2016 P100D

[Azrockitman]

I bought this car through Tesla just about 5 weeks ago. (I really love it!)
Everyone is probably sick of battery/range questions, but I've been noticing how dramatically different my actual miles are compared to range estimate indicated on the display.


As a test, I put the car on "chill" at the beginning of my last charge and I drove the car super easy until today. I charged to 80% which indicates the max range would be 301 (instead of 315 when new)
I started with an indicated range of 241 miles and at the end of the "test" the range had depleted to 59 miles.
Over the 3 days of the test, The range dropped 180 miles but I actually drove only 117 miles.

I live in Phoenix and the temp has been 50 to 60 degrees lately. The terrain around my driving areas is mostly flat. But to that point, this morning I drove my son to school which is nearly all a downhill grade or flat. It's about 7.5 miles and I "spent" 22 miles of range to get there. I averaged 40 mph during this trip. That seems dramatically bad to me.

Again, keeping in mind that I purposefully drove super easy, on Chill, for the entire experiment, this can't be normal, can it? If I had not been trying to purposefully see what the range could be when driven easy, I would have expended far more battery range. Surely 65% of the estimated range is not the standard I should be expecting, right?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I do have a service appointment next week for an unrelated issue. Perhaps they can test the battery for this?

Thanks!
Tim

 

[WesB]

The temperature makes a difference, anything below 60-65 will start to be noticeable and its all downhill from there (below 0 you can expect your range to be half). Did you use heating/AC? That also makes a significant difference. Did you stop and go a lot (at stop signs or in traffic)? Doing so will use more energy than if you were to drive at constant speed. These are all factors that would reduce efficiency. The rated range is accurate under decent conditions such as driving say 50 mph at 80 degrees. In perfect conditions (slow, constant driving at ideal temperatures with no AC) the range can be up to double what it's rated for (this is called hypermiling).

 

[Azrockitman]

Thanks WesB. I was using the heater in the mornings. I'll have Tesla check it when I'm in the shop but probably just have to reset expectations. Thanks!

 

[panditron420]

Basically, electric cars:

• Are very sensitive to temperature/weather, driving style, and wheel size. This works in your favour in some situations, i.e downhills where you get range back while driving or also in tailwinds.
• They use battery even if idle to keep systems on (vampire drain about 1% per day, or more).
• Heating / AC also drains up to 3-4kw so in one hour of use it can drain up to 4-5% battery. Use range mode to limit consumption.
• Below ~10% charge, battery depletes faster due to lower voltage. Be careful with this and never park the car with 10% battery as it will drain faster.
• In good weather conditions, normal driving, and using 19 rims you should be able to get advertised range. I get that many times even when cold outside.

There are some cons with Teslas but many pros. It's just different!

 

[Azrockitman]

Thanks panditron. I appreciate the insight.