Anyone ever run out?

[Missile Toad]

I drove my S70D to 0%, and it shut down as I did full regeneration on the off-ramp (approximately 50 MPH).
What I did to recover:

1. I coasted, from 50 to 25 MPH, and given the late hour, and rural cross-street, I coasted through the red light, while driving an unpowered car. Regen killed the car.
2. I continued to coast, in the direction of the SuC (I'd used 2-3 times before) and came to a stop ~ 200 yards away, on the road;
3. Turned on hazard lights;
4. Wasted 10-15 minutes calling Tesla Roadside Assistance;
5. Attempted to 'self-push, by putting the car into 'Tow mode' and leaning on the door frame (threshold) and the steering wheel;
6. Received unsolicited assistance from a passerby, who pushed for 50 yards;
7. I switched and pushed, leaving to her, the steering of the car;
8. Received, by the grace of God, help from a police officer -- he lent a hand pushing for the remaining 150 yards
9. Plugged in, and car charged, as normal -- elapsed time from shutdown to plugging in 15-20 minutes

If the delay had dragged on to 60 minutes, I would have risked discharging the 12V battery, and lost automatic charge-port operation.

What I should have done to recover:

1. Flipped car into "Low Regen" in the final 5 miles. At battery = 0 miles, the car acts like an anorexic being offered desert, as far as regeneration goes.
2. Not stalled/shut-down on the ramp, and engages in coast/regen 1 mile from the ramp;
3. Hit the ramp at 45 MPH instead of 55;
4. Used friction brake to arrive to red light with 0 miles in the battery
5. Accelerated from the stop-light like I had an egg between my foot and the accelerator. I only had about 500 yards to reach the charger at this point -- so keeping speed to 25 MPH would be easy.
6. Continue driving to the charger -- maximum elevation gain would be around 5 feet (a ramp to another floor of a garage would have greatly increased my risk of shutting down).

Moral to the story -- the damn car will keep using "standard regen" even though the software will algorithmically pass a 'max regen' setting, and force a shutdown. Frankly, I'm surprised Tesla doesn't 'tone down' the regen as the fragile battery hits whatever threshold causes regen to shut it down. But, given that the Tesla has been tinkering with this software for nearly a decade -- I suspect that the 'full regen' is pretty much institutionally baked-in to the design of the car. Accordingly, the best that can be done, is not drive near State-of-Charge (SoC) 0%; or be a better pilot, at start, flipping the settings as I get close to the SoC where the battery gets picky about the manner of adding energy back to the battery.

 

[user212_nr]

At battery = 0 miles, the car acts like an anorexic being offered desert, as far as regeneration goes.

Its a nice theory, but I'm suspicious of people who generate precise technical explanations for "something that happened". Who is to say the car did not shut itself off according to some other algorithm?

 

[Candleflame]

Make the display show percent not EPA miles. Relying on that for range is dangerously misleading in cold and heavy rain.

Also use the Navigator, which shows expected arrival percentage, and will update it dynamically as you drive.

The car tries very hard to prevent you running out of battery, so please take advantage of it's assistance.

complete misadvice. If you want to see exactly how far you are going you should especially switch to EPA miles view, NOT %. It is the only way to gauge if you are having increasing consumption or not.

 

[Darmie]

With the right drivers in both the vehicle doing the towing and one being towed (the Tesla), it could be an option in some cases. I would not want to use a tow rope at speeds over around 40MPH so on an interstate this would be a no go. Keeping the tow rope taunt should be easy due to regen. If a tow bar existed, that would probably be better than using a good tow strap (using a chain should only be used in extreme circumstances). It appears you gain about four miles in range for every mile towed (I assume this would require full regen ie,, no dots) so if you are close to a charging location this could be the quickest way out of a fix. Should not do any harm to the Tesla (assuming both drivers know what they are doing) because it would appear to the Tesla that it is rolling down a fairly steep continuous sloop. Using the flatbed towing option would be costly and might require a long wait for the tow company. Tow charging would require that you did not run the cars charge level down to where it shutdown and a traction battery warm enough to accept reasonable regen levels. Tow charging should probably be limited to 25 miles from a charging location (ie.. 5 towed miles then using the approx 20 regen miles gained after the tow session) so it you are stranded in the boon docks call a flatbed.

I like this idea. ... And you're right, waiting on a flatbed takes a long time. This was also a practice that was used on the TV show, "Long way up." This is where they used the Rivian trucks for the film crew that was documenting motorcyclist traveling on electric bikes. One of the first episodes showed the Rivian driver working a deal with a tractor trailer driver to get an hour tow. It was actually part of their energy plan and it worked.

 

[TM3blu]

Use your "consumption graph". It's calculations are gospel.

 

[XLR82XS]

How about we just give links to the previous threads where this question has been asked and answered over the years?

Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood search guru

So many users here are quick to start a new thread with out searching!

 

[Kevy Baby]

So many users here are quick to start a new thread with out searching!

On the flip side, you get those who complain when someone resurrects an old thread (though thankfully it doesn't happen too often around here when done right).