An interesting journey last night

Picking my son and 3 of his friends up from Gatwick yesterday. Had been a bit out during the day so car charge was down a bit and while plugged in at home it didn't quite get to a level I wanted it before I had to leave. Technically I should have been able to make the trip there and back with 8% spare at the start.

So off I go and figure don't want to run it so close so I'll try the new Gridserve with 4 Tesla chargers as I could give it a 5 - 10 quick boost, buy a coffee and all I'd need. Punch this into the nav and use 4% of the battery in preheating. I get there to find our car no longer DC charges. We got it back a week ago from a body shop for a dent someone put into a door in parking lot plus getting rims sorted. Guessing they disconnected the HV battery and maybe haven't plugged something back in. Tried 2 Tesla chargers (One of which saw another Tesla charging on OK) and 2 of the other non-Tesla chargers and none worked.

So burned 4% pre-heating. Car says now I should get home with 4% so I normally trust that to be pretty accurate. Picked everyone up and decided to go 60 instead of 70 to be on the safe side anyway...

That was not enough, about 2 miles in my arrival dropped from 4% to 3, another 2 miles roughly and my arrival was 2%, clearly seemed wasn't going to make to so dropped further down to 55mph. That seemed to do the trick. And it got up to 3% and seemed to stay there the whole time.

A few points from this:

1. Tesla range estimations on battery arrival are amazingly accurate but it cannot of course account for you adding 4 more adults and all their luggage in before you set off. That extra weight in a Model 3 makes a massive difference. I had to go at 55mph to get the efficiency I'd have got with just me in the car at 70mph.

2. If you've had the car in a garage, even if it's just a dent. I guess they disconnect the battery for safety reasons, check both AC and DC charging before you need to use it in anger.

3. Was planning on being a two EV household but has made me wobble a little that maybe one car still needs to be an ICE or PHEV. Yes they can break down but as long as running you can probably always put fuel in the tank. Distance I did yesterday would be about 1/3rd a tank of diesel.

4. Going 55mph in a motorway is the slowest I've ever done. Hope I don't have to crawl home like that again. It's unfitting for a Model 3 Performance.

"Nachhaltige E-Mobilität: Tesla Model 3 aufladen mit einem Typ 2-Stecker" by verchmarco is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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[Plingy63]

Wow! That's a harum-scarum experience...glad you managed to get home OK! I'd have had kittens getting down to 3%.
Thanks for the pointers...and yes, 55mph on a motorway in that car is a bit surreal.

 

[FastLaneJB]

Wow! That's a harum-scarum experience...glad you managed to get home OK! I'd have had kittens getting down to 3%.
Thanks for the pointers...and yes, 55mph on a motorway in that car is a bit surreal.

Well seeing as it wouldn't charge didn't have much choice I felt. Might as well give it a go and if truly not going to make it then pull over somewhere and call in help.

It does of course really back up that at least in an EV speed makes such a big difference. Sure it does to some degree in an ICE but once you have that kind of range you just don't care.

 

[FastLaneJB]

Just as an update but raised a ticket with Tesla to take into a Service Centre on Thursday but thought I'd double check it, went to another Supercharger and the car worked first time. Have a bit of a concern about getting caught out but will cancel the appointment and hope it doesn't happen again. Pretty sure I tried enough chargers at Gatwick that it couldn't have been the chargers, I think that Gridserve is only a few months old also so unlikely to have lots of broken chargers.

Never booked a service appointment with Tesla before but it went to diagnostics complete, does it mean they picked something up from the car? I assume as they also run the Superchargers they'll have data that the car was plugged in and wouldn't charge. Maybe there's a way to disable the DC charging in software and they just flicked it back on?

At a loss on it.

 

[spdpsba]

At a loss on it.

Have you had the error message DC charge not working; AC charge OK or along those lines in the past?. There is a known hardware issue related to the struts that connects to the battery and if that is damaged/broken you won’t be able to DC charge but AC charge works. I read that you had some dent work - not sure whether they did something that had an impact. But worth trying service appointment even if it is sorted temporarily.

Diagnostics run some remote services to make sure it is appropriate and also to decide ranger vs SC visits.

There are some good Engineers at Chelmsford (saw your location as Bedfordshire) but as usual with Tesla - they will try and recreate the scenario or the fault to appear on its own - even though they have loads of data. Unfortunately if they can’t do it they have a standard response bit frustrating. But if you go thro’ the steps and record if that happens again and show them the video they will respond more positively especially if it is not a high cost warranty replacement

 

[pgkevet]

I had a spontaneous DC charger failure a couple of years ago that needed a service centre visit to fix.
Again I only found out by trying to charge to top up for return journey and again managed to limp it home where a charging worked.
50mph on the motorway is scary since you're right in there playing chicken with the big lorries in the nearside lane.
It's lead me to take a differing view to charging and I usually make a quick outbound stop to test all is well and I rarely wait to charge until very low so that I have other charger options in case they are down. Recently I've come across a few superchargers out of action whereas they always were very reliable. Perhaps that's a reflection of the increased numbers of sites not being attended to by increasing repair crews?

 

[init6]

Was there no AC charging available at any of your stops? I appreciate they're a lot slower but 10 minutes gets me 3% at my local AC charger

 

[FastLaneJB]

I had a spontaneous DC charger failure a couple of years ago that needed a service centre visit to fix.
Again I only found out by trying to charge to top up for return journey and again managed to limp it home where a charging worked.
50mph on the motorway is scary since you're right in there playing chicken with the big lorries in the nearside lane.
It's lead me to take a differing view to charging and I usually make a quick outbound stop to test all is well and I rarely wait to charge until very low so that I have other charger options in case they are down. Recently I've come across a few superchargers out of action whereas they always were very reliable. Perhaps that's a reflection of the increased numbers of sites not being attended to by increasing repair crews?

Yes must say the behaviour of some drivers was pretty strange. On say the M25 at 1am, not much traffic as you can imagine and still have cars and vans coming right up behind me and tailgating for a short while before they decide to overtake and get back up to 70mph... Why? There's like 2 - 3 other empty lanes.

I'd not normally run it as low either, just didn't have time to charge it enough at home as we'd used it earlier in the day. Back at Gatwick still have over 30% but just that was only just enough to get home trundling, I literally probably only needed to plug for 5 minutes and all would have been good. I'd have got more charge than I needed in the time it would have taken to buy a coffee I imagine.

Only 1.5 years into this EV story so still feel like a beginner sometimes as we still rarely charge on public chargers. It's a learning process.

 

[spdpsba]

1.5 years into this EV story so still feel like a beginner sometimes

If I remember correctly Gatwick has another Tesla SC other than the 4 at Gridserve. Whether trying that would have yielded different result is anyones guess.

We all feel like beginner at some point. I have done the Europe trip couple of times and the longest I’ve driven is from Cambridge to Torino. But still when I was planning to go to Manchester recently without much of preparation I was bit lost - in terms of calculating what will work and where the SCs are and options if Tesla SC isn’t available. I think that is where the Rapid chargers from Sainsbury’s may be of huge help as we can just go to the local ones and charge around 10% if needed and keep going. Hope to see that with more Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

 

[FastLaneJB]

Yes planning of course really helps but it should get to the point that it's just hop in the car and go. I think Tesla is pretty close to that and the planning is really to cover the failure situations of what if those chargers don't work, are way too busy and so on. We never needed to play in an ICE and at some point, EV's will get there but they just aren't yet.

 

[pgkevet]

Was there no AC charging available at any of your stops? I appreciate they're a lot slower but 10 minutes gets me 3% at my local AC charger

My S will charge at 21miles range per hour on AC so ten mins is 3.5 miles or not much more than 1%.
All that's academic. On the route I was using there wasn't an AC alternate without diverting a few miles so the choice was baby the car and see how much savings could be made and dive to an alternate if essential....

 

[WllXM]

Picking my son and 3 of his friends up from Gatwick yesterday. Had been a bit out during the day so car charge was down a bit and while plugged in at home it didn't quite get to a level I wanted it before I had to leave. Technically I should have been able to make the trip there and back with 8% spare at the start.

So off I go and figure don't want to run it so close so I'll try the new Gridserve with 4 Tesla chargers as I could give it a 5 - 10 quick boost, buy a coffee and all I'd need. Punch this into the nav and use 4% of the battery in preheating. I get there to find our car no longer DC charges. We got it back a week ago from a body shop for a dent someone put into a door in parking lot plus getting rims sorted. Guessing they disconnected the HV battery and maybe haven't plugged something back in. Tried 2 Tesla chargers (One of which saw another Tesla charging on OK) and 2 of the other non-Tesla chargers and none worked.

So burned 4% pre-heating. Car says now I should get home with 4% so I normally trust that to be pretty accurate. Picked everyone up and decided to go 60 instead of 70 to be on the safe side anyway...

That was not enough, about 2 miles in my arrival dropped from 4% to 3, another 2 miles roughly and my arrival was 2%, clearly seemed wasn't going to make to so dropped further down to 55mph. That seemed to do the trick. And it got up to 3% and seemed to stay there the whole time.

A few points from this:

1. Tesla range estimations on battery arrival are amazingly accurate but it cannot of course account for you adding 4 more adults and all their luggage in before you set off. That extra weight in a Model 3 makes a massive difference. I had to go at 55mph to get the efficiency I'd have got with just me in the car at 70mph.

2. If you've had the car in a garage, even if it's just a dent. I guess they disconnect the battery for safety reasons, check both AC and DC charging before you need to use it in anger.

3. Was planning on being a two EV household but has made me wobble a little that maybe one car still needs to be an ICE or PHEV. Yes they can break down but as long as running you can probably always put fuel in the tank. Distance I did yesterday would be about 1/3rd a tank of diesel.

4. Going 55mph in a motorway is the slowest I've ever done. Hope I don't have to crawl home like that again. It's unfitting for a Model 3 Performance.

I'm guessing to preserve battery further you kept the driver's seat heater off as well.
Must have already been quite toasty and moist there for the way home...

 

[FastLaneJB]

My S will charge at 21miles range per hour on AC so ten mins is 3.5 miles or not much more than 1%.
All that's academic. On the route I was using there wasn't an AC alternate without diverting a few miles so the choice was baby the car and see how much savings could be made and dive to an alternate if essential....

Yeah did have in my mind that I might have to try to find an AC charger but never looked for those publicly. My guess is more destination chargers, highly likely to not work or some other issue I might come across.

 

[init6]

My S will charge at 21miles range per hour on AC so ten mins is 3.5 miles or not much more than 1%.
All that's academic. On the route I was using there wasn't an AC alternate without diverting a few miles so the choice was baby the car and see how much savings could be made and dive to an alternate if essential....

Sorry was replying to OP.
I can get 50 miles an hour on an 11kW or 15% of an LR battery. So worth a wee boost if you're down to single figure SoCs. Waiting a bit longer at a charger is better than waiting for Tesla Roadside

I've never used a Gridserve chargers, but our public Rapid chargers usually have AC as well as DC

 

[Jason71]

Just as an update but raised a ticket with Tesla to take into a Service Centre on Thursday but thought I'd double check it, went to another Supercharger and the car worked first time. Have a bit of a concern about getting caught out but will cancel the appointment and hope it doesn't happen again. Pretty sure I tried enough chargers at Gatwick that it couldn't have been the chargers, I think that Gridserve is only a few months old also so unlikely to have lots of broken chargers.

Never booked a service appointment with Tesla before but it went to diagnostics complete, does it mean they picked something up from the car? I assume as they also run the Superchargers they'll have data that the car was plugged in and wouldn't charge. Maybe there's a way to disable the DC charging in software and they just flicked it back on?

At a loss on it.

I don't think I would want that risk hanging over me. Yes in theory Tesla could say there is nothing wrong and even charge you for time wasting if you went for the appointment but the failed attempts to charge should have been logged so even if it is OK now there is a record that the car failed to charge repeatedly so they can't really say it was the chargers and I think they need to explain and hopefully fix what happened. An intermittent fault is still a fault.
If they thought it was a software issue that they either fixed remotely or could not fix then they should have told you and would have cancelled the appointment. I have had appointments cancelled when issues I raised were deemed to be "known software issues to be fixed via future OTA updates"

 

[spdpsba]

eah did have in my mind that I might have to try to find an AC charger but never looked for those publicly. My guess is more destination chargers, highly likely to not work or some other issue I might come across.

Interestingly, I just checked the Sainsbury’s ev charging network, they have already got 45 up and running. Most of the sites have 6 rapids around 150kws. And in your case there was one just on the A6 at Bramingham park. A quick dash and go could have avoided some nervous moments.

Again Huntingdon Sainsbury has 6 chargers if you are exploring up and north for any reasons. There is a bit of blackhole once you cross Cambridge and the nearest SC is in Grantham. Hopefully Barhill and Peterborough SCs will cover the void in the future.

 

[pdk42]

3. Was planning on being a two EV household but has made me wobble a little that maybe one car still needs to be an ICE or PHEV. Yes they can break down but as long as running you can probably always put fuel in the tank. Distance I did yesterday would be about 1/3rd a tank of diesel.

I've sort of come to the same conclusion. We ran two EVs (Model 3 and ID.3) for a couple of years and managed, but there were definitely some compromises that I'd rather avoid. We now have a PHEV (A3) that gives just about enough range for my wife's daily use, but has a nice 1.5l turbo-charged petrol engine for range and flexibility. The newer gen VAG hybrids are now up to 80 miles of range (with a 25kWh battery) which should suit most people daily use. I think PHEVs have a bigger role to play than most of us here realise.

 

[phxazcraig]

Yes must say the behaviour of some drivers was pretty strange. On say the M25 at 1am, not much traffic as you can imagine and still have cars and vans coming right up behind me and tailgating for a short while before they decide to overtake and get back up to 70mph... Why? There's like 2 - 3 other empty lanes.

Two thoughts there. First, Traffic Aware Cruise Control. Vehicles are running on cruise control, catch up to you and slow down to your speed. Eventually the driver takes over to pass you. Second, drunk drivers.

 

[FastLaneJB]

I've sort of come to the same conclusion. We ran two EVs (Model 3 and ID.3) for a couple of years and managed, but there were definitely some compromises that I'd rather avoid. We now have a PHEV (A3) that gives just about enough range for my wife's daily use, but has a nice 1.5l turbo-charged petrol engine for range and flexibility. The newer gen VAG hybrids are now up to 80 miles of range (with a 25kWh battery) which should suit most people daily use. I think PHEVs have a bigger role to play than most of us here realise.

I think in theory it's a pretty good idea though quite a few of these are I think built for business purchase. With enough range they get a BIK that is pretty low, not quite EV but still way better than a standalone ICE.

Reason I mention this is they seem able to shift these in the numbers they can build them normally without much issue, offers for private buyers hence seem more geared to the models that are just a pure ICE.

For most part a pure ICE is fine as not worried about run costs but I just really like the preconditioning you can get once you have a battery powered vehicle. The home charging is a nice cherry on top that can make life easier also.

I'm waiting to see what the Model 3 Ludicrious is like, hopefully no later than tomorrow then can try to make a call on this.

 

[FastLaneJB]

Two thoughts there. First, Traffic Aware Cruise Control. Vehicles are running on cruise control, catch up to you and slow down to your speed. Eventually the driver takes over to pass you. Second, drunk drivers.

For the first though the roads are pretty empty at 1am so they should really be able to move over long before. I think a lot where things like white van men who wouldn't have cruise, just poor driving abilities