Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Best speed for automatic suspension lowering for long trip?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Howdy - I am planning a trip from North Texas into West Texas, about a 300+ mile straight highway shot with a supercharger or two along the way. Right now by default, I believe the automatic lowering is set for 100 mph. I assume this helps (marginally) with aerodynamics and therefore efficiency (mileage). Is there any reason I can't set that for a more realistic speed, say 75 for the trip? Or, to rephrase it, is there an optimal speed below which it won't have any effect at all?

Thanks!
adam
 
I've put in about 25K road trip miles on my 2015 S85D and in the early days I tried to measure the difference between normal and low suspension energy consumption. I could not detect any meaningful difference in energy usage and so left the car to ride at the default height for comfort and safety. (If there's debris in the road, you're less likely to damage something at higher suspension levels.)

Now with my MSLR, I notice that the car actually raises the suspension to improve ride quality on particularly bumpy sections of highway, which I *do* notice. I haven't ever seen the MSLR lower automatically to low, although it's possible I might have not been paying close enough attention. I will be taking my first road trip in the MSLR in about a week, so I'll play with the suspension height and see if I can detect a difference in this car, but I'd be pretty surprised if it made much difference in the new S, either.

I wouldn't worry much about the energy consumption of the various ride heights—it certainly makes less of a difference than 19" vs 21" wheels, or aero covers on vs. off. If you're needing to stretch your range to reach your destination, forget about ride height and just slow down or get behind a big truck and set AP to follow it at a reasonable distance. Those will save you FAR more energy than the ride height ever could.
 
Upvote 0
What year car? Refresh S always lowers it to low above 55mph.
Its a 2015. So I tried it this week on trips to and from the airport, about 70 highway miles each way at speeds above 70 I think. Not enough data points yet, but I didn't do anything else differently. I definitely want to keep it at default height for all but the smoothest roads and in town.

On both trips (to and from the airport) I arrived at my destination with about 10% more battery than was predicted for the trip. I didn't make any special effort to "hypermile" or do anything out of my usual pattern. Anecdotally it feels like it didn't hurt. Setting AP and slowing down is probably still a bigger factor, as @mscott pointed out above. Will see how I do on my upcoming trip to W TX.
 
Upvote 0