

You bought a screwdriver to drive nails. No reason to be upset when someone points out that the hammer would have been the much wiser choice for this use case. I mean, it's literally the only difference between the two options these days and you selected performance over range when what you need is range. You sacrificed LOTS of range to get faster acceleration which isn't a necessity. Especially when you consider that even the non-Performance option does 0-60 in the mid 3-second range. You now have to live with that decision every day and it sounds like it's going to come with a punitive negative experience just about every day which will likely sour your opinion of EVs even though it's not the car's fault.

Fully agree. Wife is going to hate hate hate driving the EV in the winter when this trip becomes impossible without charging. Fighting for the public charger in the garage when it’s freezing out, hoofing it back and forth to move it when it’s done, stopping to supercharge every day on an already crazy long commute...

Wrong tool for the job. Simple as that. Charging to >90% will help for a while, until it degrades the battery to the point of negating the extra charge, which will likely happen in less than 2 years with that duty cycle.

 

[Rocky_H]

I just bought my wife a new 2020 Model S Performance

First mistake right there...
Husband picks out wife's car and goes for the performance sports car, when listening to wife's input possibly would have told him that what she needs is a long range commuter car instead.

But I agree that stopping at a Supercharger for 10 minutes is the way to handle your problem. Is that such a big deal?

Yeah, I kept looking for this suggestion. Why did it take until comment #15 to get to it? What is this route? Isn't there a Supercharger along the way for a quick stop one way or the other that would make this a non-issue?

 

[TechNeutral]

Other possible solution if your performance S has the 21” rims swap them out for 19” rims which should get you around 10% more range.

 

[SilverString]

And in the winter, the Tesla electric heater sucks up a lot of juice.

She could get more range by turning off the climate control and wearing a heavy coat, gloves...

Tesla recommends using the seat heaters and steering wheel heater to reduce use on the car heater. I works quite well, almost 100% of the time in Texas it is enough. But we never really get true cold in Texas...

 

[SilverString]

I have never found that charging to 100% is worth the time, unless you are charging at home and it does not matter. The car uses so much juice with fans and whatever after a 100% charge that before you know it you are at 95% in just a few miles. And the time to get from 95 to 100% is LONG and it makes no difference what kind of charger because the last few % will charge at below 12kW in my experience.

For me 95% is as high as I ever charge anymore.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Tesla recommends using the seat heaters and steering wheel heater to reduce use on the car heater. I works quite well, almost 100% of the time in Texas it is enough. But we never really get true cold in Texas...

I can tell you that that same advice in Colorado winters will make for a miserable ownership experience. I don't know where the OP lives but if he plans to ask his lovely wife to run "range mode" reduce speeds and use seat heaters plus stop every day for a quick (read: 15-20min) splash of juice to get home she's going to question the man that she married. Regularly. She'll have plenty of opportunity sitting around charging to do so as well.

 

[ucmndd]

Yeah, I kept looking for this suggestion. Why did it take until comment #15 to get to it? What is this route? Isn't there a Supercharger along the way for a quick stop one way or the other that would make this a non-issue?

Assuming Rockford to Chicago, there are a couple reasonable options, best probably being Rolling Meadows, a 22 stall v2/v3 station.

Could also be Rockford to Milwaukee, in which case there’s basically nothing.

 

[SilverString]

I can tell you that that same advice in Colorado winters will make for a miserable ownership experience. I don't know where the OP lives but if he plans to ask his lovely wife to run "range mode" reduce speeds and use seat heaters plus stop every day for a quick (read: 15-20min) splash of juice to get home she's going to question the man that she married. Regularly. She'll have plenty of opportunity sitting around charging to do so as well.

I don't doubt you one bit. Even with the mild amount of cold weather we have in Austin I am astonished at the effect it has on the battery. I question whether or not I would even own an EV in many cold climates.

 

[XLR82XS]

Disagree. A daily deep discharge from >90% down to <20% is going to degrade the battery very quickly.

Disagree. According to Tesla leaving the battery at 100% long-term is not healthy for it. 90-20 is not a problem.

 

[beatle]

First mistake right there...
Husband picks out wife's car and goes for the performance sports car, when listening to wife's input possibly would have told him that what she needs is a long range commuter car instead.

Yeah, I kept looking for this suggestion. Why did it take until comment #15 to get to it? What is this route? Isn't there a Supercharger along the way for a quick stop one way or the other that would make this a non-issue?

That's quite a leap you took there. How do you know what conversations occurred between the OP and his wife?

For the OP, scheduled departure is the option you should try. It'll allow the car to sit at a lower state of charge overnight, and then it will begin charging in time to leave at a specific time. It will also preheat / precool the cabin on wall power which will help preserve battery capcity. In addition, the heat produced during charging will reduce/eliminate the limited regen when the pack temperature is below 67F.

I found range anxiety to pretty much disappear after a few months of ownership, so I'm no longer terrified of dropping below 20%. On longer trips, it's best to know what your options are in case of unexpected high consumption (wind is a killer).

 

[wwu123]

One thing your wife would benefit from is using the "Energy" display on the MCU to show the "Projected Range" based on the average energy consumption in real-time and the anticipated elevation climb/decent as well as traffic conditions. It lets you know when perhaps you need to keep the speed down to lower your rate of fuel consumption.

A more practical suggestion that builds on the notion of the Energy display, but is much easier and may pass the WAF (wife acceptance factor), is to have your wife set the Navigation routing on her way home each afternoon. It's not about the routing itself of course, rather, the car will advise both at the start of the trip, as well as during the trip, with realtime calculations when one needs to slow down, and by how much, to get home reliably and with a margin of error. And if the margin gets too small, I believe it will re-route you to a charger as a waypoint.

Example, yesterday left the house on a 90-mile roundtrip excursion, with less than 50% battery on my S. On the way there, the navigation estimated returning to starting point (home) would end up with about 4% battery. As we started on the way home, it still projected 4% at home, and cautioned to keep speed below 65 mph to make it. During the 45-mile freeway drive, I stayed around 70 initially, and with a slight detour the projection dropped to 3%, the warning stayed on screen. But after a few minutes the flow of traffic dropped to 60 mph, the estimate increased to 5%, and later when going at 70 mph, the warning went away. So the car is constantly updating its projection based on realtime consumption, and the route remaining, and will tell you how much to drop speed. (BTW, there was never any range concern as I had multiple superchargers along my route..)

25 to 50 miles remaining is a lot though, so this may not initially alleviate any anxiety because your wife will never see these warnings until it projects less than 5%, which is going to be closer to <18 miles remaining. Once you get to experience these realtime warnings though, it becomes really clear how much the car is looking out for you and will keep you from being stranded - and thus give you confidence you don't need to worry so much if you don't see the warnings.... but to do so it does need to know where you're going...

 

[hpartsch]

Tesla recommends using the seat heaters and steering wheel heater to reduce use on the car heater. I works quite well, almost 100% of the time in Texas it is enough. But we never really get true cold in Texas...

Ya, doesn't work quite as well in colder climates when you want to see out the windows/not crash/die.

 

[ucmndd]

Disagree. According to Tesla leaving the battery at 100% long-term is not healthy for it. 90-20 is not a problem.

Do it every day for a couple years and let me know how that works out for you. "Not a problem" occasionally is one thing, but if you think regular deep discharges like that aren't going to accelerate degradation, particularly when you start going ABOVE 90 and BELOW 20 like OP is going to need to do basically every day, you're fooling yourself.

As for my first-hand knowledge on this subject, I commute 120 miles per day in an S75, that had a range when new of 249 miles. Usual duty cycle is 90% -> ~30%. Three years and 110,000 miles later, my 100% range is now 218 miles, for ~12% degradation.

OP is quite likely to be in that same situation in less than two years.

 

[Rocky_H]

That's quite a leap you took there. How do you know what conversations occurred between the OP and his wife?

Because people who both gave input to come to the decision together use phrasing like, "We bought a car." This said, "I bought my wife a car."

 

[outdoors]

Do it every day for a couple years and let me know how that works out for you. "Not a problem" occasionally is one thing, but if you think regular deep discharges like that aren't going to accelerate degradation, particularly when you start going ABOVE 90 and BELOW 20 like OP is going to need to do basically every day, you're fooling yourself.

As for my first-hand knowledge on this subject, I commute 120 miles per day in an S75, that had a range when new of 249 miles. Usual duty cycle is 90% -> ~30%. Three years and 110,000 miles later, my 100% range is now 218 miles, for ~12% degradation.

OP is quite likely to be in that same situation in less than two years.

I would have to agree, but maybe sooner.

I think charging percentage and full cycling are very different and often confused. The full cycle of the battery in this use case concerns me. I am a 90-45, and 90-30 in the winter with a 100D. Some days when it is snowing or really wet we go 95-25 as we will not have time or a place to charge. Driving more than 150 miles each and every day removes a ton of time of a day. 225 can be downright exhausting each and every day. I feel for the OP's wife.

Mean Temp in for Rockford for some of the tough months. I am thinking the car was just bought in the summer, and the winter has not set into the sales people's minds that told her to charge to 90 and it will be OK. The numbers don't look very compelling.
Dec: 27F
Jan: 22F
Feb: 25F

I just an concerned at month 7 for the OP. Right here I lost a big chunk even though at 108k I am at 5.9% degradation currently. That was at 36k. I know there is a reporting gap, but that was over a 4 month period no TeslaFI. The OP's wife will likely hit that at month 7 assuming 56k a year. Once that initial degradation happens some joy might be lost.

 

[beatle]

Because people who both gave input to come to the decision together use phrasing like, "We bought a car." This said, "I bought my wife a car."

Or the OP's wife does not work and the OP stroked the check to Tesla. Regardless, either scenario is irrelevant in solving/answering the OP's question/concern.

For the OP, note that the in-car navigation is generally pretty pessimistic in calculating the level of charge at the end of the trip. For example, on my last long trip my car warned me to stay below 70mph to reach my destination. At the end of the trip I arrived with 22% charge. Unless it's incredibly cold and/or you are climbing a mountain and/or you are driving with a significant headwind, you should do better than the navigation predicts you will.

As you and your wife drive, you'll acclimate to these things and you'll be able to account for them without getting range anxiety, especially if the trip is one you take frequently.