Are you satisfied with the range you get?

[ewoodrick]

I'm not trying to be bleak but I am being realistic. And yes I know it's very rare for Tesla to replace a degraded battery pack under warranty, even though I know of a few. I'm not worried about that issue. But range is the first question non EV owners ask me. It doesn't matter to them if they don't need a huge amount of range for daily driving, and that they probably don't even know the range of their ICE vehicles. I have a friend that recently bought a plug in Hybrid and said the EV side cost him almost as much as gas. When I said that I have not experienced that he kept insisting EV's don't have money on charging. Didn't matter to him that Tesla EV's are way more efficient than the electric side of his hybrid. Also have a relative that said he would never get an EV because you can't go many places, like the desert to charge. Even though he never drives out into the desert. The perception to them is that EV's don't have a big enough range and the only thing that would convince them is a base number of at least 400 miles on all EV's. Then they actually might find other benefits, like filling up at home while you are sleeping and less vehicle maintenance.

Realistic is that with 300 miles range, I've travelled from the Great Lakes to the Florida Keys.
Bleak is that it needs more miles to do it.

A Hybrid can absolutely be expensive. But in that hybrid, what was the Fuel Economy? >60mpg? That's because of the electric side.
But a Hybrid isn't necessarily a PHEV, (plug in hybrid). A PHEV's advantage is going to be a comparison between battery size and average daily driving. And it requires it to be plugged in every day. If the battery is big enough to represent a majority of the commute and it is plugged in, then the daily cost should be significantly lower than a Hybrid or ICE only.

You know, wherever there is a gas station, there's electricity?

When people think that there aren't that many chargers, whip out PlugShare. People just don't know what a charger looks like and they don't realize how many they pass everyday. No need to get into the L2 vs DCFC at that point, just blow their minds at how many chargers there actually is.

Trust me, 300 or 400 miles won't convince them at that point.

How do they get convinced, they have to see it at work. That's why I say from the Great Lakes to the Florida Keys. That's a real life example and it puts a chink in their brick wall. Take those trips, don't brag about it to your friends "My EV did" just a simple "I went to" The more and more they hear it, the more chinks in the wall come off.
Once there's a lot of chinks removed, take them for a drive. If they are into speed, let them feel it. Speed by itself is often a chunk of the wall.

It takes time. When they mention they had to go to an oil change, your response is "Oh yea, I forgot about having to do them"
The #1 selling car in the US is also a good fact to drop, Did I say US? I meant WORLD. That takes another chink, because that's showing how many other people are buying EVs.

Sit them in the car and ask them a place to go to and tell the car to route there.

Like you said, most folks don't have the slightest idea what their ICE range is. If you tell them that a Tesla can go 500 miles, they'll want 600. Tell them 400 miles, they'll want 500.

But first, it takes YOU believing that 300 miles is enough.

I will admit that there have been routes that I have gone that have been iffy. But most of them were years ago and I never ran out of energy. These days, it is starting to be hard for me to find challenging routes.

 

[gx9901]

Honestly, I think ideally EVs should be ideally in the 400-600 miles range (depending on the car type / use case, but GM & Lucid are getting the ranges right) because the EV state of battery should be 20%-80%, so no good to use the last 20% of the range, no good to go below 20% of the range, only actually 60% to work with which is 198 miles assuming on the Long Range Model Y without any battery degradation, HVAC running etc, but closer to 160ish in my experience which isn't a lot of range tbh.

I rather Tesla start bumping their specs like putting more range to try to capture more consumers than price cut tbh, that's my 2 cents & user experience.

I think a 400~600 mile range is more ideal for people who don't own homes and can't do overnight level 2 charging. For me, who has a level 2 charger at home, the current MYP range have been more than enough, and I live in a cold weather state.

In two and a half years I've driven 60k miles (typically around 2k miles per month) and have not come close to running out of range at any point, in that I have not been limited to where I could go because my car didn't have enough range during a single day (of course, there's always the supercharger network as a backup). I think maybe 2,000~3,000 of those miles were on road trips and I've supercharged maybe 10~20 times total. Would I take more range? Of course. But based on my usage, I don't necessarily think I need to pay more for an extra 200 miles of range unless my car usage changes drastically. If they can add 100~200 miles of range without raising price, then by all means. My guess is that at some point that should be possible.

 

[ewoodrick]

I think a 400~600 mile range is more ideal for people who don't own homes and can't do overnight level 2 charging. For me, who has a level 2 charger at home, the current MYP range have been more than enough, and I live in a cold weather state.

In two and a half years I've driven 60k miles (typically around 2k miles per month) and have not come close to running out of range at any point, in that I have not been limited to where I could go because my car didn't have enough range during a single day (of course, there's always the supercharger network as a backup). I think maybe 2,000~3,000 of those miles were on road trips and I've supercharged maybe 10~20 times total. Would I take more range? Of course. But based on my usage, I don't necessarily think I need to pay more for an extra 200 miles of range unless my car usage changes drastically. If they can add 100~200 miles of range without raising price, then by all means. My guess is that at some point that should be possible.

Why do you think that charging needs for people who can't charge overnight needs to go up. Since the average commute is about 40 miles, 5 days of work can easily keep you within 300 miles.

While battery prices are coming down, I think it's something like 10% per year at this point. It's still awhile before you get much more range. Take a look at the Model 3, not a significant difference in range from 6 years ago to the refresh.

And which would you like, mor range or cheaper price?

 

[Midpack]

I don't travel anywhere near as far as my comfortable range daily, and I charge level 2 at home, so that's more than workable. When I take longer trips, superchargers are more than adequate and reliable, so I have no qualms there either. EVs don't make sense if you can't charge at home and/or have long commutes/trips daily/often.

I have a (eco-chic Luddite) friend with an Ioniq 5 who drives 36K+ miles/year, lives in an apartment with no 240V - when his two years free Electricfy America charging lapses, he expects to sell the car and I don't blame him at all.

 

[gx9901]

Why do you think that charging needs for people who can't charge overnight needs to go up. Since the average commute is about 40 miles, 5 days of work can easily keep you within 300 miles.

While battery prices are coming down, I think it's something like 10% per year at this point. It's still awhile before you get much more range. Take a look at the Model 3, not a significant difference in range from 6 years ago to the refresh.

And which would you like, mor range or cheaper price?

Well, I don't think the range necessarily "needs" to go up for people without home charging, but I think it would be more ideal, simply because they would need to visit fast chargers fewer times. Each visit would probably be a bit longer, but at least for me that would beat more frequent visits.

I suppose I was thinking more along the lines of EPA rated range of 400~600 miles, which is probably much less than that in real world situations, especially in cold climates. In general, I think having home level 2 charging mitigates a lot (for me pretty much all) of the daily range concerns for EVs.

 

[Bouba]

I think we have to accept that until there is a technological breakthrough in battery capacity....our only choice is to go with the competition’s bigger heavier more lumbering cars containing mega batteries.

 

[ewoodrick]

Well, I don't think the range necessarily "needs" to go up for people without home charging, but I think it would be more ideal, simply because they would need to visit fast chargers fewer times. Each visit would probably be a bit longer, but at least for me that would beat more frequent visits.

I suppose I was thinking more along the lines of EPA rated range of 400~600 miles, which is probably much less than that in real world situations, especially in cold climates. In general, I think having home level 2 charging mitigates a lot (for me pretty much all) of the daily range concerns for EVs.

For those that are not charging at home, they are probably in urban or dense suburban areas. In these areas, road congestion are going to be higher.
And with higher congestion, speeds slow down. When speeds slow down, EV economy goes up Therefore they may be getting better than EPA blended range.

I used to have a 88 mile range Leaf. It could make it downtown and back, unless the traffic was moving fast, then I'd have to stop and charge. It's a little weird that I would secretly hope that the traffic would get congested so that I wouldn't have to stop. (I'm not one to want to go slower than average road speed)

 

[Resist]

Trust me, 300 or 400 miles won't convince them at that point.

400 miles of range would definitely convince them. Yes, there are a lot of places to charge but charging more frequently means the trip becomes more expensive than if the car had better range and didn't need to charge so often. And again, an average EV range of 300 miles will become less with battery degradation, which is a huge part of my point and why 400 miles of range would be much better.

 

[Resist]

the EV state of battery should be 20%-80%, so no good to use the last 20% of the range, no good to go below 20% of the range,

This actually isn't true. Going below 20% doesn't hurt Lithium Ion battery health. Going over 50-54% does, but not much unless you go over 80-90%.

 

[andaconda]

Being happy with your range is like:

"The more you have the more you want!"

 

[cc333]

I think a 400~600 mile range is more ideal for people who don't own homes and can't do overnight level 2 charging. For me, who has a level 2 charger at home, the current MYP range have been more than enough, and I live in a cold weather state.

In two and a half years I've driven 60k miles (typically around 2k miles per month) and have not come close to running out of range at any point, in that I have not been limited to where I could go because my car didn't have enough range during a single day (of course, there's always the supercharger network as a backup). I think maybe 2,000~3,000 of those miles were on road trips and I've supercharged maybe 10~20 times total. Would I take more range? Of course. But based on my usage, I don't necessarily think I need to pay more for an extra 200 miles of range unless my car usage changes drastically. If they can add 100~200 miles of range without raising price, then by all means. My guess is that at some point that should be possible.

Yes, I am in an urban environment place where there's no overnight charging and I'm aware that having access to overnight charging at home resolves a lot of inconvenience. Regardless, based on my calculations / experience where there's only 160ish miles to work with on a normal charge, less than 3 hours of drive that's not a lot to work with, can't even handle a longer day trip or weekend trip without spending time to charge or if something happens and you lose power at home. Would love to do DC - NYC trip without barely getting by without charging, you may still supercharge on the way even if you have a charger at home because it's barely on the line. Furthermore, I have a co-worker who can install a charger at home (fixes lots inconvenience), but travels 60 miles per way, 120 miles round trip, I think she will be fine and there's superchargers along the route if things do go wrong, but range anxiety and skeptism is still a major barrier which is why she's still leaning towards hybrids aka Toyota where a company that messages EVs is a trend, they don't go very far unlike hybrids etc, so boosting range will help defeat the anti-EV narrative.

Meanwhile (it's okay to do price cuts / adjustments once in a while), but constant price cuts spooks buyers. Potential buyers may wonder why should I buy an EV now if price goes down later on? Especially when price cuts are towards price conscious consumer where they can afford one, they don't want to be left with negative equity and holding the bag. It also reinforces the idea there's no demand, people don't want EVs (whether range anxiety, negative equity, etc.) and hybrids are the way to go, that's why EV are cutting prices and so cheap, so people will continue the cycle and stay away from EV. Tesla needs to create a product that people wants / inspired by, whether that's bumping range etc, not spooking people away.

 

[ewoodrick]

400 miles of range would definitely convince them. Yes, there are a lot of places to charge but charging more frequently means the trip becomes more expensive than if the car had better range and didn't need to charge so often. And again, an average EV range of 300 miles will become less with battery degradation, which is a huge part of my point and why 400 miles of range would be much better.

Why do you say that charging more often makes the trip more expensive? The number of kWh used is exactly the same.
Larger batteries mean longer charging times.
Degradation is only about 10%, so that's not a huge issue. Nor is it an issue with my 6-year-old Model 3.

 

[ewoodrick]

Going over 50-54% does, but not much unless you go over 80-90%.

Can you provide a source of your information on this?

It definitely goes against Tesla's recommendations.
Tesla indicates that it okay to charge to 100% for trips.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Tesla indicates that it okay to charge to 100% for trips.

It would be pretty newsworthy if they indicated otherwise!

I think it was up in this thread that we were educated about how 100% isn't actually 100% of the battery's capacity to accept charge. It's 100% of what they consider the best usage for the cell, trading off capacity for longevity. If it wasn't this thread it was another just like it.

 

[Resist]

Can you provide a source of your information on this?

It definitely goes against Tesla's recommendations.
Tesla indicates that it okay to charge to 100% for trips.

Do a Search on forum for a member called AAKEE, he's very knowledgable in this area and has all the numbers and graph's. Yes, Tesla says you can charge to 100% for trips this is true and if you need 100% do it. However, if battery health is your top priority then 100% degrades the battery faster. With that in mind it won't kill your battery range overnight. Tesla wouldn't be able to sell EV's if they told customers not to charge past 50%-55% for the best battery health. Ultimately it depends on how long you are going to keep your car and the distances you drive daily, and charging availability where you drive.

Here is a great video from a Lithium Ion battery expert about it all.

I had a 2018 Model 3 for almost 5 years. I did the 20% to 80% charge thing and 100% for trips, which I did often. After a couple years my rated 310 miles of range reduced to around 285, which was normal but still bugged me. Then when I bought a 2023 Model Y Performance I wanted to try and keep the battery health at 100% and came across AAKEE's posts, and learned a lot. There are so many misconceptions about Lithium Ion charging procedures. So when my car is home in the garage I keep it set to 50% to charge and go up to 55% for driving around town, which gives me more than enough range over 150 miles. I've charge to 80% for trips unless the Supercharger stations are scarce. So far it seems to be working but my car isn't even a year old yet.

 

[gtae07]

Can you provide a source of your information on this?

It definitely goes against Tesla's recommendations.
Tesla indicates that it okay to charge to 100% for trips.

Here's AAKEE's post on calendar degradation vs. SoC: Long Term Battery Costs, Fears, and Serviceability
It shows where the 55% figure comes from.

Basically, it's about SoC when the car is sitting (as it does the majority of the time). Going to 100% is not itself bad, but you don't want to charge that high and then just let it sit there. So what I do, keeping in mind that I use about 25% of the battery on a typical weekday, is charge to 55% each night. I finish the day around 25-30% depending on weather and what all is going on. Sometimes I tack on a bit more charge if I know I'm driving a lot, but otherwise the idea is to charge to the lowest value that will leave me a reasonable reserve at the end of the day. This will (hopefully) lead to lower degradation than if I went, say, 80%-55% each day.

If I'm going on a trip, I'll charge up to 95-100% but I try to leave soon after it finishes charging, so that I'm not sitting at a high SoC for an extended time.

 

[Sweed269]

Here's AAKEE's post on calendar degradation vs. SoC: Long Term Battery Costs, Fears, and Serviceability
It shows where the 55% figure comes from.

Basically, it's about SoC when the car is sitting (as it does the majority of the time). Going to 100% is not itself bad, but you don't want to charge that high and then just let it sit there. So what I do, keeping in mind that I use about 25% of the battery on a typical weekday, is charge to 55% each night. I finish the day around 25-30% depending on weather and what all is going on. Sometimes I tack on a bit more charge if I know I'm driving a lot, but otherwise the idea is to charge to the lowest value that will leave me a reasonable reserve at the end of the day. This will (hopefully) lead to lower degradation than if I went, say, 80%-55% each day.

If I'm going on a trip, I'll charge up to 95-100% but I try to leave soon after it finishes charging, so that I'm not sitting at a high SoC for an extended time.

This is the best possible thing you can do for the battery in your car. It's exactly what I do too.
It's all about time at charge level. Never store any battery at a high state of charge.

 

[ewoodrick]

Do a Search on forum for a member called AAKEE, he's very knowledgable in this area and has all the numbers and graph's. Yes, Tesla says you can charge to 100% for trips this is true and if you need 100% do it. However, if battery health is your top priority then 100% degrades the battery faster. With that in mind it won't kill your battery range overnight. Tesla wouldn't be able to sell EV's if they told customers not to charge past 50%-55% for the best battery health. Ultimately it depends on how long you are going to keep your car and the distances you drive daily, and charging availability where you drive.

Here is a great video from a Lithium Ion battery expert about it all.

I had a 2018 Model 3 for almost 5 years. I did the 20% to 80% charge thing and 100% for trips, which I did often. After a couple years my rated 310 miles of range reduced to around 285, which was normal but still bugged me. Then when I bought a 2023 Model Y Performance I wanted to try and keep the battery health at 100% and came across AAKEE's posts, and learned a lot. There are so many misconceptions about Lithium Ion charging procedures. So when my car is home in the garage I keep it set to 50% to charge and go up to 55% for driving around town, which gives me more than enough range over 150 miles. I've charge to 80% for trips unless the Supercharger stations are scarce. So far it seems to be working but my car isn't even a year old yet.

I am quite familiar with AAKEE, and you are not quoting his recommendations correctly.

This actually isn't true. Going below 20% doesn't hurt Lithium Ion battery health. Going over 50-54% does, but not much unless you go over 80-90%.

Going over 50-54% doesn't harm the battery. But AAKEE recommends setting daily charging to that range. His information suggests that those number provide the lowest degradation over a number of years.
And HE has charged to 100% and uses it regularly.

But, you will also hear him say that time is big player in the degradation equation as well.

But the BIGGEST thing is your use of the word "harm" It's not harming the battery. The battery is and will continue to function normally.

And even with AAKEEs nominal cases, we are talking about a few percent differential in range after a few years, and it's not a guarantee, there are definitely batteries that have charged to 80% that are doing as well as his is.

But even then, he doesn't have the information that Tesla does and is often hypothesizing or using a small amount of empirical data for a few hundred, maybe thousand vehicles in his conclusions.

Tesla, on the other hand has detailed information on 6,000,000 vehicles.


My biggest problem with AAKEE is while his conclusions do seem to be viable, his conclusions are taken by many, such as yourself and not well understood and improperly implemented.


Let me put it this way, have you ever had a sweet or a soda? Do you consider this damaging to your body? I'm pretty sure no.
Going over 50-54% does not harm your battery.

And going below 20% CAN HURT the battery. Not if you are between 1 and 19%, but 0% is indeed listed by Tesla as it can damage your battery.

 

[ewoodrick]

Here's AAKEE's post on calendar degradation vs. SoC: Long Term Battery Costs, Fears, and Serviceability
It shows where the 55% figure comes from.

Basically, it's about SoC when the car is sitting (as it does the majority of the time). Going to 100% is not itself bad, but you don't want to charge that high and then just let it sit there. So what I do, keeping in mind that I use about 25% of the battery on a typical weekday, is charge to 55% each night. I finish the day around 25-30% depending on weather and what all is going on. Sometimes I tack on a bit more charge if I know I'm driving a lot, but otherwise the idea is to charge to the lowest value that will leave me a reasonable reserve at the end of the day. This will (hopefully) lead to lower degradation than if I went, say, 80%-55% each day.

If I'm going on a trip, I'll charge up to 95-100% but I try to leave soon after it finishes charging, so that I'm not sitting at a high SoC for an extended time.

Do you have any idea how much degradation that you get when you charge and let it sit for hours, days, weeks?

The studies out there says that's it's about 3% OVER A YEAR. That doesn't mean charging to 100% and driving every day, that means charging to 100% and leaving it there for a YEAR!

Hours, days, even a week at 100% isn't going to do anything.

 

[Resist]

But the BIGGEST thing is your use of the word "harm" It's not harming the battery. The battery is and will continue to function normally.

I don't think I used the word "harm" in my post but okay, obviously the battery will still function normally just with shorter and shorter range. So in that sense it is harming range.