90D Rated Range

[zeeboid]

Sooooooooo, this may not seam like a huge deal, but it is one of the things that bothers me quite a bit. Every time I see the range displayed in fact.

My big gripe should be a simple software fix. I have a Nov'15 90D on a full charge, it displays 278. always has. at 90% it displays 250. again, always has. (I live in Minnesota, the number has not changed with winter and driving habits. I say 'always has' because the first thing people say is that the number is subjective based on driver energy usage etc. I submit that this may not be accurate)

I drove a loaner 90D while mine was in the shop that was made Feb'16 and it displayed the actual rated with 264@90 and 294@100.

Now, in 2015 I understand the 90D was not run through the EPA cycle but simply estimated. with the 2016 however it WAS run through the EPA cycle and given an official rating of 294.

Bottom line, I would like my car to read what the EPA rating is: 294. (screen shots of the website with the rated vs estimates)

I tweeted the big man here:

Pete Arnold on Twitter

What is your experience, fellow 90D owners? Please chime in, re-tweet, comment, etc. I know it seams like a small thing, but like I said, every time I look at the display it digs at me. bothers me enough to write this post anyway.

 

[Pruitt]

At 90% mine shows 260-263 miles.

 

[mikeash]

The number definitely doesn't change based on how you drive, except for how that might affect your battery capacity. The number is a straightforward calculation that takes the estimated energy in the battery and multiplies it by a standard efficiency number. As you probably know.

The usual advice for people who are bothered by the rated range number is to switch your display to show percentage instead of miles. Silly workaround, and I agree that the displayed number ought to agree with the official range, but maybe that would be enough for it to stop bugging you.

 

[Beryl]

@zeeboid Quite a few owners are concerned about the rated range on 2015 90D batteries
90D Range slowly declining

Happy to see that you are reporting this to Tesla directly. They really should make it right for those who paid extra for the upgraded battery:

• replace all batteries with the lower rated range with newer batteries or
• fix it with software if the range is being reported inaccurately

 

[Max*]

The number is a straightforward calculation that takes the estimated energy in the battery and multiplies it by a standard efficiency number.

Didn't Flashers prove that it's seasonally adjusted too?

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

The number definitely doesn't change based on how you drive, except for how that might affect your battery capacity. The number is a straightforward calculation that takes the estimated energy in the battery and multiplies it by a standard efficiency number. As you probably know.

The usual advice for people who are bothered by the rated range number is to switch your display to show percentage instead of miles. Silly workaround, and I agree that the displayed number ought to agree with the official range, but maybe that would be enough for it to stop bugging you.

Doubt it is straight forward. What i heard is it is calculated base on your recent drive consumption. Hence why you see a huge drop if you encounter head wind or turning on your heater. But you are right if you change to lercentage it is better. Like your smartphone. You dont get an estimate on how many hours you have left. You just see the percentage and that is enough to adjust your usage to maximize your range.

 

[kort677]

90% is 257 100% 283 on my dec '15 s90d

 

[Boatguy]

Doubt it is straight forward. What i heard is it is calculated base on your recent drive consumption. Hence why you see a huge drop if you encounter head wind or turning on your heater. But you are right if you change to lercentage it is better. Like your smartphone. You dont get an estimate on how many hours you have left. You just see the percentage and that is enough to adjust your usage to maximize your range.

Definitely not. Rated miles on a 90D = battery kWh / 290Wh. Very easy to confirm from the Consumption screen.

My 90D is:

90% = 261 (down from 264 when new)
100% = 290 (down from 294 when new)

 

[msnow]

Sooooooooo, this may not seam like a huge deal, but it is one of the things that bothers me quite a bit. Every time I see the range displayed in fact.

My big gripe should be a simple software fix. I have a Nov'15 90D on a full charge, it displays 278. always has. at 90% it displays 250. again, always has. (I live in Minnesota, the number has not changed with winter and driving habits. I say 'always has' because the first thing people say is that the number is subjective based on driver energy usage etc. I submit that this may not be accurate)

I drove a loaner 90D while mine was in the shop that was made Feb'16 and it displayed the actual rated with 264@90 and 294@100.

Now, in 2015 I understand the 90D was not run through the EPA cycle but simply estimated. with the 2016 however it WAS run through the EPA cycle and given an official rating of 294.

Bottom line, I would like my car to read what the EPA rating is: 294. (screen shots of the website with the rated vs estimates)


View attachment 178940 View attachment 178939

I tweeted the big man here:

Pete Arnold on Twitter

What is your experience, fellow 90D owners? Please chime in, re-tweet, comment, etc. I know it seams like a small thing, but like I said, every time I look at the display it digs at me. bothers me enough to write this post anyway.

Pete - it's a big deal to me too. When I took delivery on 9/15/2015 mine was about 285-286@100% and 256-257@90%. By November of 2015 it went down to 276@100% and 246@90%. I raised this issue to my SvC last December since I lost so much of what I paid for so fast and was told there would be a future firmware fix to adjust the algorithm and not to worry. Others were told the same thing. I was able to rebalance the battery and get it up to 279 & 249 respectively by running the battery down under 10% and then fully charging it to 100%. After a couple of recent updates and escalating my issue with Tesla I am now at 281-282@100% and 253@90%, so I'm just a couple of miles off my original.

I am not sure if the combination of regular balancing and updates caused this or something else but I am watching it closely to see where it goes.

As to wanting the current EPA displayed I'm with you on that. It should be possible unless it is hardware related (e.g. battery, BMS) which they say isn't the case.

It has absolutely nothing to do with driving style as some have suggested. I live in SoCal and weather has zero impact on my Rated Range although @FlasherZ has data that suggests it does in wider climate variations. It definately seems to be affected by charging habits (how much and how often) and regular balancing. @wk057 has lots of data on that topic.

Keep us posted if Elon or someone else at Tesla responds to you. That would be awesome!

 

[johnnyS]

In the first year you will loose about 5% of rated range and it levels off after that so don't panic. My 3.5 year old S85 has been reading a couple of miles higher lately at 90%. For over a year there has been no change at all.

 

[nwdiver]

In the first year you will loose about 5% of rated range and it levels off after that so don't panic. My 3.5 year old S85 has been reading a couple of miles higher lately at 90%. For over a year there has been no change at all.

Ditto

 

[David99]

I am not sure if the combination of regular balancing and updates caused this or something else but I am watching it closely to see where it goes.

It's not balancing. I know this has been in many discussions. I have been able to watch the voltage difference between the individual clusters and they are stunningly close in my 2 year old and 75k miles Model S. Usually the difference is around 4 mV which is 0.1%. Tesla obviously made sure they do not drift apart much at all. Honestly, a 4 mV difference between 96 individual cell clusters is amazing. What causes variations in the rated miles display is when you charge and discharge the battery partially. It's not at all bad for the battery but it makes is difficult to calculate the exact capacity. Running the battery close to 0 miles and then charging it close to 100% gives the car a much better idea how much capacity the battery still has. Tesla mentioned this in an email to an owner a while ago. So a full cycle can sometimes recalibrate the battery gauge and your car 'magically' gains back miles that seemed lost before. They were never lost, it wasn't an out of balance pack, it's just that the algorithm cannot be perfectly accurate when the battery is charged and discharged partially for a while.

 

[msnow]

It's not balancing. I know this has been in many discussions. I have been able to watch the voltage difference between the individual clusters and they are stunningly close in my 2 year old and 75k miles Model S. Usually the difference is around 4 mV which is 0.1%. Tesla obviously made sure they do not drift apart much at all. Honestly, a 4 mV difference between 96 individual cell clusters is amazing. What causes variations in the rated miles display is when you charge and discharge the battery partially. It's not at all bad for the battery but it makes is difficult to calculate the exact capacity. Running the battery close to 0 miles and then charging it close to 100% gives the car a much better idea how much capacity the battery still has. Tesla mentioned this in an email to an owner a while ago. So a full cycle can sometimes recalibrate the battery gauge and your car 'magically' gains back miles that seemed lost before. They were never lost, it wasn't an out of balance pack, it's just that the algorithm cannot be perfectly accurate when the battery is charged and discharged partially for a while.

Yes, agree. What you describe (fully discharge then full charge) is what I (and Tesla) calls balancing the pack and not doing it will cause loss of rated miles per my post upthread so I think we are saying the same thing but using different terminology. The algo gets out of sync. What do you call it?

 

[mikeash]

Didn't Flashers prove that it's seasonally adjusted too?

There is seasonal variation, but I think that's just temperature actually affecting how much energy the battery can hold, or at least affecting the estimates of how much energy the battery can hold. My 90% (on a non-D 85) was down to 233 or 234 miles this winter, and is now up to 236 or 237, but that doesn't even come close to matching the change in energy consumption between summer and winter driving.

Doubt it is straight forward. What i heard is it is calculated base on your recent drive consumption. Hence why you see a huge drop if you encounter head wind or turning on your heater.

You see a huge drop when you turn on your heater because the heater uses a lot of energy and this drains the battery faster. The drop comes as the energy is consumed, though, it's not predicting the future.

If it was based on recent consumption, then your 90% would vary far more than it actually does. My energy consumption in the winter is probably 20% higher on average than it is during the summer, but my rated miles vary by maybe 1-2%. You'd see a huge difference in your 90% depending on whether you did a bunch of launches before you got home or whether you drove home at a steady 45MPH, and you just don't.

 

[FlasherZ]

Yes, I want to be very clear that the data I show is what the car thinks is available when it displays "rated range". It's not intended to address how much you can actually get out of the battery, or anything else.

Mostly, I publish it because there are people who are relying upon the "rated range" display when considering "battery degradation", and if you are calculating degradation based on a high-water mark observed in May and a low-water mark observed in January, you're going to believe you have more degradation than expected.

I will be posting my data probably later this month. It seems that some later software releases have changed the algorithm (or something happened with my battery), as the rated range on my car has been impacted, aligned with the date of the software updates for 7.1.

I'll update the thread within a month or so.

 

[liuping]

My 90D seems to have settled at 244 for 90% charge. It used to drop one or more miles per month, but it seems to have stopped dropping now. 271 Mile range in less than a year is a little disappointing considering how much extra the 90 cost me, but I'm still hoping there really is a software fix coming at some point. (not just a hack to change the number to a higher value, but a real more accurate reading)

 

[FlasherZ]

Just as a quick snapshot without the graphs, I note a drop in max rated range @ 90% in Model S from a 2015 high of 241 (9/15) to a 2016 peak (so far) of 234. It appears in the graph as a flattening of the curve in the recovery from winter (where 2016 low was mid-220's), not as an acute correction: i.e., it didn't instantly drop 7 miles when I installed 7.1. It may be that Tesla saw my thread and has done a bit of work to mitigate the seasonality (although it's clear they haven't eliminated it).

 

[kort677]

Just as a quick snapshot without the graphs, I note a drop in max rated range @ 90% in Model S from a 2015 high of 241 (9/15) to a 2016 peak (so far) of 234. It appears in the graph as a flattening of the curve in the recovery from winter (where 2016 low was mid-220's), not as an acute correction: i.e., it didn't instantly drop 7 miles when I installed 7.1. It may be that Tesla saw my thread and has done a bit of work to mitigate the seasonality (although it's clear they haven't eliminated it).

you must be talking about a MS 85

 

[FlasherZ]

you must be talking about a MS 85

Yes. I have an original RWD signature P85.

 

[CleanPower]

I have a September 2015 90D. The week I picked it up it showed a 90% rated range of 261 or 262 miles.
Since then my 90% rated range has declined to 239 miles. That is about 9% degradation in range in 8 months and lower rated range than most 85D owners are quoting for their 90% rated range.