2021 Model 3 and differences from 2020

[To3OrNotTo3]

Admittedly, didn't see @AlanSubie4Life's post yet because I had already loaded the page and started to respond. I might change my mind after I catch up on what he was saying

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

EPA efficiency in terms of MPGe are equivalent for the two Model 3 Performances at 113, but there's a difference of 16 miles of estimated range. I'm wondering if this is in fact the 5% difference (15 miles) boost to the batteries Panasonic was supposedly rolling out in September. That would make up for it.

If you look at the post above from yesterday it goes through this:

1) Half of range increase for Performance is due to more energy on the discharge (but it is not clear how this was accomplished - the Model Y had similar discharge so they might be doing a deeper discharge now). 80.8kWh.
2) The rest is from the heat pump which increases the scalar.
3) The MPGe numbers are messed up. They do roughly follow from the actual results. MPGe increases when the scalar increases, even if there is no efficiency improvement in the 2-cycle results (there wasn’t for Performance!). But the AC charging event wasted 3kWh and totally screwed up the efficiency so it cancelled all the improvement. So ends up the same as 2020.

However, since the scalar is sort of a “fake” (it is totally legal and does represent real improvement in cold conditions, so fake is too strong a term), in normal conditions the 2021 P DOES have about the same efficiency as the 2020 P. Even though the MPGe numbers should be higher.

Note that these EPA stickers are subject to change at this early point. They can and do get updated with corrected information (it happened last year for the 2020 Performance; if you search posts you’ll find the screen captures showing the change).

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Re: Electrek

First, no question other manufacturers often have very poor efficiency.
As a matter of policy, however, many of them use a 0.7 scalar, even if they use a heat pump. Tesla is using a 0.746 scalar for 2021 Model 3.

That results in a 6.6% EPA efficiency advantage for Tesla, but it does not necessarily translate to that in the real world if the two vehicles you are comparing both use heat pumps.

Obviously the total gap is much wider than 6.6%, but that factor explains part of it.

I’m not saying it is not real, but you have to understand what that factor comes from and when it is actually going to translate to real-world benefits.

 

[GZDongles]

Re: Electrek

First, no question other manufacturers often have very poor efficiency.
As a matter of policy, however, many of them use a 0.7 scalar, even if they use a heat pump. Tesla is using a 0.746 scalar for 2021 Model 3.

That results in a 6.6% EPA efficiency advantage for Tesla, but it does not necessarily translate to that in the real world if the two vehicles you are comparing both use heat pumps.

Obviously the total gap is much wider than 6.6%, but that factor explains part of it.

I’m not saying it is not real, but you have to understand what that factor comes from and when it is actually going to translate to real-world benefits.

Wow you called it as soon as the numbers came out that Tesla would change the scalar. It would be really interesting if the battery energy density increased as well so they have the option to either unlock it later or hide the initial degradation.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Wow you called it as soon as the numbers came out that Tesla would change the scalar. It would be really interesting if the battery energy density increased as well so they have the option to either unlock it later or hide the initial degradation.

With the Model Y showing exactly what Tesla was going to do, this makes this one of the least impressive predictions I have seen. The range increase was way too small to be explained by a battery size increase, since we knew for sure the heat pump was coming.

Will be interesting to see what happens. If they have 5% denser batteries with 2170 cells, eventually that means 370 rated miles for Model 3 (or lighter less dense packs). Doesn’t necessarily mean for vehicles made today, though. At the moment we don’t know.

 

[coconutboy84]

really hoping the 5% increase is in there and hidden. Would love if my incoming awd hides the degradation better than my current SR+. I dont wanna see it! haha

 

[TheRFMan]

If they have 5% denser batteries with 2170 cells, eventually that means 370 rated miles for Model 3 (or lighter less dense packs).

Is there a possibility that Tesla added in a buffer to hide some of the degradation, provide a better customer experience and reduce potential warranty claims? That seems to be becoming a more standard practice in non-Tesla EVs. Perhaps that buffer is smaller on the P, which would explain the larger energy figure in the 2021 EPA test for the P.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Perhaps that buffer is smaller on the P, which would explain the larger energy figure in the 2021 EPA test for the P.

I don’t know. There is always a buffer in Teslas, even below the 4.5% buffer. Remember Model Y also extracted more on some of their batteries (but a lot less on others - see the post from Zoomit in the other thread). There is large variation in capacity for a given pack and not sure how much is outside of Tesla’s control. There is random variation of course and it depends on when the software decides it is time to shut the car down due to low voltage in the EPA cycle (they’re running it 15+ miles past 0% in EPA testing!).

It’s possibly they are pushing the battery slightly more now.

Again, I do not know.

I do not think they will be adding any buffer to hide degradation. Technically they actually already have that. Only show capacity loss when you get below 77.6kWh for 2020 Model 3s (76kWh for prior years). Many cars start out above that.

 

[PDX-JP]

Sorry if this was covered 30 pages ago, but are the new aero covers thought to to be more efficient or is it purely a cosmetic change?

 

[Drivesolo]

The current speculation is that the US P3D Refresh will now come with Pirelli P-Zeros, which is the max performance summer tire that is comparable to the Michelin Pilot Sports 4Ss. According to Tirerack's comparison from 2017, the 4S is the better (grippier) tire.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=223

It would seem that any improvements in acceleration might not be in the tire. However their test did show that the Pirelli would allow for slightly more range.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

The current speculation is that the US P3D Refresh will now come with Pirelli P-Zeros

Where is that coming from?

It doesn't appear from the EPA results that there was really any improvement in efficiency in the Performance. The range increase came
from the heat pump scalar (0.725 -> 0.7472), and from slightly more energy in the pack (which might just have been a test article variance).

In fact, the efficiency looked a little worse overall than 2020 (155.6MPGe (unadjusted) vs. 150.6MPGe (unadjusted)), but these tests are VERY sensitive to small changes in the energy consumed, since the individual cycles that are averaged are quite short. So I think it's nearly in the noise (but not quite). And the heat pump scalar improvement was nullified by the problem with the AC charging of the Performance vehicle in the test (extra 3% of AC energy lost somehow), so the AC MPGe look unchanged (so far, until they redo it I guess).

 

[Drivesolo]

Where is that coming from?

]

Model 3 Performance now comes with Pirelli tires : teslamotors

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Yes it does say that. They are Pirelli P Zeros. I went looking before I responded but forgot to click "Performance Details"

If anything, it looks like the Pirelli P Zeros are hurting the range, by about 3%. But like I said, these tests are pretty sensitive. Might not be quite that much. Obviously the aero of the wheel has changed as well, which might matter a little.

Everyone knows PS4S are the best.

 

[MrHopsing]

This was from the EPC before they got removed, so it seems they are 6% wider than the current.

 

[Drivesolo]

This was from the EPC before they got removed, so it seems they are 6% wider than the current.

View attachment 603163

That would indicate a wider tire also. Maybe that's where there .1 sec improvement comes from?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

That would indicate a wider tire also. Maybe that's where there .1 sec improvement comes from?

No, the tire does not affect 0-60 times. It's not traction limited (on a good surface where you would be measuring such things). You can do the time with MXM4s if you want. If you lower the wheel diameter slightly (not what we're discussing here, I know) you might even be able to make it a bit faster (Torque=F*d).

The improvement is probably just updated to reflect reality, but TBH I don't pay that much attention to exactly where it was in 2020. It's possible they've tweaked things ever so slightly in the drivetrain, of course, too.

 

[DBPhil]

I posted about this yesterday. I linked a bunch of places, but not here:

Preliminary EPA Data for Model 3 AWD & Model 3 P 2021 Released

You’ll see the table I provided yesterday aligns with the EPA numbers at fueleconomy.gov which appeared today. The MPGe numbers are just direct calculations from the range results (for the two-cycle and 5-cycle testing).

The number is higher because of better efficiency (nearly half of increase) and the heat pump (a little over half the increase).

There is no battery size increase for AWD. (At least in terms of the energy used in the EPA test - some capacity COULD be locked.)

The Performance does not show yet because they screwed up the recharging event, I think. The efficiencies are placeholders. Though with the actual results achieved, it is about right to just use 2020 numbers.

It’s possible they are installing denser batteries, or batteries that are less populated because of the 5% increase in density. But the battery is not lighter so I doubt the latter. If the former, they could unlock capacity later.

If they install 5% denser batteries, the EPA range will go to about 370 miles.

Any idea why the SR+ hasn’t been re-rated?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Any idea why the SR+ hasn’t been re-rated?

This is all preliminary, early days yet. Patience! It'll be there soon enough.

 

[TheRFMan]

This is probably just poor website housekeeping, but the Canadian site still indicates Michelin PS4S.

Screen Shot 2020-10-28 At 9.12.58 PM

• TheRFMan
• Oct 28, 2020

 

[Mr. Michael]

Per EPA documents I see the following:
LRAWD Front (kw) Rear (kw)
2020 147 182
2021 98 195

PAWD
2020 147 211
2021 131 190

Interesting how acceleration is claimed to improve with lower power motors. Perhaps changes to the torque curve explain it.