Decreasing rated range.

[islandbayy]

I think my pack is finally starting to show it's first real ware. At 31,000 miles. Though, when I updated to 5.11 firmware, it was overnight change in rated range. my 100% is now 200-202ish, and usually 199. I have tried 100% charging to balance out the pack, though it is no longer going up. 70*F weather. the day before and every day before that in recent time was 206-209. Will keep posted. A lot of driving to do today. I will be at Madison for a few hours, so will see what happens with a 100% supercharge.
Though, 5.11 has been EXTREMELY Flaky, and I have been getting a lot of charging errors and current reduction since getting the firmware. Current reduction is happening 50-90% MORE now, and happening in places I never had it before.
Ranger is coming this afternoon to change out a cooling pump, and try and reload the firmware, might make a difference. I will bug him about other things as well Will report back!

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

Just as a data point, My car is 1 week old. 90% daily charge goes to 190-191. I'm on 5.11.

Have not done a max charge yet.

Nice! Max would be 208-209, I'm guessing.

Not bad for me from a degradation point of view.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

I noticed something odd the other day: As I was driving along, my Rated Range was counting down from triple digits to double digits. Somewhere in the 90's. I stopped at a Starbucks for a half hour to 45 minutes and when I got underway again the rated Range was back up over 100. I was not plugged in, and the weather was a nice sunny 72 degrees. I've never noticed anything like that before, but it was very obvious this time because of going from somewhere in the 90's to something a bit over 100.

I've also noticed that often the Rated Range number on the dashboard will be a mile or two different than the Charging screen on the 17". Both of these seem to have started after 5.9.

If you switched your car into range mode around this same time, it will result in a higher estimate by a few miles and within a few minutes of making that change.

 

[mnx]

I range charged last Monday for a 426km trip I took. The car wasn't finished topping off but it hadn't increased in about 15mins of charging. It was at 408km. I began my trip and took about 1.8kWh out of the battery (~10km worth) before the rated range dropped. Much better than things were looking a few months ago.

 

[mknox]

If you switched your car into range mode around this same time, it will result in a higher estimate by a few miles and within a few minutes of making that change.

That makes sense, but was not the case in my situation. I use Range Mode all summer, mainly to keep the a/c compressor "roar" down, and use Normal mode all winter because I found Range Mode makes little difference with the heat and the longer drives I usually take.

 

[David99]

S85 here: after 10k miles and 2.5 months I see the rated rage go down from 271 to 267. But when I charge 100% and drive, I can go 5 miles before it goes from 267 to 266. In other words the 4 miles that don't show up initially are still there. I think about 70% of my charging is at Superchargers. Just two days ago I did a long trip and got 76.5 kWh out of my battery when I arrived. I know 2.5 months and 10k miles isn't much compared to some others, but so far it's looking very good.

 

[lloyds]

S85 here: after 10k miles and 2.5 months I see the rated rage go down from 271 to 267. But when I charge 100% and drive, I can go 5 miles before it goes from 267 to 266. In other words the 4 miles that don't show up initially are still there. I think about 70% of my charging is at Superchargers. Just two days ago I did a long trip and got 76.5 kWh out of my battery when I arrived. I know 2.5 months and 10k miles isn't much compared to some others, but so far it's looking very good.

Holy. 10k miles in less than 3 mos!? You're on track to be the highest mileage / shortest ownership here

 

[David99]

Holy. 10k miles in less than 3 mos!? You're on track to be the highest mileage / shortest ownership here

I wish I wouldn't have to drive as much, honestly. The ironic part is I don't even have a home charger. For now I depend 100% on public chargers.

 

[Mario Kadastik]

Well after multiple attempts at balancing the best I can do is 401km of Typical range (505km rated). Can't really compare to new car as the firmware difference is substantial. In 5.8 I got 492km rated (394km typical) when I had 1700km on the odo. However newer cars with same firmware get 411km of typical range and ca 515-520km rated. So I seem to be missing ~10km typical range after 15000km and 6 months of ownership.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Well after multiple attempts at balancing the best I can do is 401km of Typical range (505km rated). Can't really compare to new car as the firmware difference is substantial. In 5.8 I got 492km rated (394km typical) when I had 1700km on the odo. However newer cars with same firmware get 411km of typical range and ca 515-520km rated. So I seem to be missing ~10km typical range after 15000km and 6 months of ownership.

Are those numbers correct?

490 km = 305 mi
505 km = 314 mi

Those numbers exceed Tesla's range specifications for the 85 kWh battery.

 

[mknox]

Just another data point:

I did a Range Charge this morning. First one in a long time. I got 247 miles. I have about 27,000 miles, an A-pack and it was about 65 degrees F at the time. I'm on the latest flavor of v5.9. Unlike others who have reported, my range started to drop almost immediately. I had lost 3 miles of range by the time I'd driven about a mile and a half.

 

[wraithnot]

Are those numbers correct?

490 km = 305 mi
505 km = 314 mi

Those numbers exceed Tesla's range specifications for the 85 kWh battery.

It looks like the European Model S rated range spec is 502 km for the 85 kWh battery:
Model S Features | Tesla Motors
This uses a different test (NEDC) than the EPA rated range used in the US: New European Driving Cycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ZBB]

At 24,000 miles I am still getting 208/209 rated range miles at 100%.

At nearly 25,500 miles, I'm at 203 miles rated, at 100%. 182 at 90%. Been at these numbers since 5.9.

My car doesn't have quite the mileage -- I'm at ~17.5k. But I'm getting 193 or 194 rated at 100% based on my last 3 range charges (all on 5.9, including one this morning). I've been getting 174 at 90% recently also.

I've done 14 100% charges since getting the car. The first was last July and it showed 208 rated. Last Nov it was showing 204. In Feb it was 198/199. Now at 193/194.

Tesla says that my battery looks OK and gave me the instructions to force rebalance (although they didn't call it a "rebalance"). I told them that I normally charge to ~70%, and they suggested that it would be better to charge to 90% for daily use instead (which gives credence to it not balancing correctly at lower slider selections...).

Today's range charge was the first of a couple I'll do to see if I can get it to rebalance / reset... I'll take it down to <20 miles remaining before charging (had it down to 11 last night...).

 

[tomas]

Are those numbers correct?

490 km = 305 mi
505 km = 314 mi

Those numbers exceed Tesla's range specifications for the 85 kWh battery.

This is a recurring point of confusion. "Rated" in US means EPA rated. "Rated" in Europe is analogous to "Ideal" in the US. Dunno why Tesla chose to re-use the same word for a different thing... as if we don't talk to each other.

 

[ecarfan]

My car doesn't have quite the mileage -- I'm at ~17.5k. But I'm getting 193 or 194 rated at 100% based on my last 3 range charges (all on 5.9, including one this morning). I've been getting 174 at 90% recently also.
Tesla says that my battery looks OK and gave me the instructions to force rebalance (although they didn't call it a "rebalance"). I told them that I normally charge to ~70%, and they suggested that it would be better to charge to 90% for daily use instead (which gives credence to it not balancing correctly at lower slider selections...).

I have had my S85 for almost 6 months and have close to 10K miles on it. During that time I have charged almost every night using my HPWC to 85 - 90%, occasionally to 99% or so. My range numbers are within 1-2 miles of what the car showed when new. My daily driving mileage varies from 40 to 150, occasionally more but sometimes less than 10 (obviously I do not have a fixed commute). I have used Superchargers about 10 times.

It will be interesting to see if my range numbers hold up after a year and 20K miles.

 

[Todd Burch]

Just another data point:

I did a Range Charge this morning. First one in a long time. I got 247 miles. I have about 27,000 miles, an A-pack and it was about 65 degrees F at the time. I'm on the latest flavor of v5.9. Unlike others who have reported, my range started to drop almost immediately. I had lost 3 miles of range by the time I'd driven about a mile and a half.

You're similar to me, mknox. I have just over 30K miles and 18 months and range charged to 248 last week. Didn't have any extra "hidden" miles that didn't tick off when I first started driving. I usually charge to 80% and drive down to about 50% each day, rarely range charge (I've maybe done it 7 times), and don't supercharge often. Based on what folks are saying about 90% charging, I may start doing that. I'm fairly confident my pack has some imbalance because I range charge very infrequently and almost have never driven down below about 30 miles.

 

[David99]

... I'm fairly confident my pack has some imbalance because I range charge very infrequently and almost have never driven down below about 30 miles.

Obviously I don't know in detail what Tesla is doing in terms of battery management, but from what I know about it and hear from other battery manufacturers, it is a challenge to predict the state of charge very accurately when partial charging and discharging is used for some time. The absolute energy that the battery can store is not possible to easily calculate. That's done by a mathematical model and can be off. The best way to get an accurate number is to charge to 100% and then discharge to the cut-off point. As far as I understand balancing only happens when doing a 100% charge. So I assume a full cycle (starting with 100%, driving to zero and then charging again to 100%) is what you need to do to determine the actual battery capacity and be able to make a call about how much the battery aged since it was new.

 

[Todd Burch]

I've heard some people talking about having better cell balance by charging to 90% all the time instead of 80%. Would love to get some more official word on this (JB, perhaps a blog or two about battery care and maintenance please!) and why 90% is better than 80%.

 

[mknox]

I've heard some people talking about having better cell balance by charging to 90% all the time instead of 80%. Would love to get some more official word on this (JB, perhaps a blog or two about battery care and maintenance please!) and why 90% is better than 80%.

Yeah, I've been charging to 70% and returning at the end of the day at about 30%. In the winter I'll do 80 or 90%. I had heard that the batteries like to play in the middle of their range and so figured 70 to 30 every day was the way to go.

 

[andrewket]

Yeah, I've been charging to 70% and returning at the end of the day at about 30%. In the winter I'll do 80 or 90%. I had heard that the batteries like to play in the middle of their range and so figured 70 to 30 every day was the way to go.

This is what I have been doing as well. If 90% daily is actually better at maintaining capacity, I don't understand why Tesla added the slider vs. the original daily/range options.