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500 + Mile Range Debate

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I addressed the 99% population question earlier; you did not respond to the statement.

Yes, I'd take a different vehicle with 500 miles that yields me 250mi realistic miles over a Tesla that has 200 mi of realistic range (for example). That's 50 miles further I can go on my drive that may enable me to get somewhere I cannot today and 50 miles less of me taking up charging infrastructure or my time. If that extra 50 miles on my 200 mi drive is enough to get me to my destination or home, then the charging network doesn't become applicable or a problem to scale as EV transformation expands exponentially. A 300 mi pack, which could be advertised at 600mi in ideal conditions, is a realistic ask as a 300mi drive is not uncommon for people to make today and why I'm interested in Cybertruck over Ford Lightning. If Ford Lightning offered the pack, I'd seriously consider it.

So.... you'd take 100 miles more range over more charging options? Is stopping for ~15 minutes for another ~150 miles of range really that much of a hassle? I don't understand this emphasis on a little more range over A LOT more charging options. When there's a supercharger every ~50 miles in 3 years will you still feel the need for 500 miles of range?
 
So.... you'd take 100 miles more range over more charging options? Is stopping for ~15 minutes for another ~150 miles of range really that much of a hassle? I don't understand this emphasis on a little more range over A LOT more charging options. When there's a supercharger every ~50 miles in 3 years will you still feel the need for 500 miles of range?
If I could get 300mi of range, that would enable me to charge at my hotel, home, friend's house, etc as most of my destinations are going to be in that range; this frees up chargers for others on longer trips and saves me the time. This statement is only for me though, not for others who drive even more demanding routes than me and may be in situations where conditions are worse contributing to range loss (towing for example). I feel like I'm a normal driver not doing anything crazy, so if I'm running into range, I feel like this is problem others are going to run into as well? In addition to getting me to my destination in one shot, the larger pack enables me to get somewhere where there is no supercharging infrastructure as mentioned before. More specifically, my SO's parents live out on farm land in the middle of nowhere. I'm part of your group of 99% that live in a city and have a supercharger in our city, but I still cannot drive my tesla to their house because they live so far in the middle of nowhere and my driving conditions contribute to heavy range loss. Given the remote area, there's only 1 or 2 gas stations out there as well; do you think governments, Tesla, or a local business are going to invest in Level 3 charging infrastructure in the next decade to get there? No way. In this case, do I charge at someone's house and wait hours? No. I'm going to drive my ICE vehicle instead.

If I can skip a supercharger because I have a pack that enables me an extra 100mi to get to my destination faster, I'm going to take it (and I think other businesses will as well, as time is worth money). I don't want to have to charge more often, I want to get to my destination as quickly as possible and get to places I cannot get to today.

It's clear you think chargers is the only way to go and whatever others do is their own problem. I disagree, have presented my scenarios where larger battery packs/mileage is needed, and addressed situations where charging is not possible nor convenient.

This last paragraph contributes nothing, but my small closing rant. This conversation is exactly why I rarely post on Tesla forums and why I have left several clubs; Tesla fanboy level is wrecking the EV movement as a whole as they treat it as a Tesla movement. By having closed mindsets that Tesla is doing everything right by their statements, sets a complacent precedent that hurts the consumer and innovation. I haven't seen you directly empathize or consider anyone's point, other than state your experience charging with v3 chargers every destination you go. Several others have brought similar points, but your response doesn't take them point by point. Great leaders make mistakes, Elon has admitted this himself and has mentioned Tesla/he will continue to make mistakes in the future. Making a statement 400-500mi range battery packs, rated only in ideal conditions, is all that is needed, is one of those mistakes in my opinion and for the resources I have disclosed in this post as well as my previous.

Cheers everyone and good luck out there! I'm signing out of this conversation.
 
If I could get 300mi of range, that would enable me to charge at my hotel, home, friend's house, etc as most of my destinations are going to be in that range; this frees up chargers for others on longer trips and saves me the time.

How much charging time would you expect to save annually? 10 hours? 20? And this is worth dropping another ~$10k and a car ~200# heavier? This has nothing to do with being a 'fanboy' or what ever.... just rational thought. How much is your time worth? Why pay $10k to reduce the amount of time you spend charging by ~100 hours over the life of the car if your time isn't worth $100/hr? Is there no room for logic here?

What makes more sense to enable visiting your parents? A car that cost $10k more.... OR... OR... $500 to install a 14-50 at their house?
 
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This debate is funny to me for some issues and very interesting for other reasons.
The funny thing - to use someone else words I saw in this forum - is that those who are fine with existing rage atre trying to convice those who are not fine that they do not need an extra range. And viceversa.
but: what is a need?
Do we really need a car that does 0-60 mphin 1.99 secs ? or iwould it be enough in 4.5 secs?
In term of "needs" what we all really need is only drinkable water, eatable food... So not only Tesla, but any car is not really "needed" when we have water and food...

Thus, in our contest, "need" should be intended as "comfort need".
I do not really need to pay extra money for 21 inches wheels, but I want them. So? is it a "need"? :)

Enlarging the discussion, we should also consider that the people in this forum is already a selected part of the population who are in favor to - or are anyway happy with - the existing ranges. But if we look at the entire population, the situation is different: the large majority rejects the EV because of the insufficient range. Correct or not that point of view, this is a fact.

Second and serious point: EPA range is not a real available range.
It goes without saying that if 400 miles were a real available range, those like me would be happy with it.
Unfortunately, the range is important on long travels, which are normally driven at high speed when consumption is higher (in Europe, consider that 85 mph is just the starting point of a high speed driving ;) ). EPA range is based on an average that includes city and low speed driving in fair conditions - in which cases a long range is irrelevant (who is interested of 500 miles range at city speed???).

More: EPA estimate considers to use the entire battery capacity. But if you consider to save at least 10% of safe margin (not mentioning the degradation issue), at least in my case a MS raven 19 inch wheels can travel 380 km at high speed (i.e. 240 miles). Not more.

Ok someone could say: drive slower... But we come to the point of a "comfortable need".
To me, driving slow to save range is a limitation. That I could solve in two ways:

a) range increase (150 rated miles)
b) buy an ICE car.

in terms of money, the choice is very easy: buy an ICE car and save cash.
in terms of environmental impact, buy a Tesla and accept time wasting.

If range were increased, I could satisfy my "comfort need". Since I can afford it, I am ready to add 20.000 euros for that.

Someone else instead is not available to pay the same for the range increase, but prefers to spend 40.000 euros more than me in order to be faster in the 0-60 race...

To make an example, I travel three times a year from Milano to south Puglia (1.100 km one way).
If I plan this trip with an ICE car I need 8,5 hours (my best time with no traffic was 8:15).
with a MS Raven my best performance was 10:20 min. But in winter also 11:00.
So, only for that I waste in average 2:30. per 4 people is 10 hours one way. which is 60 hours in a year.
Considering a 10 years car life, this means 600 hours, which are equivalent to 25 days.

if I add the other long trips to the computation, by estimating some statistics I get from ABRP on annual kW chaged in DC, I can estimate that the annual time wasted is three times more. This means 75 days of life in 10 years use.


Hey! I was forgetting one point: that wasted time should be accounted to the "active part" of the day, Rarely you can sleep while supercharging...
to be simplistic, let's consider that the active part of the day is 50% of the daytime.
if so, those 75 days become 150 days - 5 months

I definitively would spend 20.000 euros to have a longer active life period of 5 months
 
Hey! I was forgetting one point: that wasted time should be accounted to the "active part" of the day, Rarely you can sleep while supercharging...
to be simplistic, let's consider that the active part of the day is 50% of the daytime.
if so, those 75 days become 150 days - 5 months

I'm active ~75% of the day so I would spend less time charging.... what? That's not how any of this works... but at least I understand how you would think you 'need' a car with >500 miles of range....

Wow... you must really hate speed limits and traffic. Why not just buy a helicopter if every additional minute spent on a trip is some kind of existential pain? You drive 8.5 hours non-stop???? That's my definition of 'existential pain'. Do you require all your passengers to wear colostomy bags to avoid sucking days out of the lives of everyone in the car?
 
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It's funny.

Part of me would jump to spend 10k to get 300 miles at 75mph from a MY instead of 220 miles. A bigger capacity battery would also have the benefit of keeping V3 SC rates higher for longer, and allow for better range with bikes on the hitch.

However the reason I personally want that is because of a specific trip leg; Farmington, NM to Page, AZ - 230 miles between superchargers with the only L2 charger (an RV park) being a 50 mile detour.

Would it be better to spend that 10k and sponsor a public L2 charger along there for a little top up? I wish it were as easy as just spending a bit of money.

Thanks, @nwdiver for doing exactly that and installing public L2 chargers in southwestern NM.

What about someone buying the Plaid+ instead of the S LR just because of the range? $70k could go a long way towards a SC - or for those traveling to visit remote friends and family, paying for the install of a few 240v outlets.
 
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However the reason I personally want that is because of a specific trip leg; Farmington, NM to Page, AZ - 230 miles between superchargers with the only L2 charger (an RV park) being a 50 mile detour.

Farmington to ABQ is almost as bad. More range would help... but so would a SC in the middle. It's a little ironic that as longer range cars become more available they're also becoming less useful with more SCs.
 
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I'm active ~75% of the day so I would spend less time charging.... what? That's not how any of this works... but at least I understand how you would think you 'need' a car with >500 miles of range....

Wow... you must really hate speed limits and traffic. Why not just buy a helicopter if every additional minute spent on a trip is some kind of existential pain? You drive 8.5 hours non-stop???? That's my definition of 'existential pain'. Do you require all your passengers to wear colostomy bags to avoid sucking days out of the lives of everyone in the car?
In Italy (and in most european countries) general speed limit in highways is 130 km/h - i.e. 81 mph.
5% margin is allowed by law - which means 136,5 you are still within the law (i.e. 85 mph).

Then here, as it happens in the US, still many people tend to travel over the limit by a 10 km/h. meaning in total 92 mph.

I would't say that everyone drives at 92 mph. But let's say that a lot of people does it, and definitively 80 mph is considered a "low high speed".

let's be more precise on my point on "being active" :).

I do not mean "being awake". I mean the net time which is effectively available to me to live - excluding those daily affairs you "have" to do, such as bathroom use, eating (unles it is a "dinner"), house cleaning, bringing kids to school, etc...
I mean: the alternative of the time spent at a supercharger is not that I do not take a shower or do not bring kids to school...

in that sense, 50% of the day is not so far from reality...
 
in that sense, 50% of the day is not so far from reality...

That's still not how math works. The only remotely sane way to phrase that would be 1% of active time instead of 0.5% of all time. The cost of an item doesn't increase in $ if it's part of smaller piece of my budget... it's just a larger % of my budget.

For context people spend on average 1% of their day on the toilet... and I suspect there would be a lot of overlap here :)
 
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That's still not how math works. The only remotely sane way to phrase that would be 1% of active time instead of 0.5% of all time. The cost of an item doesn't increase in $ if it's part of smaller piece of my budget... it's just a larger % of my budget.

For context people spend on average 1% of their day on the toilet... and I suspect there would be a lot of overlap here :)
Friendly speaking: it’s a matter of “marginal utility”.
I ask to myself: to what I subtract time by waiting at a SC?
Not to sleep time, but also not to all those activities I do anyway.
In that sense, also working time is not affected (in most cases).
So, bottom line, time spent at SC is subtracted to free time.
And free time per day is really a small fraction of daytime.

That’s why people take plane also when goes on holiday: avoiding to waste free time available for fun.

In (my) conclusion: that time worth is much, much more valuable
 
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'Unnecessary'? You're losing ~1% of your time! You seem like someone that's super-busy and probably only ~20% of your time is actually free time.... so that's really ~5% of your time. Over a 10 year period that's 6 months! Lost to the sh*tter!
You forgot to account the time required to clean the colostomy bag. And the time for the intervention.
No time saving with your proposal
 
..... how much more would you pay for 500 mile range vs 400 mile range?
I honestly would not pay much more for a model Y 400 or 500 miles of range compared to the current 326 miles. I did pay around $50,000 for the Long-Range version in March. You have a great point about the cost a 400 and 500-mile range Tesla will have. I would maybe pay another $2,500 for a 400 miles, and maybe $3,500 more for a 500-mile version. But no way Tesla could afford to sell their cars for that much. For me, the Plaid S is just way out of my budget for my uses.
 
There are rarely times when >300 miles are needed, but they do occur. I have a regular drive where I need to go a quite a bit out of my way to keep on a route that I can make, probably >50 miles more than what I could do it in an ICE, or a car with 400+ mile range.

To me to put us on par with ICE we need 4 hours of real world highway driving, so about 320 miles that can be driven and recharged in about a half hour during a meal. So I think that is probably about 500 miles of rated range with buffers at the top and bottom. I don't think there is any need to go higher except in trucks where towing will take off close to 50%.

I'm guessing that the 4680's will charge much faster than the 2170's (later taper), so if that is the case it will make roadtrips quicker for all, even with a ~300 mile battery.
 
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There are rarely times when >300 miles are needed, but they do occur.

But is that because you need to drive >300 miles w/o stopping or because there's no place to charge? We need more fast chargers. A LOT more. A LOT A LOT more. >10x more. I don't think anyone denies that. I just don't think longer range cars is a good band aid for the lack of charging infrastructure.
 
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True, it is definitely a lack of a properly placed DC charger. But with the taper as it is today longer range also means faster charging which could knock hours off of a long drive.

Even if you're traveling LA => NY the difference in the taper curve for a car with 500 miles of range vs 400 miles might be ~30 minutes. I'd be surprised if it's even 1 hour. That's also more dependent on battery chemistry than battery size. Until the new S the 3 actually charged faster with a smaller battery.