Given the tone of your post, I'd get the 90D. I'm in the same boat and it's 90D or nothing for me. Yes, the vast majority of my trips will be under 50 miles a day. Many days under 30. But I'm certain once I get a Model S, I'll drive the car way more than I expected. And if you use evtripplanner.com, there is a marked difference in how many times you have to stop and for how long between the 90D and the 75D (there's no 75D selection on the site - I use the 85 with 21" wheels as a proxy). It can frequently mean an extra 1/3 added to your overall trip time or sometimes even a completely different and longer route. If I were traveling by myself it wouldn't matter, but most of my long trips are with family and friends driving ICE cars. Stopping for 45 minutes or so every two hours is not going to sit well with some of them.
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60D owners, why did you not choose 90D?
- Thread starter krazineurons
- Start date
Given the tone of your post, I'd get the 90D. I'm in the same boat and it's 90D or nothing for me. Yes, the vast majority of my trips will be under 50 miles a day. Many days under 30. But I'm certain once I get a Model S, I'll drive the car way more than I expected. And if you use evtripplanner.com, there is a marked difference in how many times you have to stop and for how long between the 90D and the 75D (there's no 75D selection on the site - I use the 85 with 21" wheels as a proxy). It can frequently mean an extra 1/3 added to your overall trip time or sometimes even a completely different and longer route. If I were traveling by myself it wouldn't matter, but most of my long trips are with family and friends driving ICE cars. Stopping for 45 minutes or so every two hours is not going to sit well with some of them.
mikeash
Active Member
I bought my car when the only available battery sizes were still 60 and 85. My choice of 85 was all about range. I didn't much care about performance. As Elon said, "We don't make slow cars." The 60 was plenty for me already in that department, but it looked marginal for longer trips, at least in places with poorer supercharger coverage or in cold weather. Doable, I'm sure, but more difficult and slower. Hitting the supercharger taper much sooner would be a big factor in that, not just the range, although the newer 60s should be a lot better there.
A couple of trips come to mind where the 60 would have posed some major difficulties. I've gone from the DC area to places around Lancaster, PA a few times. With the 85, that's doable as a round trip, with the 60 I'd have to spend an excessive amount of quality time with an L2 charger, or make a fairly long detour to Newark, DE. (The Laurel, MD supercharger will fix that, but it's not done yet and obviously wasn't available when I made these trips.) DC to Rehoboth Beach, DE is another one. That round trip takes basically 100% of my 85's charge. A couple of hours on L2 while there adds enough margin to be comfortable. With a 60 I'd either have to spend quite a long time on L2, or detour to Salisbury, MD.
This summer, I'm planning a trip north, starting in DC and heading to Fort Drum, NY as my first stop. The direct route has me stopping at the Harrisburg supercharger, then Binghamton. That leg is 181 mountainous miles, so a 60 would either have to do a full charge and take it slowly, or would have to detour to Allentown or Tannersville. Afterwards, I'm heading for Montreal. The most direct route will be charging at Syracuse, then Cornwall, but that would again be marginal in a 60, so I'd either have to worry about L2 charging in Fort Drum, or detour to Kingston.
If I were buying today, I'd probably go for a 60, and plan to upgrade to 75 if and when I took a long trip where the 75 would help. 90 would be best, but between the higher cost for the bigger battery and the requirement for AWD, the cost is substantially higher than my good ol' 85 was. The 249 mile rated range of the 75 is not much lower than my 85's 265 miles, and the 75D's 259 miles is nearly the same.
To make your own choice, I'd recommend poking around with EVTripPlanner and supercharge.info, think about the longer drives you might make (keeping in mind that you'll probably want to make more of them than you do now, since the Model S is such a sweet ride for long trips) and see how much of a difference the extra range would make for you.
A couple of trips come to mind where the 60 would have posed some major difficulties. I've gone from the DC area to places around Lancaster, PA a few times. With the 85, that's doable as a round trip, with the 60 I'd have to spend an excessive amount of quality time with an L2 charger, or make a fairly long detour to Newark, DE. (The Laurel, MD supercharger will fix that, but it's not done yet and obviously wasn't available when I made these trips.) DC to Rehoboth Beach, DE is another one. That round trip takes basically 100% of my 85's charge. A couple of hours on L2 while there adds enough margin to be comfortable. With a 60 I'd either have to spend quite a long time on L2, or detour to Salisbury, MD.
This summer, I'm planning a trip north, starting in DC and heading to Fort Drum, NY as my first stop. The direct route has me stopping at the Harrisburg supercharger, then Binghamton. That leg is 181 mountainous miles, so a 60 would either have to do a full charge and take it slowly, or would have to detour to Allentown or Tannersville. Afterwards, I'm heading for Montreal. The most direct route will be charging at Syracuse, then Cornwall, but that would again be marginal in a 60, so I'd either have to worry about L2 charging in Fort Drum, or detour to Kingston.
If I were buying today, I'd probably go for a 60, and plan to upgrade to 75 if and when I took a long trip where the 75 would help. 90 would be best, but between the higher cost for the bigger battery and the requirement for AWD, the cost is substantially higher than my good ol' 85 was. The 249 mile rated range of the 75 is not much lower than my 85's 265 miles, and the 75D's 259 miles is nearly the same.
To make your own choice, I'd recommend poking around with EVTripPlanner and supercharge.info, think about the longer drives you might make (keeping in mind that you'll probably want to make more of them than you do now, since the Model S is such a sweet ride for long trips) and see how much of a difference the extra range would make for you.
1 year 70D owner here, and I have almost 24k miles in that one year. A lot of supercharged trips (up and down the east coast, multiple times - summer/winter/etc.).
If I had to do it all over again, I'd think about the 60D but probably pull the trigger on the 75D.
I rarely floor the 70D, and when I do I'm already faster than 98% of the cars on the road off the line.
As for time savings on trips, out of my 24k miles, I might have saved 2 hours of supercharging if I had a bigger battery. Someone had a table on the teslamotors forum, with various distances and comparing charging times, it's not as big as you'd think it is. People here are telling you "you'll charge much faster", but that "much" means savings ~5minutes on a ~30minute stop, IIRC [assuming you're not in a supercharging desert]
If I had to do it all over again, I'd think about the 60D but probably pull the trigger on the 75D.
I rarely floor the 70D, and when I do I'm already faster than 98% of the cars on the road off the line.
As for time savings on trips, out of my 24k miles, I might have saved 2 hours of supercharging if I had a bigger battery. Someone had a table on the teslamotors forum, with various distances and comparing charging times, it's not as big as you'd think it is. People here are telling you "you'll charge much faster", but that "much" means savings ~5minutes on a ~30minute stop, IIRC [assuming you're not in a supercharging desert]
Here's the table, sorry I was thinking time difference between 70D and 85D. The 60 (non D) adds a LOT of supercharging time:
Source: Model S supercharging times compared S60, S70D, S85, P85D, S85D | Tesla Motors
Well, we don't know how the new 60D stacks up, but unless Tesla did something really evil like fake a charge curve up to 60kWh, I would expect it to look like the S70D in that picture. And based off that info, at around the 500 mile mark (a good 4 or 5 hours of driving), the 70D would've "cost" you 20 minutes of extra charging vs the 90D.
This is the kind of math that led me to decide that I didn't need the 90D vs the 70D. I think the more compelling argument is if you charge at home, and there's one destination that you'd always go to (let's call it Grandma's House) that's just out of reach of the 60D but would be reachable with the 90D's additional ~100 miles, and there's no convenient supercharging along the way.
Either way, both are great cars, I just think there's a lot of people with pre-purchase range "anxiety" driving them to spend an extra $13k they didn't need to spend.
Sorry, could you tell that's my former leadfoot ICE self speaking?
But in all seriousness, yes, I was being conservative in my argument. So you save 20 minutes every 6 hours assuming that the new 60D supercharges at the same rate as the 70D it really is. And a fake spc charge limit would harm Tesla as much as it harms the customer (in the form of unnecessary congestion at the chargers), so I can't imagine they'd actually do that.
mikeash
Active Member
The new 60 should supercharge slightly faster than a (pre-refresh) 70D does, since it's actually a 75kWh battery. Very small difference, of course. With the new one, my concern would mostly be having to detour on certain trips, not increased charging time.
Chopr147
Active Member
This is some great conversation for me personally. I am looking into getting the 60D and just stalling right now. I have not been able to click "order" just yet. Had one test drive and plan on another next week. So with help from this forum I will get the 60D. So, thank you
Every day driving is not a problem for me. My biggest concern is a lakehouse 147 miles away on mountainess roads and I do NOT want to stop at any SC's. I make this trip often.
Every day driving is not a problem for me. My biggest concern is a lakehouse 147 miles away on mountainess roads and I do NOT want to stop at any SC's. I make this trip often.
RogerHScott
Active Member
Can you arrange level 2 charging at your lakehouse? If so, you should be good. Otherwise you might want to be able to find 12-18 hours of charging time while you're there, but the good news is the return trip is (I presume) net down hill.
Really, though, is a 20-minute stop at an SC so terrible? That is, of course, if there's one along the way.
Really, though, is a 20-minute stop at an SC so terrible? That is, of course, if there's one along the way.
I don't think these numbers are accurate. How can various 85 kwh battery supercharge in different amount of time? They have the exact same battery, so the charge time should be exactly the same. The difference should be on the usage side of the equation, depending on if they are Model S or Model X or Dual motor etc.Here's the table, sorry I was thinking time difference between 70D and 85D. The 60 (non D) adds a LOT of supercharging time:
Source: Model S supercharging times compared S60, S70D, S85, P85D, S85D | Tesla Motors
Also, the 60 kwh info shown here is for the old 60 kwh car, completely different story for the new 60 kwh car offered now. The new one is a 75kwh battery software limited at 80%.
If you are talking about 147 miles one way (294 miles round trip), without any kind of charging anyway, there are no EV in this world that can make it, unless you drive maybe 30 mph speed the whole way.This is some great conversation for me personally. I am looking into getting the 60D and just stalling right now. I have not been able to click "order" just yet. Had one test drive and plan on another next week. So with help from this forum I will get the 60D. So, thank you
Every day driving is not a problem for me. My biggest concern is a lakehouse 147 miles away on mountainess roads and I do NOT want to stop at any SC's. I make this trip often.
Sir Guacamolaf
The good kind of fat
This video pretty much explains my stance. I got a 70D, and I am QUITE happy with it.
I would make the same decision again knowing what I know now.
Unfortunately the same decision at 75 will cost you more now! And a 60 is a bit low, but maybe ok for your needs!
I would make the same decision again knowing what I know now.
Unfortunately the same decision at 75 will cost you more now! And a 60 is a bit low, but maybe ok for your needs!
Open the source link, most of your answers are there. It's based on actual SpC curves for each battery, and for whatever reason they do SpC differently.
I'm not stating how precise the table is, I'm just saying that we're talking about an additional 5-7mins on a 30minute supercharger stop. It's not double or triple the charging time. It's a small difference. That was my only point (if you looked one post before the table).
That table is also based on a fixed SpC spacing interval, so there's that too. And yes, I said this was an old table, it's obviously for the old 60.
DrManhattan
Member
I didn't get a 90D because I'm poorer than you. Is that what you wanted to hear?
